3 comments/ 1370 views/ 2 favorites Facts About Our Existence By: wistfall1 The word "existence" is used in place of "life" because so far no one has been able to define what exactly life is. That has puzzled many, including Erwin Schrodinger, a Nobel winning physicist who wrote a book titled: "What Is Life". What's more, most of this existence is mostly unknown to most of us. For instance, while we sleep, we may toss and turn every now and then, but quite often we are stationary—or not. If not though, why not? Because Earth spins on its axis like a toy top that children play with that spins as it moves about in an arc, save that the rotation of Earth can be as much as about one thousand forty miles per hour, depending on where we are. Those who exist in Los Angeles are always spinning at about eight hundred sixty miles per hour. In New York, everyone is spinning at about seven hundred eighty miles per hour, and in London, about six hundred fifty miles per hour. The closer to the equator one is, the faster the speed one travels on the earth's axis, though at the poles, we don't spin. Yet while we spin, we don't notice it either because the Earth is so large, or we are so small in comparison. Even more, the earth speeds around the sun—sort of like the toy top moving in an arc as it spins—at a speed of about sixty-six thousand miles per hour. So, are we spinning at the speed of the axis, or at the speed of Earth moving around the sun? Two different speeds, yet both are the speeds at which we spin all the while we may be doing nothing. Is that all though? Not quite. The sun also spins about the center of our galaxy (the Milky Way) at a speed of about four hundred eighty three thousand miles per hour (or we can say that it takes two hundred twenty-five million years for our sun to make one trip around the center of our galaxy and taking us, and the other planets in our solar system, along with it. The sun is thought to have made about twenty trips around our galaxy in its life time. The size of the Milky Way is still being debated; to date, it is anywhere from sixty thousand light years , or larger, from one end to the other (a light year being the time it takes light to travel—normally at 186,000 miles per hour, in a year). That's why the sun takes so long to circumnavigate around the Milky Way. Is that trifecta all? Not quite. Our galaxy itself is also moving at about 1.3 million miles per hour! Taking our solar system along for the ride with it, of course, and us too. Vertigo anyone? * * * * At first, it was commonly thought that the earth was the center of the Universe, then that the Milky Way galaxy was the Universe, and, of course, we were at the center of it all, and more, that ours was a special planet, the only one with "life" and humans. When it was suggested that these thoughts were not so, the church (Catholic at first, then Protestant too when they came into play), objected strenuously. Nothing in the bible suggested anything like that, and the bible was considered truth. Many scientists thought otherwise, but most kept those thoughts to themselves. Galileo learned to do so the hard way, but Giordano Bruno didn't. The Catholic church was said to have a warrant out for him while he moved about the continent hiding from the clutches of the church, but he made the foolish mistake of returning to Italy where the Catholic church was said to have imprisoned him for about eight years before handing out its final judgement against his heresy of backing Copernicus' theory, as well as other heretical thoughts. For that, they gave him the death by the stake, but he was said to be burned while still very much alive. Is it any wonder that it took so long to learn and attempt to pass on the facts of existence? As late as the early twentieth century, a poor biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee dared to teach evolution, and brought about the famous "Monkey trial" that found him guilty of being wrong, against Tennessee law, not to mention god's laws. We are slow as can be to accept scientific fact! Even in this day, there are those who insist that the earth is a flat disc. They even have an Internet site. There are also many who do not believe that the suns (stars), if they're massive enough, are like a gigantic furnace and make all the heavy elements like carbon, iron, gold, and even oxygen. These heavy elements (atoms), are made by fusing together hydrogen that fused into helium, and then, with the aid of a special atom, a very rare beryllium, fused with helium and made carbon. Carbon is what we often hear of being what we are made of. Actually, it is not by percentage, but without carbon, the other atoms that make us up wouldn't be able to bond together without it. Without carbon, we could not exist in the way that we do. This fusion process, once thought impossible, was possible due to the high heat generated by the red giant stars. If a star is massive enough, when it burns itself out, it may go super nova, exploding and spewing out all of the heavy elements that it had fused together, sending them throughout the Universe. Though fusion was thought impossible, it was proven that it is not impossible, but fact, and has been proven so. Following is how, and why it is so important. * * * * A gadfly, Sir Fred Hoyle, was the physicist who set the stage for proving how it was that the heavy elements were made. Other scientists such as George Gamow had thought of it as Hoyle did, but couldn't come up with what would provide the intermediate step. Beryllium was the key, but there were several types of it. Hoyle, however, did what the computers couldn't do by manually going through it all, and figured that there had to be a beryllium with an energy value of 7.65 mega electron volts (no, don't ask me to explain it, but it happened). He figured out what it must take to accomplish it; what resonated with helium that would form carbon. To prove his theory, he had to have it tested. Going from England to Cal Tech, he pestered William Fowler at Cal Tech, to run a test of his theory. With exact timing, he'd figured that one of four forms of beryllium had an extremely short life—only a fraction of a second. That fourth one had a life of 0.000000000000001 of a second. Still, many scientists didn't believe it, but it was irrefutable. The Cal Tech lab found that it could be done, and the carbon atom was the result. The theory of the stars acting as furnaces and making not only carbon, but other heavy atoms became accepted as fact. This all came about by theorizing that only the stars could make such a fusion possible, that all heavy elements were made by the fusion process in the stars. Stars are like a furnace for making heavy elements, and when they are made by massive stars that go super nova, those elements shower the Universe. Spectroscopy (easily found on the Internet) shows which elements are in the various stars. Each element has its own "fingerprint". This is a scientifically proven fact. Every element has its own color scheme that can be seen with a spectroscope. If nothing else, this proves that chapter two of the book of Genesis is false, a fable, for humans could not be made of the dust of the earth. Obviously, no rib taken out of Adam could form Eve. If this is a fable, then the Garden of Eden and the serpent in the garden are also false, and so is the so-called genealogy that ensues. Its all a story that some very intelligent Jews made up, but with little real knowledge of what it is that truly composes us as humans. Was Hoyle ever awarded a Nobel Prize? No. His irritating words were said to make the egos of the selecting members unwilling to reward him though he justly deserved it. Carl Sagan was treated similarly by our version of the Royal Society of English fame even though many, including his first wife, Lynn Margulis, pushed for his acceptance into the National Academy of Sciences. Of Galaxies, Stars, and Planets There is an estimate of one hundred seventy billion (170,000,000,000) galaxies in the known Universe. The trouble with that is that the known Universe may be larger than they now think. In the last twenty years, our scientific knowledge of the Universe has expanding almost exponentially. This, in great part, is due to satellites that we've put into orbit: Spitzer Space Telescope; Kepler Mission satellite; and WMAP satellite, not to mention the Hubble Space Telescope. Other nations also have put up satellites, including the European Union. First the Hubble telescope gave us many astounding pictures of distant stars and galaxies, but since then, The Kepler Telescope has given us even more. Still, we have no idea just how huge the Universe really is. Maybe, if the number of galaxies doesn't impress one, the stars will. It has been estimated that there are over a septillion (that's 1 plus 24 zeros after it) stars, with some galaxies being prodigious star creators. Others say one hundred octillion, or 1 plus 29 zeros. Some spiral galaxies are said to contain "...more than one trillion stars," and " some giant elliptical galaxies," having 100 trillion stars. Check out the Internet for some reputable quantities. In the book of Genesis, chapter 22, verse 17, we are told that God promised Abraham: "That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore;..." As one can see, that hasn't come anywhere near true. The writers of the bible had no way of knowing what is now known by our scientists. More, they never expected that there would ever be so much knowledge as is now available to all of us, or that most people, at least in the Western world, would be able to read and write. * * * * For thousands of years, humans thought that the earth was the center of the Universe. Churches taught that humanity was special only to earth, that there were no other beings anywhere else. We, the Christian church preached, were the only ones that had what we call life; there were no other planets like ours. They didn't know about the Kepler Mission, nor could they back then, but even now, it must be making their heads spin (but not with the motions of the earth, solar system, or our galaxy). Why? Kepler, primarily, has identified—so far—over a thousand alien planets (exoplanets); all together, close to two thousand have been identified by all the satellites. More From Space The Murchison Meteorite fell in Murchison, Victoria, Australia in 1969. On February 14, 1997, findings by scientists: Dr. John Dronin and Dr. Sandra Pizzarello, wrote that ninety two (92) different amino acids were identified. Our DNA defines the amino acids that make up proteins that then do the work in our bodies. There are twenty (20) of these amino acids available to make up these proteins that are in our bodies. On the Murchison Meteorite, nineteen (19) of our twenty (20) amino acids were among those ninety two amino acids found on the meteorite. On December 20, 2001, it was reported that NASA scientist, Dr. George Cooper and co-workers, discovered sugar and several related organic compounds in the Murchison Meteorite. Recently, within the month of June, a European satellite landed on a comet, and finally sent data with regard to its findings. Before it lost battery power, it sent back that a couple of molecules were found to exist there. How did what we call life really begin? Others reportedly found other organic, carbon-based compounds in other meteorites. The mysteries of our existence are many, as are our origins. For millennia we have existed on this planet with no idea why we are here. In fact, we actually know little about many aspects of our being. For instance: Astounding things about atoms There is no longer any doubt that we're made of atoms, and not dust as in chapter 2 of the bible's book of Genesis. Further, atoms make molecules, and molecules make our cells, and our cells are a living society that functions, for the most part, with us being unaware of them, but those cells make us "us". By the way, many of you may know of a television program that was called Quantum Leap (staring Scott Bakula who now plays the title role on NCIS New Orleans, and Dean Stockwell). In Quantum Leap, Bakula found a way to live in two different worlds: the world we know, and the past world via the use of Quantum Mechanics. Quantum mechanics is the theory of the world of the sub atomic. Many have said that Quantum Mechanics and what we know as our world—the Classical Physical world—do not mix. That's not quite true, and yet it is true. Why? We are made of atoms, and atoms are just that: atoms. Not to bore anyone, but there is an experiment called The Two Slit trick. In this experiment, a captured atom is shot to a wall that has a hole in it. The atom goes through that hole without a problem, naturally, but then it encounters a second wall that has two holes. The experiment is designed to learn which hole the atom will select to go through. The problem (to us) is that the atom has the property of living in our "Classical" physical world, as well as the quantum world, a world that is more than strange, it is one we don't understand, but every test of it has proven it exists as stated. In this case: The atom goes through both holes at the same time, and comes out the other end as a wave, or rather two waves (photons, i.e.; light, electrons, etc. are also waves as well as particles according to how they're "observed, or not"). Unbelievable? Weird? Yes, but true! The atoms that make us up live in two different worlds: as a part of us as we familiarly know us, and as Quantum creatures! (See: Quantum by theoretical physicist in the UK, Jim Al-Khalili, 2003, in US, by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.) Just as odd is that when we, or any creature, dies, the atoms live on and are free tp be used elsewhere or float freely trapped in our biosphere. We may die, but what we are created from doesn't. Other Odd, or Not So Odd, Facts We have no idea where this thing called intelligence came from, but we have it just as we have that capability called insight along with language. In short, we have no sure and irrefutable knowledge of how we came to be in so many ways! What we have are facts derived from observations of many types and from many sources. Our bodies have eighty to one hundred thousand structural genes (Investigations, by Stuart Kauffman, Oxford University Press, 2000). It is known that one can add other genes within their lifetime. These genes have start and stop mechanisms (that sometimes go wrong), and also turn off and turn on other genes. Barbara McClintock discovered that genes could, and do, at times, move. Yes, they literally travel. Furthermore, a transposed gene could affect other genes. More, some controlling genes appeared able to increase mutations in the cell (A to Z of Women in Science and Math, by Lisa Yount, 1999). Ms. McClintock presented her findings in the early 1950s, but her presentation was reportedly laughed at. About a decade later, Ms. McClintock began receiving kudos and awards. In the late 70s, other geneticists found that she was correct. Transposable genes came to often be called jumping genes. Finally, in October of 1983, she was awarded a Nobel Prize. Vindication was a long time coming. * * * * We have discovered that no cell can be made by any other way other than to split off from an existing cell, yet there must have been an initial cell that started it all, but exactly how that first cell came to be is something that has been theorized by many, but proven by none. We have about two hundred sixty different cell types (Kauffman, Investigations, Oxford University Press, 2000). There have been reported to be as many as seventy five trillion cells (measuring from 0.0002 to 0.0008ths of an inch—The Wisdom of the Body, by Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland, page 102). Other estimates vary wildly, but they are all in the trillions. What is truly odd to most of us is that each cell is considered a viable life form able, and under the right conditions, to be able to live independently. However, none of these estimated quantities of cells has been verified, but in the trillions sounds right. We are therefore said to be a society of cells. Cells have their own sense of justice wherein the cell works with other cells, or it is disposed of. Also, a female is born with six to seven million eggs (cells), but through apoptosis, by the time she is ready to menstruate, she has only about four hundred-sixty eggs left. * * * * We are conscious of ourselves, aware that we are aware of ourselves, but to different degrees by different people—and we don't know where consciousness came from initially, or how; we can only guess. We think, and perhaps can guess where those thoughts originate, but we don't know how this came about—that is, what the original mechanism for it brought it about, or what the mechanism might be that makes words that mean what we wish them to say. We have what we call minds, but we have no idea what it really is, or where it is. In the past it has been guessed that our brains were our minds, but no longer. We have discovered that there are over a trillion brain cells that mysteriously pass electric and chemical messages, but how our brain reads and understands them is another mystery. We do know, however, that there are different types of these nerve cells and many of them are very dedicated, have specific purposes. In fact, there is a part of our brain that was discovered recently: the Insula. The insula has been thought to contain what are called "mirror" nerve cells, or "what if" cells. They are thought to be what it is that makes mimicking possible, as well as empathizing. There are many different types of nerve cells. It is thought that habits are nerve connections which account for the habit's recurrence, well, habitually, since the connection is always there. Nerves are being discovered to be much in control of our being. For instance, a woman is quoted as having "...the odd syndrome of reduplicative paramnesia, a duplicative belief that a place has been duplicated or exists in more than one spot at the same, or has been moved to a different location." Dr. Michael Gazzaniga, a neuroscientist, tells of a patient in his office at New York Hospital who swore she was at home in Freeport, Maine. When asked how come there were elevators outside the door, she responded calmly, "Doctor, do you know how much it cost me to have those put in?" She, in fact, had a lesion in a part of her parietal lobe. (See: "Human", by Michael S. Gazzaniga, page 299, or "Who's in Charge", same author, page 49). * * * * There is much about us that is innate, just there, and we naturally discover its presence in us and use it, though we are far too often guided in how to use what is in us to the profit of others who tell us this, that, or the other in order to benefit their own purposes. But how did all of this innate-ness come to be? Okay, let's for a minute, get religion out of the way, and the idea that some mysterious god such as in the bible put it all there. DNA is shredding that notion rapidly, as soon the finds from outer space will do so too. On January 21, 2013, I had posted on this site an essay with regard to Neanderthal's and the bible (it is still up if you wish to read it). While I wrote that, other information was coming to light. The idea that humanity is six thousand years old, or ten thousand at the most, is pure and utter nonsense, and that is further born out by some of the subsequent findings of older peoples. On PBS (our public broadcasting system), there is at present (July 3, 2015), a series about our "First Peoples" and the evolving thinking of how we came to be as homo sapiens. There is also an article on the Internet from National Geographic on one of the main focuses of the PBS series, a cave in Russia that housed a people called Denisovans (mentioned in my earlier essay mentioned above). Facts About Our Existence These Denisovans somehow reached islands in the Pacific where the people there have their DNA to this date. A check of DNA in Northern Europeans had found that many have one to three percent of Neanderthal genes (again, see the above article on First Peoples by National Geographic). However, the age of someone who passed on genes has taken a sharp turn. The First Peoples segment mentioned above tells of geneticists testing people of the West Coast of Africa, and finding that genes recovered from an ancient person are still carried by present day people. The old tracing of the age of modern people has been moved back to about three hundred thousand years. * * * * Fundamentalists keep on insisting that the earth is only ten thousand or so years, and the Universe also. They have, in the past, ridiculed the descent of humans, and saying "Where is the proof, show us the missing link." I'm not sure if they are still asking that for "...in 2004, a transitional form between fish and amphibians..." was discovered by Neil Shubin (associate dean of biological sciences, U. of Chicago, Your Inner Fish, Pantheon Books, 2008). This find is definitive proof that a fish crawled out of the sea. Fish normally have no neck; this fish, dubbed Tiktaalik roseae, had a neck. Check it out on the Internet, or read his very readable book. The Bible Talking about the bible, from verses 11 through 13, it tells us that on the third day the earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed, and the tree yielding its fruit. These require sunlight and water. Supposedly water was available, but not sunlight. From verses 14 through 19, we are told that god created the sun, moon, and stars, and this was a day later; the fourth day. That in and of itself proves that the writers of the Old Testament knew nothing about the processes that govern the Universe, and those writers had to be men and not any god for a god would have known the process he is supposed to have established for the operation of the Universe and all things living in it. * * * * Bethlehem Until recently, I didn't know that there is another town called Bethlehem, and this Bethlehem is located in Galilee whereas the one from the bible is located far to the South below Jerusalem. I rather doubt that many preachers know of this, but if they do, they don't speak of it. None of the preachers I had heard spoke of it, nor did any that I had heard of either. A book, Rabbi Jesus (by Bruce Chilton, page 8) speaks of this Bethlehem. An NPR article of December 25, 2012, also describes this Bethlehem of Galilee. Archeologist, Aviram Oshri, with the Israel Antiquities Authority which excavated there says that he believes that this is the Bethlehem of Jesus' birth. Readers of my other essays will recall that the Gospel According to Matthew was not written by Matthew himself, it just said that it was "According" to him. Oshri says that the Bethlehem of Galilee "...was inhabited by Jews...because of remnants found there and used only by Jews and only in the period of Jesus." Oshri also says that it had become Christian, and that "...there is significant evidence that in early Christianity this Bethlehem was celebrated as the birthplace of Christ." Also, he says that "The emperor Justinian boasted of building a fortification wall around the village to protect it. The ruins of that wall...still circle parts of the Galilee village today." As further proof, he also adds "It makes much more sense that Mary rode on a donkey, while she was at the end of the pregnancy, from Nazareth to Bethlehem of Galilee which is only 7 kilometers rather than the other Bethlehem which is 150 kilometers." (Italics mine) The article says that "He adds there is evidence the other Bethlehem in the West Bank, or what Israelis call Judea, was not even inhabited in the first century." It also tells of "Paula Fredriksen, an American Scholar of the historical Jesus, who says that early Christianity only started to pay attention to the Judean Bethlehem in the fourth century, when the Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire." The prophet Micah was said to pronounce that Bethlehem of Judea was where the "ruler in Israel" would be from, the popular preaching now says, be our savior. This is interesting because of the connection to Jesus, the one that modern Christianity says is where Jesus will be born. But is it? Let's see what the Catholic Bible that had a fit of honesty has to say: "The book of Micah shows signs of being extensively edited and revised to keep the prophet's message relevant during changing times. This is particularly true in chapters 4 and 5", chapter 5, verse 2 being the principal verse being quoted in our time as referring to Jesus' coming. Micah is said to have prophesied about the time of the kings Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, or before the Babylonian exile. Edited indeed! Worse, the false use of this in our day to indicate Jesus being born in Bethlehem of Judea, and more, being the Christ, or rather, the anointed warrior/priest, has to be untrue. It also further vindicates that there was no census that the gospel of Matthew claims to have been the reason for Joseph to go to Bethlehem of Judea (see my previous essay). Why, though, might Joseph have been going to Bethlehem of Galilee? Chilton gives a good reason. It may have been to keep the villagers from whispering about Jesus being a Mamzer, that is, a bastard child, and save Mary from the gossiping tongues. Will we ever know the truth of any of this? I doubt it for there is very little truth in the bible—if this statement is shocking to any reading my work for the first time, then please read my other essays which shows the many errors in the bible. Now let's look at another popularly expressed mistakes by preachers. The oft heard quote from Isaiah, chapter 14, verse 12, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" was always used as referring to the devil as a fallen angel from his once high place. It is false! That passage refers to Nebuchadnezzar. Read the chapter and see what it refers too. In fact, read from chapter 13. It must have been very convenient to say that this referred to an angel who became the devil. Yes, the bible has places where the church initially found certain passages convenient to take out of context. Of course, as I've said before, they never expected anyone to be able to read, and naturally, there were no bibles to read anyway. Other oddities Steve Crecelius, now called Stevie, is an original transgender post op—or is she? Actually, she was born intersex. If you look her up on the Internet, you'll find several articles about how she came about, including major TV stations that ran the story. Stevie used to be Steve, married, and had a wife and children. One day, on a visit to a doctor, it was discovered that Steve was a woman though born with a penis, obviously. Okay, look it up, then ask yourself if any god could have made a mistake like that? In fact, there was no mistake—it just wasn't what is usually expected. There must be other unusual happenings, but are they hidden due to culture? Maybe Caitlin (the former Bruce Jenner, the star Olympic Decathlon champion) is changing how we view these differences in our makeup. Much has to do with religion, and the lies they have given us. The Catholic Church went hog wild and pig crazy with the power that Constantine gave to them, but it was just as they wished it to be. The early on popes tried to give to their position of bishop of Rome primacy well before it was literally handed to them by Constantine. That was all they needed—that and a push from him to have just one faith and do away with all of those crazy ideas about the person of Jesus. There were just too many for him, and that suited the Catholic Church. In no time they had ordered the death of those who were considered heretics, or, anyone who had ideas that they didn't approve of. Now the fundamentalists of the various churches are locked in a battle with anyone who doesn't believe in their so-called inerrant bible. E ver since then, that has been the way of it—at least until the present enlightened time—but are we enlightened enough? The split from the Catholic Church by Martin Luther posed a serious problem to the Catholic Church. Normally, they would have gone in and wiped them out, but the German prince protected Luther, and the people had sided with him, tired of the church selling "indulgences", or "get out of hell cards and forgiveness of sins", for a princely sum, of course. This was Luther's principal complaint against the Catholic Church. I say "principal" because there were many other things he should have, could have, complained about, the main one being the absolute belief in the bible as the inerrant word of god. If any check the King James version of the bible, they will find that every book there is pretty much the same as in the Catholic version. Every book in the KJV is in the Catholic version though some words are changed. They still bought, unquestioned, the whole of the Catholic faith. They still hold mass, and one can get a confession from a Lutheran priest. In fact, the English Anglican Church uses the King James bible, of course, since that king was English (Luther did have the bible translated into the language of his people, but again, every book in it is in the Catholic bible). The bible, though, is fraught with errors, contradictions, and outright mistakes (check out the chronology of Persian kings in the book of Daniel). I, personally, have found, and published here on Literotica, many of those errors in my previous essays. Please check them out as I give the proofs, usually right out of the bible itself. * * * * This essay has been wide-ranging, and hopefully some of what I have said is of interest to you, the reader. Initially I meant for my essays and stories to be geared to help lesbians who have been made to feel guilt, shame, and yes, humiliation by preachers who do their best to intimidate them from their pulpits. Some of those preachers have even advocated death for homosexuality. They do so blinded by their belief, but dare not check out my proofs with regard to their bible being false and full of errors. The lack of questioning what the Catholic Church taught is something we are paying the price for. Those teachings in general and in their specifics became the teachings that the Protestant churches would continue, and with a fervent passion. Though the Catholic Church enacted burnings at the stake, at times, en mass as with the Cathars, and by the sword as with the crusades, the murderous crimes continued with each side burning heretics. Who was a heretic then? It depended in which territory you were in. Protestants burned Catholics, and they burned other Protestants: Calvin was a huge fan of doing away with those who didn't believe as he did, and Zwingli, who like Calvin and Luther, took every word of the bible as being god's word. The Catholic Church was similar though they slowly changed with the prevailing wind (as they are doing in our day), but the winds didn't blow as they do now. The Catholic Church had a step up on the others. The others had the basic teachings etched in their minds, while the Catholic Church did the etching of everyone. All of those churches sat at the knee of their mother who, for over one thousand years, taught them that the bible was god's word. The children finally rebelled over a few items, but never questioned the bible. They should have. But they've all survived, and they are all wrong. The bible isn't any god's word. Had they looked, they'd have seen it. The Catholic Church still doesn't want anyone to read the bible, but to only have faith in the beliefs of the Mother church, while the Protestants, and now also the independents, play at having the bible read and known via their Sunday School teachings—just don't question their Sunday School interpretations of what they would have you read. The Catholic Church would have you to attend mass, confess your sins the day before mass (or in the morning of the mass), do your penance and take communion. That's their teaching. Believe, and that's it. Oh, and worship their Virgin and obey your bishop and priest. It has gotten them by to the point that what they got away with in the 1600s, they perfected in our day—until an enlightened few called them on it. Still, it took time, for the Catholic Church were masters of hiding pedophile priests as they did back in the 1600s. See Karen Liebreich's expose in her book, Fallen Order (Grove Press, 2004). The Protestant and Independent churches have their Sunday School lessons, but they are carefully orchestrated to teach what they believe, but not necessarily what the bible really says, and definitely not all that it says. They have moved away from the basic way of believing that the Catholic Church teaches, but like the Catholic Church, they have never really looked at all of the mistakes that are in the bible to this day. The question of whether or not there will only be a few enlightened people about the church's lies, or whether many more will bother to look at the truth of the lies will dictate whether the churches retain their power over the mass culture of our society. Make no mistake, the Fundamentalists and the Catholic Church will continue to fight tooth and nail to keep their false beliefs ruling our society. They do wish to keep their control over us and to keep reason out of our being. Even their new pope who famously said "Who am I to say" with regard to homosexuality, later backed away from it. He vacillates, tries to have it both ways. He's testing the winds, but those winds from within his church are very powerful. Fundamentalists, as well as the Catholic Church, will not give up their opposition to same-sex marriage, nor keeping us blinded to the other horrible teachings of the Old Testament such as death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath (which ever Sabbath they believe in). I cannot believe that educated men can be so blind that they, in this day and age, cannot see the errors of their bible, but apparently that is how it is—or they are so power hungry that they willfully deceive their flock. The battle for supremacy of what life is, and why it is, centers on the bible in the Western world, and whatever scientists find out for a fact. Fundamentalists have their theories of how it all came into being. Of late, they began with what they called the Creation Science, a theory that the bible is accurate in all respects, and in every way, and is error free. They have built a pseudo-science around it, some even purporting that dinosaurs lived alongside humans, this to refute the proof that dinosaurs lived at one time in the long ago past. They've even gone to the extreme of building a park more than suggesting that children played alongside of such as T-Rexs, and other dinosaurs. They haven't as yet put dinosaurs into Noah's ark though. Give them time. They'd not done that in the past, but the evidence of the existence of dinosaurs became too great, so they try to conflate—mix up—what's in the bible and what's known fact. Then they trot out a so-called science wherein they question ad nauseam, all of the new scientific facts trying to say that science today is not science at all, or at best, simply attempts at science. In this latter, they are mildly correct, for science is often theory born of logical hypotheses, that are then testable, and when tested and proven to be so, then they are called facts. The problem is that they make no allowances for testing the bible, for the bible is what they hang their collective hats on . They do not provide any logical testing of the bible... Not even a comparison of their scripture with other so-called scriptures! The test, if one is needed, should be: Is the bible accurate, correct in every way as any god or Goddess, or Creator would surely know it to be accurate. But you, readers, can do your own testing of the accuracy of the bible, and if the bible seems too daunting to you (as they, the Creationists and Intelligent Designers all fall back on), then use my essays to help you break it down bit-by-bit, and judge for yourself (something else they don't want you to be doing). No, they don't look at the bible the way that they purport to look at science. Their bible is unchanging, and should be easy to test, once one gets past the sheer volume of its stories that are so full of holes. The culture of religious lies has become a global Zeitgeist that only knowing the truth of the lies can cure. It has pervaded us in such a way as to give the greedy more places to hide. Now greed will always be with us, but we can lessen it by removing the religious cloak that they often hide behind, the religious cloak that they also use to bring about hatred of those that they say are an abomination in the sight of their made up god. Whether there truly is a God or Goddess ruling our Universe, none can say , but if there is such a god or Goddess, it's not the one in the bible. The debate needs to be changed. We do not say to accept science without knowledge of the veracity of it—it does change as new facts are found—but we do say that if science is to be questioned, so is the bible, and more, it, the bible, should be compared for its own veracity. Do the Fundamentalists dare to refute the proofs in my essays? I don't think so, not unless they completely rewrite their bible (which in the past, they've tried to do piece-meal). * * * * I hope that this far ranging, and admittedly sparse bit of information, will help those who wish to know the truth of the lies of the Fundamentalists of all stripes. For a greater knowing of the truth of the lies, please read my previous essays. Following the facts that are coming to light, and keeping to that path of knowledge is the way of enlightenment. By the way, none of this, my essays or stories, would have been necessary, but for the ongoing war being waged by the Fundamentalists in their war against homosexuality and same-sex marriage.. But for the rest of us, follow the facts, and don't let anyone allow you to deviate from them, and learn the truth of the lies. Peace to all, even the Fundies. w