Doing The Right Thing - Mithraism - 3

Mithra kills the bull (with a mini-skirt on).

There are several Dredd Blog series, besides this one, that present posts which deal with the strange phenomenon of Mithraism.

These are some of them: On The Origin of the Crusader Pathogen, Another Holy Day For Modern Ancient Mithraism, On The Origin of The Bully Religion, The Virgin MOMCOM - 6.

Today, I want to discuss another example where American Mithraism shows through the thin veneer, to once again expose itself (because currently there are two Mithraic cults which are a danger to civilization, and even a danger to the human species itself).

The one cult is fake Islam, while the other is fake Christianity in America.

Those two cults are both "pure" Mithraism.

Recently, both President Obama and Pope Francis alluded to that reality, when they explained that there are those who associate themselves with both "Christianity" and "Islam," but who are neither.

Since this post deals with the ones calling themselves "Christian," let's start off with this quote from one who calls himself a previous fundie:

"... here’s where Dr. Beckum got himself into some serious problems: he wasn’t speaking about listening to rock and roll or wearing skirts that weren’t knee high– he was talking about the golden calf of American Christianity. He went on to say,

“Anyone who has made a decision to follow Jesus realizes that the goal of a being a Christian is to become Christ-like.”

Sounds good so far, but starting to get edgy with this Jesus-likeness stuff. But here’s where he went completely off the rails:

“I am extremely troubled. I have been for a long time and I have hesitated to address this subject publicly, but I cannot keep silent about it any longer … I don’t think it is an under-statement to say that our culture is addicted to violence, guns, war, revenge and retaliation. Unfortunately, so are a lot of Christians… So, what does Jesus have to say about it. Again, if you are not a follower of Jesus you can relax. This doesn’t concern you. But Christians have to do something with this. I have to do something with the words of Jesus and his actions… We have to be very careful about equating patriotism with Christianity. We never say God and … anything. God is above all, everything else is underneath … We have put “our way of life”/ freedom on the top rung. If you mess with it I’ll blow your head off. For a Christian what is on the top rung? Love for all."

Dr. Beckum ended his sermon by reminding the students that not only did Jesus teach radical enemy love, but that we should serve them, and forgive them as well.

In many Christian circles you can talk about the Bible all you want, a you can speak as much Christianese as possible, but as Dr. Beckum has now learned, you cannot talk about what Jesus taught regarding enemy love. That is off-limits and heresy.
...
The best way to understand the cultural scenario is to realize ... that there

Mithra shoots the shit out of stuff

are two different types of Christianity. One is a movement of people who want to live and be like Jesus. The other (and far more common, far more powerful) is a civil and political religion that is simply named Christianity. The civil political religion named Christianity is addicted to both political power and violence, and thus finds the message of Jesus offensive. When they encounter the other kind of Christian- the kind that actually believes in following Jesus- they have an immediate need to persecute them in some for or another, as we see in the case of Dr. Beckum, who actually did lose his job because of speaking the name of Jesus."

(Formerly Fundie, emphasis added). That religious worship of war (as this Dredd Blog series, and some others mentioned above, point out) is Mithraism posing as Christianity and/or Islam as it has for thousands of years.

Another place where "the two religions divide" is climate change (Officialdom bans use of term "climate change" & "global warming"; cf. Global Warming / Climate Change Will Generate Dangerous Religion).

The priests of the dogma "God is killing billions with global climate change so he can save them" are at odds with the scientists, and with Pope Francis (Inhofe's One Man Troofiness Crusade).

Not that those who suffer from Agnotology care or even understand (Agnotology: The Surge - 16).

Like Tina Turner sang, "What's love got to do with it?"

The previous post in this series is here.

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The Christian sermon by Dr. Randy Beckum (Transcript of Dr. Beckum's Sermon), which caused the Mithra worshippers to become revengeful:

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Will This Float Your Boat - 6

Sea level rise is real.

The calculation of how, when, and why Sea Level Rise (SLR) takes place is easy to assume, but it is best done by using existing data, while realizing that "climate change" means that the data will change as the climate changes.

In other words, don't make projections of the climate by expecting the same history we have now to show up as the climate of the future.

Sea level rise was discussed in the last post of this series with existing data, projecting those data into the future, but, not assuming the same rate of SLR.

In other words, acceleration of the percent of SLR.

I want to fine tune that in this post, by applying various acceleration rates to various sections of Greenland and West Antarctica, projecting acceleration of melt, and therefore SLR, based on sections or zones in those locations that are substantially different.

In other words, I will be applying a faster acceleration where appropriate, but also applying a slower acceleration rate where appropriate.

The map of Greenland (Fig. 1) for example, shows these hypothetical sections or zones where different melt quantities take place.

Those sections or zones are labelled "Coastal", "Inland1", "Inland2", and "No Melt".

The lines depicting them are not to exact scale (the ice sheet varies in thickness, so the lines which outline those zones illustrate a contemplation of quantity of ice, not quantity of land).

Fig. 1 Click on map to Enlarge

Accordingly, the rate-of-melt graph (Fig. 3) is based on the ongoing melt of the Greenland and West Antarctica ice sheets, graphed according to the individual melt rate of those zones.

Remember that the fundamental basis or cause, of the melt acceleration values, derive from our current knowledge.

We know that a combined 500 km³ (500 cubic kilometers) of ice is lost to melt each year (75% Greenland / 25% W. Antarctica).

That amount was determined by CryoSat-2, a satellite that has one mission.

That mission is to measure the ice volume of Greenland and West Antarctica, which allows us to determine the rate of melt as the ice sheet volume decreases over time (see the previous post in this series here).

In the software that generates the graph (Fig. 3), I have added a list of acceleration rates as follows: coastal = 0.1487, inland1 = 0.10, inland2 = 0.0437, and insignificant = 0.0408), which relate to the stages of melt, proceeding from fast melt zones such as "Coastal," on to the "No Melt" zone ("No Melt" means not melting prior to 2100 in any significant amount).

As CryoSat-2 informs us of further changes, or the regions or zones are better understood, all I have to do is change those values in the software, then regenerate the graph.

For Greenland, (Fig. 1) 21.49 ft. is the maximum global SLR if all ice melts, and the sections or zones are as follows:

No Melt = 8.596 ft. SLR (40% of total ice sheet)
Inland2 = 6.447 ft. SLR (30% of total ice sheet)
Inland1 = 4.298 ft. SLR (20% of total ice sheet)
Coastal = 2.149 ft. SLR (10% of total ice sheet)

Fig. 2 Click on map to Enlarge

The "Coastal" zone is the fastest melting, with a potential SLR of 2.149 ft., constituting 10% of the total ice sheet.

The hardest to melt, the "No Melt" zone, furthest from the coast, is estimated to be 40% of the total ice sheet.

For W. Antarctica, (Fig. 2) 26.44 ft. is the maximum global SLR if all ice there melts.

The sections or zones are:

No Melt = 10.576 ft. SLR (40% of total ice sheet)
Inland2 = 7.932 ft. SLR (30% of total ice sheet)
Inland1 = 5.288 ft. SLR (20% of total ice sheet)
Coastal = 2.644 ft. SLR (10% of total ice sheet)

Note that for both polar ice sheets, the "ft. SLR" values represent the potential global SLR from each zone, if all ice melts in that particular zone.

The percentages for both ice sheets concern near term melt, which is defined as taking place now, as well as taking place before 2100.

Fig. 3 Click on graph to Enlarge

The combined values concept on the graph (green line) represents the actual total melt taking place currently in both places when added together.

Obviously Greenland and W. Antarctica are both melting at the same time, now, but it is not so obvious that they are melting under very different circumstances and rates for SLR generation.

Currently, the ice melt rate (500 km³) is based on volume of ice melt in Greenland (375 km³) and Antarctica (125 km³) which shows that Greenland is melting much faster.

That will change and is changing as the Coastal ice diminishes, and the slower melting zones kick in.

For example, the graph shows Greenland's coastal (fast melt zone) ice melting by about 2048, the same year it shows total sea level rise reaching three feet (decades before the IPCC projected date of ~2100), while W. Antarctica is still in the coastal-ice-melt phase (20 Big U.S. Cities that Should Worry About Sea Level Rise).

The 75% / 25% ratio will become 50% / 50% and later 25% / 75% over time.

In conclusion, I realize that the amounts of today's post are not the same as the previous post.

There are more zones and more rates in the software now, and today's graph does not extend all the way out to 2100 as the previous ones did.

No need to, because the SLR shown in Fig. 3 is a warning and wake-up call for coastal cities in the sense that an SLR of 2-3 ft. by 2044-48 means a severe crisis, and they know it (cf. Scientific American).

The surge mentioned in the previous post, which happened near NYC, is another red flag, because it is another indication that unexpected developments can take place "quickly."

So, I have made the software flexible enough to stumble along with surprises as they take place.

All suggestions appreciated.

The previous post in this series is here.

Economic War Of The Pacific - 5

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog has been watching events on the economic front from time to time.

Events that show the damage our lusty military spending is doing to our economy.

Various aspects of this phenomenon concern world currency, various import-export aspects of international trade, and the incessant waste caused my military madmen who want to murder and plunder across the globe.

Whether or not one wants to argue that these economic results are the affect of decline of one nation, the rise of another, or the rise of many, the essence of what we have been talking about is:

"This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else."

(A Decline Of The American Republic, 2, 3, quoting Fareed Zakaria). I think that the predictions of the founders indicates a decline caused by imperialism, warmongering, and draining the economy of the middle class (The Greatest Source Of Power Toxins?).

In other words, the plundering of the 99% in America by the 1%.

One statistic of the data, which Dredd Blog has pointed out, is that the U.S. is no longer number one, rather, China is an economic power now:

Hang on to your hats, America.

And throw away that big, fat styrofoam finger while you’re about it.

There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it: We’re no longer No. 1. Today, we’re No. 2. Yes, it’s official. The Chinese economy just

Review Due - On Sale Now

overtook the United States economy to become the largest in the world. For the first time since Ulysses S. Grant was president, America is not the leading economic power on the planet.

It just happened — and almost nobody noticed.

The International Monetary Fund recently released the latest numbers for the world economy. And when you measure national economic output in “real” terms of goods and services, China will this year produce $17.6 trillion — compared with $17.4 trillion for the U.S.A.

As recently as 2000, we produced nearly three times as much as the Chinese.

To put the numbers slightly differently, China now accounts for 16.5% of the global economy when measured in real purchasing-power terms, compared with 16.3% for the U.S.

This latest economic earthquake follows the development last year when China surpassed the U.S. for the first time in terms of global trade.

(Economic War Of The Pacific - 4, quoting Market Watch). The economists from Cygnus who "helped" to get us into this mess are morphing into apologists (e.g. Forbes).

But, outside their clueless bubble there are volumes of reality available (‘Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis’, Capital, a book by Thomas Piketty).

Meanwhile, as usual, China is not sitting or holding back, they are still on the move:

"Protests over democracy in Hong Kong may be preoccupying the Chinese leadership, but a subject of still greater international importance is being played out this week behind closed doors in Washington. China is bidding to enter the heart of global finance by establishing its currency, the renminbi, as part of an ubiquitous monetary unit used in official transactions around the world." - USA Today

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"China is calling for a global currency to replace the dominant dollar, showing a growing assertiveness on revamping the world economy ahead of next week's London summit on the financial crisis.

The surprise proposal by Beijing's central bank governor reflects unease about its vast holdings of U.S. government bonds and adds to Chinese pressure to overhaul a global financial system dominated by the dollar and Western governments. Both the United States and the European Union brushed off the idea.

The world economic crisis shows the "inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international monetary system," Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said in an essay released Monday by the bank. He recommended creating a currency made up of a basket of global currencies and controlled by the International Monetary Fund and said it would help "to achieve the objective of safeguarding global economic and financial stability."

Zhou did not mention the dollar by name. But in an unusual step, the essay was published in both Chinese and English, making clear it was meant for a foreign audience." - ABC News

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"China-rmb-world-currency

March 4, 2015
Bangkok, Thailand

When I arrived to Bangkok the other day, coming down the motorway from the airport I saw a huge billboard—and it floored me.

The billboard was from the Bank of China. It said: “RMB: New Choice; The World Currency”

Given that the Bank of China is more than 70% owned by the government of the People’s Republic of China, I find this very significant.

It means that China is literally advertising its currency overseas, and it’s making sure that everyone landing at one of the world’s busiest airports sees it. They know that the future belongs to them and they’re flaunting it." - Simon Black

That notion of becoming independent of the world currency, the U.S. dollar, has caused recent wars (MOMCOM and The Sins of Libya, 2, 3, cf. a discussion of "the foreigner trance": Comparing a Group-Mind Trance to a Cultural Amygdala).

That is especially so when mixed with the psychotic lust and greed for crude oil, the poison that is destroying the ecosystem and global climate system (The Peak Of The Oil Wars, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12).

The forefathers clearly warned us against exactly what is taking place today:

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied: and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.

The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Those truths are well established." - James Madison

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“Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.” – Thomas Jefferson

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"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - James Madison

We have become a warmongering neoFeudalistic empire (American Feudalism, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

An empire that is committing suicide by waging wars to acquire the poison crude oil that is destroying the only habitat we must preserve in order to survive.

The previous post in this series is here.

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"Stepping In A Slide Zone", by The Moody Blues

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Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch - 8

"Truth is never the fault of the Messenger" - Dredd

Maybe some of you have been agitated by the reminders in this series of what the famous historian Arnold J. Toynbee said.

Or at least you have been agitated by my quoting him several times.

Maybe several times too many.

But something happened recently, an archaeological discovery of a lost civilization.

So once again, let's take another look at what Toynbee said, and then apply it to the residue, debris, and cultural artefacts of that civilization to help us understand how accurate he was:

"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."

(Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch). So, after that civilization was murdered or more likely, committed suicide, someone stumbled upon "it":

The story of this discovery begins in 2012 when an aerial survey of a remote valley in La Mosquitia, Honduras, revealed evidence of the ruins of a pre-Columbian city. Some experts thought the ruins might be part of the legendary “White City.”

(Ancient City, "Has Ancient Ferguson Been Found" - just kidding). The scientists going over the area are of a different, and much more interesting opinion than the hypothesis that it is a city:

Archaeologists, however, no longer believe in the existence of a single “lost city,” or Ciudad Blanca, as described in the legends. They believe Mosquitia harbors many such “lost cities,” which taken together represent something far more important—a lost civilization.

(National Geographic). It was a civilization thriving like any other, with commerce, politics, religion, love, hate, life and death.

Then it was gone.

The jungle grew over it, it became a myth or legend like Atlantis or the Hittite Empire, once a "shining city on a hill," then poof, empty, decaying, and gone from memory.

The cities and people surrounding the recently found civilization are evidence that there was no reason that civilization, whatever it was called, absolutely had to cease to exist.

As Toynbee said, "a society does not ever die 'from natural causes'", no, a society is perpetual, with citizens both being born and dying within its gates, as it lives on beyond the generation that founded it.

Egypt, for example, existed long before this newly discovered civilization, and still exists today, long after it.

Egypt's ancient glory is gone, but still it remains.

None of the old timers who built the pyramids, and other bloviating architecture, are around any more, but Egypt still is.

To the contrary, the mysterious civilization now hidden beneath the jungle overgrowth just went away.

Who knows when or why.

Except as Toynbee says, by suicide or by murder.

This series brings all that to our attention, because, we are in The Sixth Mass Extinction period, and are sure to try to become extinct too.

It seems that current civilization is more like "Jones Town," which was a murder suicide (MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact, 2, 3, 4, 5).

I would not be surprised if some, or many, survived the lost civilization we are talking about today, because, some were likely to see it coming and escape.

But, our civilization's weapons and poisons are strong beyond any civilization before us, to the point that we can destroy our civilization with nuclear weapons, or with our use of fossil fuels.

Potentially without any escape.

And, we are eagerly doing everything we need to do to "make it so."

The previous post in this series is here.