100.000 page views milestone passed

In July 2012 the magical 100.000 page visits milestone was crossed in the Phos to alethinon blog which is not bad as the blog has until today only 130 posts.

During the month of June 2012 the most popular pages visited were

1.  Sylvia Kristel - Emmanuelle (2012/05) 
2.  Shallow Hal (2011/06) 
3.  Mentalist and Jesus of Nazareth (2012/05) 
4.  Jessica Gomes and Creation (2011/06) 
5.  Heavens Gate 1997 (2011/09) 
6.  Karate Kid 2010 (2012/02) 
7.  Miss Naked Beauty - Channel4 (2011/12) 
8.  Perfume - Message to Patrick Suskind (2012/04) 
9.  Janus and Statue of Liberty (2011/12)

It has been intriguing to notice how my post on the movie Shallow Hal has stayed on the top of the list for so long - I really have no explanation for this. 

Crystal life - Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943) was a Serbian-American inventor, physicist, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, and futurist. He was an important contributor to the use of commercial electricity, and is best known for developing the modern alternating current (AC) electrical supply system. His many revolutionary developments in the field of electromagnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were based on the theories of electromagnetic technology discovered by Michael Faraday. Tesla's patents and theoretical work also formed the basis of wireless communication and the radio.
wikipedia

Dear Quote Investigator, did Einstein say so?

Did he really say so? Quote Investigator might know...

Among the other things he is also quoted


“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.”

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

“Only a life lived for others is a life worth while.”

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”

“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”

“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.”

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.”

“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”

“Never do anything against conscience, even if the state demands it”

“I am a deeply religious nonbeliever - This is a somewhat new kind of religion”

“Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.”

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

“Small is the number of people who see with their eyes and think with their minds.”

If Quote Investigator thinks these quotes are from Albert Einstein and not from someone else they provide us with some clues how the mind of a famous Patent office worker smashed the mental moulds that had imprisoned humanity in a Newtonian mechanistic world.

Neanderthal man praising the Lord

"Airbrushed hands"
El Castillo Cave, Puente Veisgo, Spain

June 14, 2012 The Guardian science reporter Alok Jha wrote that Neanderthals may have been first human species to create cave paintings

Using state-of-the-art techniques scientists have dated cave paintings at 11 locations in north Spain, including the Unesco World Heritage sites of Altamira, El Castillo and Tito Bustillo. Samples from 50 paintings of different styles were collected and the scientists discovered that a red disc on the wall of the El Castillo cave had to be more than 40,800 years old.

"This is currently Europe's oldest-dated art, by at least 4,000 years," said Alistair Pike, of the University of Bristol, who led the research. "We know the modern humans arrived in Europe between 42,000 and 41,000 years ago."

Nearby hand stencils, formed by blowing paint against a hand pressed against a cave wall, were at least 37,300 years old. The results are published on Thursday in the journal Science.
Read the entire article in The Guardian

Accumulating evidence is rapidly changing our view of our cousins, homo sapiens neanderthalensis, as we consider the skilful stone tools they made, their survival under harsh environmental conditions of the last Ice Age, and now their artistic ability. Perhaps also some of the figurines and early flutes attributed to our ancestors, homo sapiens sapiens, were actually made by Neanderthals!

It is natural for homo sapiens sapiens species to praise the Lord. The birds praise the Lord when sun rises in the morning. Surely, also homo sapiens neanderthalensis people praised the Lord in their very own way and languages! It is therefore appropriate to remember the first Neanderthal man, Joachim Neander, and how wonderfully he invites us all to praise God, the Creator of everything, including us and them.


Joachim Neander

Joachim Neander (1650–1680)
Dorf Gruiten site

Joachim Neander (Neumann)  was a German Reformed (Calvinist) Church teacher, theologian and hymn writer whose most famous hymn, Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creation (German: 'Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren') is generally regarded as one of the greatest hymns of praise of the Christian church and, since being translated into English by Catherine Winkworth in the 19th century, it has appeared in most major hymnals.

Neander wrote about 60 hymns and provided tunes for many of them. He is considered by many to be the first important German hymnist after the Reformation and is regarded as the outstanding hymn writer of the German Reformed Church.

Joachim Neander was born in Bremen, the son of a Latin teacher. His grandfather, a musician, had changed the family name from the original Neumann ('New man' in English) to the Greek form Neander following the fashion of the time.

In 1671 he became a private tutor in Heidelberg, and in 1674 he became a teacher in a Latin school in Düsseldorf, one step before becoming a minister. While living there, he liked to go to the nearby valley of the Düssel river, nature being the inspiration for his poems. He also held gatherings and services in the valley, at which he gave sermons. The valley (German thal modernized to tal) was renamed in his honor in the early 19th century, and became famous in 1856 when the remains of the Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal Man) were found there.

In 1679, Neander became a pastor in Bremen, as his popularity with the common people had caused problems with the church administration in Düsseldorf. on May 5 1680, at the age of 30, he died in Bremen of tuberculosis.
Read the entire article in wikipedia

For some historical photos from Neanderthal in Germany see the Dorf Gruiten Web site


Neanderthal man praising the Lord!

1. Lobe den Herren,
Den mächtigen König der Ehren!
Meine geliebete Seele,
Das ist mein Begehren.
Kommet zu Hauf.
Psalter und Harfe wacht auf,
Lasset den Lobgesang hören!

2. Lobe den Herren,
Der alles so herrlich regieret,
Der dich auf Adelers
Fittichen sicher geführet,
Der dich erhält,
Wie es dir selber gefällt;
Hast du nicht dieses verspüret?

3. Lobe den Herren,
Der künstlich und fein dich bereitet,
Der dir Gesundheit
Verliehen, dich freundlich geleitet.
In wieviel Not
Hat nicht der gnädige Gott
Über dir Flügel gebreitet.

4. Lobe den Herren,
Der deinen Stand sichtbar gesegnet,
Der aus dem Himmel
Mit Strömen der Liebe geregnet.
Denke daran,
Was der Allmächtige kann,
Der dir mit Liebe begegnet.

5. Lobe den Herren;
Was in mir ist, lobe den Namen.
Alles was Odem hat,
Lobe mit Abrahams Samen.
Er ist dein Licht;
Seele, vergiß es ja nicht;
Lob ihn und schließe mit Amen!
Joachim Neander, 1650-1680

Aram Kchachaturian and Onedin Line

Norwegian Christian Racidh in calm seas
wikimedia

I wonder if anyone who followed the British BBC TV series Onedin Line (1971-1980) and hears today the Adagio in Kchachaturian's Spartacus ballet can avoid seeing in his or her mind's eyes that magnificent white Tall Ship crossing the foamy blue waves on her way to the free open seas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx7RWW36wes

Rarely, if ever, have producers of a TV series or a movie succeeded to such extent in combining a world famous piece of classical music with an alternative mental vision.

Ivan Vasiliev in Spartacus during
re-opening gala of the Bolshoi Theatre,
28 October 2011
wikimedia

Aram Kchachaturian (1903-1978) composed the Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia to express the feelings of lovers united after awful tribulations.  No doubt many ballet lovers see that scene in their mind's eyes when listening to the amazingly beautiful Adagio.

The music matches in my humble opinion much better the magnificent Tall Ships challenging open seas when the wind blows free than the moving emotions of two desperate lovers. The rolling orchestral background for that unforgettable melody and the instruments cutting sharp sea bird like sounds into the flow of music is so perfect for beginning yet another adventure on the oceans!

There are many other successes in combining classical music and cinematic art. For example, the use of Strauss's Blue Danube waltz when Hal and the astronomers orbit planet Earth in Kubric's non-verbal Space Odysseus 2001. But in this case classical music seems to maintain its original place in our minds and hearts as a wonderfully rotating dance and song-along in a magnificent space setting.

Onedin Line, on the other hand, transfers the mental images raised by Kchachaturian's immortal music from ancient Rome to Victorian Britain - and that is not a small achievement for a mere TV show!


It is interesting that wikipedia makes a special honorary mention of "appearing in Onedin Line" while describing each of the seven Tall ships that were used during the filming of the series:

Among the historic ships and boats featured in the series was the steam pinnace 'Hero', then owned and lent by John Player & Sons, and the following tall ships:

• Statsraad Lehmkuhl
• Charlotte Rhodes
• Christian Radich
• Sagres
• Soren Larsen
• Danmark
• Sir Winston Churchill - one early episode
• Gorch Fock
• Thorso

wikipedia

I do not know which one of the ships among these seven was in the opening scene.

No sexual reproduction in Heaven

The entire creation is physically, mentally and even spiritually geared up for male/female union from bees and flowers to the wedding celebrations and marriage institutions of the nations. Females are beautiful and attractive and male are handsome and aggressive. This all is so powerful and joyous event that Jesus  compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a great wedding to which people are invited.

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
Matthew 22:1-3 NIV

Already in the very beginning the Bible tells about the creation of man and woman together as God's image and sets reproduction as a fundamental task. Our existence has a very clear double purpose: multiply until you fill the earth and subdue it - and these two things we have done so that our numbers are reaching seven billion and the entire creation is trembling under our rule (at least almost entire creation)!

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
Genesis 1:28

Sex in Heaven?
Jesus gives a profound answer to Sadducees who say there is no resurrection. In the Gospel of Luke He acknowledges that marriage is an integral part "in this age". But in the coming age there is neither marriage nor death.

Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels.
They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.
Luke 20:34-36 NIV

In a previous posting Orgasm in the Origins I argued that we may look at biological life in this age by reversing the common idea of orgasm being the point of highest tension furthest point from rest. This goes against the widespread Christian teaching that the killing of sexuality, latency, ideal celibacy like that of Saint Paul, is the heavenly state. Instead, in Heaven the deep purpose of orgasm and sex - the complete physical, mental and spiritual unity of man and woman - has been achieved. Everything is one.

Marriage obviously has a very significant purpose that causes much troubles to us humans wanting to just have good time with our partner - reproduction. 

According to the words of Jesus to the Sadducees "in the coming age" there is no reproduction. Nobody is being born in the Heaven nor is there death.


No children born in Heaven?
The population of Heaven is based on a quota, on a selection. Once the full number is in according to the Books kept up there nobody else gets in and nobody is born in Heaven.

Note carefully what Lord Jesus says in the Gospel of Luke when He answers to the Sadducees and talks about the "coming age". There is no marriage - that is in modern terms, there is no sex - in the coming age.  So?

For they are God's children.
They are children of resurrection.

But somehow they are born although not in the coming age which has a strict quota based population (established before Creation of the world, see Ephesians 1:4).

Note the wording in the parable in Matthew 22 "the Kingdom of Heaven".

The Kingdom of Heaven is a place where children of God are being born from the divine seed of the Word that "melts" into a human through faith.

That is a bit heavy sentence, I know, and there are many verses behind it from various books of the Bible. A big library can be filled with books discussing these matters!


Born-again Christianity
We have all heard about born-again Christianity. From experience we know that people who talk much about "being born again" are not necessarily very heavenly beings and angelic nice characters. Rather, the opposite is often true putting us off with the whole term.

But since nobody is born in the coming age and there is no need for sex in Heaven from where the people who enter there?

The population of Heaven is quota based and consists only of children of God. Such children are, as the sentence say, born from the Father and not from the will of man and woman.

The Kingdom of Heaven is near - it is down here in this current age. Those who enter it are born again from Heavenly Father and become children of God.


Nicodemus
Gospel of John puts this in such a beautiful way in the nightly discussion between a famed Rabbi and a Jew from high social position, a now world-famous Pharisee called Nicodemus.

Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.
You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
John 3:3-9 NIV

Indeed, how can this be?

Probably the most important question also you and me can ask Lord Jesus.

Orgasm in the Origin

Bell curve

A natural way of thinking about orgasm is a kind of bell curve because of the way sexual arousal works in the nature; starting with the interest and slowing down after the orgasm. When we set such a bell curve of nature in Cartesian XY coordinates we note that orgasm is at the most distant point from the origin and the point of rest is a fully latent state with no sexual tension at all.

Physical orgasm
Much depends on the coordinate system view on what we think an orgasm is. For it can be considered a technicality, more necessary for the male than the female, something that just ends the period of lusty arousal. We might imagine that there are men for whom making love is simply masturbating using another human as a tool for his own pleasure. Perhaps there are such females, as well. But this is only the physical part of the act and can never be truly satisfactory beyond the feelings of pleasure and accomplishment.

Becoming one
Gospel of Matthew tells that when Jesus of Nazareth was asked about divorce that the Law of Moses allows He gave a very deep answer referring to the Creation story in the beginning of the Bible:

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Matthew 19:3-6 NIV

The point here is that sexual act (that as we know culminates in orgasm) is unification of flesh. The man and woman becoming one is the deepest meaning of marriage. Jesus is talking about the unity that is expressed in the Book of Genesis in this way

So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27 NIV

We easily miss the point here and think that marriage is the Amen of the priest or rabbi or imam - but Jesus says that sexual act, the essence of being male and female, is becoming one as God is one. It is highly recommended that young man waits for the right one and stays faithfully with her for the rest of life - hopefully also getting married with her.


Orgasm in the Origin

If we look at the height of the heat of passion in this way as greatest unity we can reverse the bell curve into a parabola and say that the point of rest is the fulfilment - orgasm - is in the origin of the Cartesian coordinate system and anything away from it is tension.

What humans most deeply need is the being one with the other and loneliness is such a sad word. Once the time for sex is over and golden age calms the hormones the being one remains till death does us apart.

I think it is called love.

Without love sexual act can never reach the height God intended for it - man and woman becoming one not only physically but as complete human beings.


What about marriage in Heaven?
If orgasm is fulfilment in man and woman becoming one image of God what about the heavens?

Well, while the Pharisees were interested about the technicalities of law and they doubted - quite rightly so - that Jesus was against divorce and asked him about it.

The Sadducees, on the other hand, did not believe in the new teaching that had reached Judaism about resurrection of the dead. They ridiculed it and very cleverly asked Jesus about sex and marriage in the coming life. It was a tight spot for Jesus and the crowd was holding breath what he would say. After his answer nobody deared to ask him anything!

Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”

Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.
But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Some of the teachers of the law responded, “Well said, teacher!” And no one dared to ask him any more questions.
Luke 20:27-40 NIV

There may be people who after hearing what Jesus said about no sex in heaven "okay, I do not want to go there and get bored!" as if there was sex in the other place...


Profound mystery 
There is more to this than physical arousal and satisfaction - Orgasm in the Origin is full and complete unity of man and woman.

Bible has quite tender teaching in the parable of Jesus about the wedding of the King's Son and other parables and also in the secrets Apostle Paul is pointing at when talking about Christ and His bride, the congregation.

In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
Eph 5:28-33 NIV

Heavenly wedding!
This great unification is not physical orgy or orgasm but full and complete unity that brings total satisfaction. Nobody who has been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb and has entered the Heavenly wedding will lack anything at all - the satisfaction is complete in a way it can never be in the flesh.

Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:

“Hallelujah!
    For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad
    and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
    and his bride has made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean,
    was given her to wear.”
Rev 19:6-8 NIV