Countdown to 12/21/2012

[reanteben]

What is love? What is its source? And what's stopping us from seeing through that too?

love is an intuited metaphor. to me love is a metaphor for light, and light (the photon to be precise) is a metaphor for zero. it's source, then, is the zero-point (the vacuum).

nothing is stopping us from seeing through love as seeing-through is its function. note how we are speaking metaphorically upon your initiation.

http://blog.plover.com/physics/transparency.html

for you to suggest  (my copy function suddenly isn't working on my phone) that to 'see through christ would be to lose everything' strikes me as something woody allen might say if he were a christian. but, really, I think you are just mixing metaphors. keep your 'solidity,' and don't begrudge me my immaterialism as it's nothing personal. it's not your monotheism I find totalitarian, but rather the interpersonal projection of its personal consequences.

as for your assuming to know what icke meant, all I will say is that you didn't even pick up on the gaia metaphor, so if I were you I wouldn't assume there aren't other layers. furthermore, whether the layers of metaphor are supplied by icke or myself is irrelevant; everything is interconnected.

regarding the 'contradiction,' I didn't say that truth was illusory.

as for your idea that one's beliefs can overrule another's - don't put that on me; for the last time, that's your deal not mine.

one path, one truth. right ash?

that's your deal, not mine.

there's no there there in your argument.

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[Ashvin]

regarding the 'contradiction,' I didn't say that truth was illusory.

as for your idea that one's beliefs can overrule another's - don't put that on me; for the last time, that's your deal not mine.

one path, one truth. right ash?

that's your deal, not mine.

there's no there there in your argument.

It is your deal as much as it is mine, ben. Your worldview contradicts my worldview... they can't both be true, can they? If there isn't one truth and path to salvation in Christ, then there isn't one truth and path in Christ, which means I am wrong. Your assertion that one person's beliefs cannot trump another person's beliefs is a belief system that trumps my beliefs. Seems simple enough to me.

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[reanteben]

regarding the 'contradiction,' I didn't say that truth was illusory.

as for your idea that one's beliefs can overrule another's - don't put that on me; for the last time, that's your deal not mine.

one path, one truth. right ash?

that's your deal, not mine.

there's no there there in your argument.

It is your deal as much as it is mine, ben. Your worldview contradicts my worldview... they can't both be true, can they? If there isn't one truth and path to salvation in Christ, then there isn't one truth and path in Christ, which means I am wrong. Your assertion that one person's beliefs
cannot trump another person's beliefs is a belief system that trumps my beliefs. Seems simple enough to me.

the point ash is that truths are relative, not belief systems. truth/love/light is holographic; any aspect of it contains the whole. if I didn't believe that were so, I wouldn't spend half my time on DD battling writing that reflects the Matrix. the point ash is that
truth/love/light trumps falsity/separation/darkness.  unlike ox's and surly's, so far as I can tell, your christianity has a component that reflects the latter.

one of my heroes is a christian friend named seth martin, now in his mid-to-late twenties. he introduced me to his anarcho-primitivism way before I was ready for it. he's a fantastic thinker, extremely grounded, and full of light:

http://www.jesusradicals.com/the-iconocast-episode-12-seth-martin-and-the-menders/

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[Ashvin]

regarding the 'contradiction,' I didn't say that truth was illusory.

as for your idea that one's beliefs can overrule another's - don't put that on me; for the last time, that's your deal not mine.

one path, one truth. right ash?

that's your deal, not mine.

there's no there there in your argument.

It is your deal as much as it is mine, ben. Your worldview contradicts my worldview... they can't both be true, can they? If there isn't one truth and path to salvation in Christ, then there isn't one truth and path in Christ, which means I am wrong. Your assertion that one person's beliefs
cannot trump another person's beliefs is a belief system that trumps my beliefs. Seems simple enough to me.

the point ash is that truths are relative, not belief systems. truth/love/light is holographic; any aspect of it contains the whole. if I didn't believe that were so, I wouldn't spend half my time on DD battling writing that reflects the Matrix. the point ash is that
truth/love/light trumps falsity/separation/darkness.  unlike ox's and surly's, so far as I can tell, your christianity has a component that reflects the latter.

one of my heroes is a christian friend named seth martin, now in his mid-to-late twenties. he introduced me to his anarcho-primitivism way before I was ready for it. he's a fantastic thinker, extremely grounded, and full of light:

http://www.jesusradicals.com/the-iconocast-episode-12-seth-martin-and-the-menders/

ben, I'm not saying you are wrong about truths being relative...

My point is that many critics of evangelicals have a false sense of superiority - they feel their belief systems are more tolerant, peaceful and loving, because they allegedly don't claim any spiritual absolutism or exclusivity. That especially seems to be the case with eastern spirituality or romanticized and progressive Christianity, or generally any worldviews that emphasize relativism. But their relativist worldviews are just as absolutist and exclusive as evangelical Christianity... no more and no less.

Maybe my Christian theology does have a component of falsity or darkness to it. Obviously I don't think so, but it's possible. Either way, you have to admit that in order for you to attribute falsity or darkness to my theological beliefs, there must exist truth and light.

(and I don't know why you keep saying "GO's Christianity" is different from mine... care to explain?)

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[reanteben]

what do you say we ask him?

mr ox, what say you on this matter? inquiring minds want to know.

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[reanteben]

One in 10 of us is said to be anxious that 21 December marks the end of the world. The Ancient Mayans predicted this doomsday, and the press is eating it up. But where are all the believers?

[BBC] That the world will end in 2012 is the most widely-disseminated doomsday tale in human history, thanks to the internet, Hollywood and an ever-eager press corps.

Recent hurricanes, unrest in the Middle East, solar flares, mystery planets about to collide with us – all “proof” of what the ancient Mayans knew would come to pass on 21 December 2012.

According to a Reuters global poll, one in 10 of us is feeling some anxiety about this date.

Russians have been so worried that the Minister of Emergency Situations issued a denial that the world would end.

Authorities in the village of Bugarach in the South of France have barred access to a mountain where some believe a UFO will rescue them.

And survivalists in America – many of whom use the term “prepper” – have been busy preparing for all manner of cataclysm.



The “Long Count” cycle of the Mayan calendar began in 3114 BCE and is widely accepted to end on 21/12/12 CE.
Except that in Simon Martin’s view, everyone has got it wrong.
Martin is curator of the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia’s “Maya 2012″ exhibition. He says the calendar is complex, and best thought of as a series of gear wheels.
He points out that at a Mayan site in Palenque, Mexico, there is an inscription describing an event that takes place in 4,722 of our era, “and that is the turning of an even bigger cycle”, he says.
He adds that technically this is also not the start of a new cycle.
In 3114 BCE the calendar reset to zero with the turning of the 13th bak’tun (which is a smaller, 400 year cycle). This time, however, it does not reset to zero but merely goes on to the 14th bak’tun.
“The Mayan Calendar is a weird and wonderful thing,” he says.
So I set out to find people who believe 21/12/12 is D-Day.

It was harder than I imagined, despite seeking out preppers, bunker builders, and even a Mayan shaman.

Eventually I turned to Morandir Armson, a scholar of the New Age and Esoterica at the University of Sydney, Australia.

“If you told me there were more than 5,000 people who genuinely believed the end of the world was coming rather than just having vague fears about it, I’d be surprised,” he says.

Armson adds that those people are probably “in the wilds of Idaho, heavily armed, and won’t talk to journalists anyway”.

The heightened fear around this date is, in his view and that of other experts, almost entirely due to the internet. More specifically they blame the blogosphere.

It is not how the whole 2012 phenomenon started.

In 1987, Jose Arguelles, a man who devoted much of his life to studying the Mayan Calendar, organised what was called the Harmonic Convergence, a sort of post-hippy Woodstock. It attracted tens of thousands around the globe.

The event was an attempt to “create a moment of meditation and connection to the sacred sites around the earth,” says Daniel Pinchbeck, author of 2012: The Year of the Mayan Prophecy.

It was also the beginning of what many in the loosely-defined New Age movement regard as a process in the transformation of our consciousness – a transformation that goes into full effect at the end of this year.

Pinchbeck calls 21/12/12 the “hinge point” of the emergence of a new, more enlightened age – not an ending point for all civilisation.

“It is quite clear that the Mayan system envisages a new cycle of the calendar beginning on the 22 December 2012,” says Graham Hancock, author of Fingerprints of the Gods, and something of a rock star in the world of ancient mysteries enthusiasts.

He says the ancient Mayan culture was a shamanic one. Those who left us the calendar were visionaries who were providing clues to this ending of one cycle and the beginning of another.

That is not to say that New Agers do not see catastrophic events as necessary in some way to this new birth.

In fact they tend to embrace eastern faiths and native cultures with their cyclical views of time. In these visions, the world has been and will be destroyed – to some degree – and we start anew.

Accordingly, some believe the Mayans were sending us a warning for 2012.

“We may see a lot of destruction,” says Pinchbeck. He points to Hurricane Sandy, which recently hit his home city of New York.

Many, including the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, linked that hurricane to global warming, which tends to be seen by New Agers as the main threat to our planet.

However the New Age movement is full of optimists. Crucially, they say we have a choice in how this story ends.

“We do not have to step over the edge of the abyss into darkness and destruction,” Hancock says, calling this point in time a “cusp moment.”

“It’s up to us. It’s totally up to us.”

Morandir Armson, the Australian scholar, says the belief that 2012 marks a positive shift is one also shared by UFO groups, such as the Ashtar Command and the Ground Crew. These groups have no headquarters but for internet sites.

He says they refer to themselves as “lightworkers” who believe a fleet of alien space ships hover around our solar system.

“By doing good works on earth [they believe] you can speed up the consciousness of our humanity,” says Armson.

In many ways, they emphasise the more positive aspects of the traditional Christian Apocalypse. The fire-and-brimstone part gets downplayed in favour of the glorious Kingdom to come.

Some 20% of Americans believe we are in the end times, and that they will see the return of Jesus Christ in their lifetime.

This month marks Advent in the Christian Calendar, during which Christians are encouraged to read from the Book of Revelation, the apocalyptic vision of St John the Divine.

“It’s full of gory and grotesque detail of how the wicked are going to be punished,” says Ted Harrison, author of Apocalypse When: Why We Want to Believe there Will Be No Tomorrow.

The twenty-first of December, however, is not on the biblical calendar and few, if any, believers in the traditional Book of Revelation are attached to this date.

The supposed date of the coming apocolypse, 21 December, also marks the Winter Solstice, symbolic in many cultures of the end of darkness and the renewal of the light.

It might, suggests Harrison, focus our minds on how we have been treating the planet and those on it, and how we could mend our ways.

In this respect, he says, “It might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s one hope. A remote one, but it is one hope.”

http://consciousresonance.net/?p=305

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[Ashvin]

Glad to see Coast to Coast chose to talk with Dr. Mike Heiser on this fateful night... 10pm-2am PST and 1am-5am EST

"Expert in theology, Biblical languages, and world civilizations, Mike Heiser will discuss the history of apocalyptic beliefs, why for millennia we have predicted "end times" and which ideas have some validity."

Definitely what I'll be listening to... he's a very smart and reasonable Christian dude.

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[Golden Oxen]

Glad to see Coast to Coast chose to talk with Dr. Mike Heiser on this fateful night... 10pm-2am PST and 1am-5am EST

"Expert in theology, Biblical languages, and world civilizations, Mike Heiser will discuss the history of apocalyptic beliefs, why for millennia we have predicted "end times" and which ideas have some validity."

Definitely what I'll be listening to... he's a very smart and reasonable Christian dude.

Thanks for the mention Ashvin, Coast to Coast is one great resource for learning.
 

Isn't George Norry a wonderful understanding person and interviewer? So patient and accommodating with the diverse callers. He never ridicules or treats anyone with disrespect.   

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[RE]

Happy Mayan TEOTWAWKI Collapse Day! by Diner GODFATHER RE now UP on the Diner Blog! 

Not a real long tome, just an homage to the day we have been talking about for a long time now.  Not real definitive, at least not now in the early hours of the day anyhow.  Still significant in meaning on a metaphorical level though, and definitely in need of being Honored for its significance in the Collapse Blogosphere.

So now we are here today, 12/21/2012, it is BONUS TIME and now we move on to what the future will bring.  So it Goes.  Everybody Knows.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/PuuCezrAUKk" target="_blank" class="new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/PuuCezrAUKk</a>

RE

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[Golden Oxen]

RE "Although the world at large does not appear at this moment to be on the verge of complete Collapse, for many INDIVIDUALS, 12/21/2012 will be Collapse Day.  It’s the day they get their Pink Slip from the Job, or the day they get the Visit from the Sherriff Evicting them from their McMansion or the day their Significant Other or one of their Children commits Suicide.  We won’t hear about most of these stories of course, they aren’t Tabloid Enough to make the Grand MSM like Adam Lanza, but there are of course many more of them.  In aggregate, they devastate the lives of many more than Adam Lanza did, but nobody really notices it.  Well, at least the general public doesn’t notice, but I think the Diners do.

Ain't it the honest stark truth?

Thanks for this observation RE; the silent unnoticed suffering and misery going on around us are indeed Doomsday for many. Our day shall also come, let's be thankful we have been spared so far.

May I nominate this as a Memorable Diner featured Quote?

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[buzzard]

...And a Happy Collapse Day to you all. It's a Festivus for the rest've us. I give up. Now what do I do with the rest of my life? Guess I'll trudge on out to the shop and build a drawer for my work bench and listen to Pink Floyd. Damn! what a rotten day. I sure have some pet peeves with you all. Who wants to start, (except for mono theistic religion)?

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[pansceptic]

RE, I actually Laughed Out Loud at this one:

In the meantime, I am suggesting a new National Holiday, 12/21 to be Celebrated Each Year we haven’t had a complete collapse of systems as Mayan TEOTWAWKI Day!  Everybody who still has a Job gets the day off from work, and everybody who does NOT  have a Job gets to go to Work for a Day!

I apreciated the entire article 

I also second GO's suggestion for Memorable Quote.  One of the positive things I can say about becoming PO aware is that I now have much more appreciation for the abundance and comfort that I have in my life.  Now that I know they are not for-ever, I no longer take many things for granted.

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[RE]

Thanks GO and PS, I didn't expect to get any Quotables or Belly Laffs out of this post, I made it at the last minute realizing I should Honor the "Big Day" since I have used it so many times in metaphor.

Anyhow, as a whole here we made it through the day with little more Disaster than Gold dropping below its 200 Day Moving Average. LOL.  No Super Carrington Event,not even a Major Earthquake reported that I know of at the moment.  Hell, the Diner Server is up and running, so clearly for us Diners it's not TEOTWAWKI yet. LOL.

On the Upside, I got the Mazda running again so I'm not driving the Behemoth RV around now, and Gas prices are down as low as they have been all year at around $3.55/gallon. Also a good friend of mine dropped on me a Christmas Present of 5lbs of Nova Scotia Smoked Salmon from her last summer's netting. Finally, I bought myself an Electric Egg Steamer which makes perfect Soft, Medium or Hard Boiled Eggs every time with very low power consumption, useful for cooking up the Eggs from another friend's chicken coop.

My mattress is stuffed with FRNs, my Legs are still attached to my torso, Walmart Shelves are still stocked with Plastic Toys and the lights are still on up here. Collapse hasn't made it to my doorstep yet.

Tomorrow is another day though.

RE

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