AVOW: February 2013

Thursday, February 28, 2013

You are a Christian, aren't you, son ?

EINSTEIN:
You are a Christian, aren't you, son ?

Einstein on Religion

The word God is the product of human weakness

In January of 1954, just a year before his death, Albert Einstein wrote the following letter to philosopher Erik Gutkind after reading his book, "Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt," and made known his views on religion. Apparently Einstein had only read the book due to repeated recommendation by their mutual friend Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer. The letter was bought at auction in May 2008, for £170,000; unsurprisingly, one of the unsuccessful bidders was Richard Dawkins.

Translated transcript follows. (Source: David Victor; Image: Albert Einstein, via.)

Translated Transcript

Princeton, 3. 1. 1954

Dear Mr Gutkind,

Inspired by Brouwer's repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me. What struck me was this: with regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element. This unites us as having an "unAmerican attitude."

Still, without Brouwer's suggestion I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation, no matter how subtle, can change this for me. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong, and whose thinking I have a deep affinity for, have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything "chosen" about them.

In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization. With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e; in our evaluations of human behavior. What separates us are only intellectual "props" and "rationalization" in Freud's language. Therefore I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.

With friendly thanks and best wishes,

Yours,

A. Einstein

Islam Explained in Layman's Terms

Here is a perspective by Dr. Peter Hammond. Dr. Hammond's doctorate is in Theology.

He was born in Capetown in 1960, grew up in Rhodesia and converted to Christianity in 1977.

Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat:

Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life.

Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components. The religious component is a beard for all of the other components.

Islamization begins when there are sufficient Muslims in a country to agitate for their religious privileges.

When politically correct, tolerant, and culturally diverse societies agree to Muslim demands for their religious privileges, some of the other components tend to creep in as well..

Here's how it works:

As long as the Muslim population remains around or under 2% in any given country, they will for the most part be regarded as a peace-loving minority, and not as a threat to other citizens.

This is the case in:

United States -- Muslim 0..6%
Australia -- Muslim 1.5%
Canada -- Muslim 1.9%
China -- Muslim 1.8%
Italy -- Muslim 1.5%
Norway -- Muslim 1.8%

At 2% to 5%, they begin to proselytize from other ethnic minorities and disaffected groups, often with major recruiting from the jails and among street gangs.
This is happening in:

Denmark -- Muslim 2%
Germany -- Muslim 3.7%
United Kingdom -- Muslim 2.7%
Spain -- Muslim 4%
Thailand -- Muslim 4.6%

From 5% on, they exercise an inordinate influence in proportion to their percentage of the population.

For example, they will push for the introduction of halal (clean by Islamic standards) food, thereby securing food preparation jobs for Muslims.

They will increase pressure on supermarket chains to feature halal on their shelves -- along with threats for failure to comply.

This is occurring in:

France -- Muslim 8%
Philippines -- 5%
Sweden -- Muslim 5%
Switzerland -- Muslim 4.3%
The Netherlands -- Muslim 5.5%
Trinidad & Tobago -- Muslim 5.8%

At this point, they will work to get the ruling government to allow them to rule themselves (within their ghettos) under Sharia, the Islamic Law.

The ultimate goal of Islamists is to establish Sharia law over the entire world.

When Muslims approach 10% of the population, they tend to increase lawlessness as a means of complaint about their conditions.

In Paris, we are already seeing car-burnings.

Any non Muslim action offends Islam, and results in uprisings and threats, such as in Amsterdam , with opposition to Mohammed cartoons and films about Islam.

Such tensions are seen daily, particularly in Muslim sections, in:

Guyana -- Muslim 10%
India -- Muslim 13.4%
Israel -- Muslim 16%
Kenya -- Muslim 10%
Russia -- Muslim 15%

After reaching 20%, nations can expect hair-trigger rioting, jihad militia formations, sporadic killings, and the burnings of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, such as in:

Ethiopia -- Muslim 32.8%

At 40%, nations experience widespread massacres, chronic terror attacks, and ongoing militia warfare, such as in:

Bosnia -- Muslim 40%
Chad -- Muslim 53.1%
Lebanon -- Muslim 59.7%

From 60%, nations experience unfettered persecution of non-believers of all other religions (including non-conforming Muslims), sporadic ethnic cleansing (genocide), use of Sharia Law as a weapon, and Jizya, the tax placed on infidels, such as in:

Albania -- Muslim 70%
Malaysia -- Muslim 60.4%
Qatar -- Muslim 77.5%
Sudan -- Muslim 70%

After 80%, expect daily intimidation and violent jihad, some State-run ethnic cleansing, and even some genocide, as these nations drive out the infidels, and move toward 100% Muslim, such as has been experienced and in some ways is on-going in:

Bangladesh -- Muslim 83%
Egypt -- Muslim 90%
Gaza -- Muslim 98.7%
Indonesia -- Muslim 86.1%
Iran -- Muslim 98%
Iraq -- Muslim 97%
Jordan -- Muslim 92%
Morocco -- Muslim 98.7%
Pakistan -- Muslim 97%
Palestine -- Muslim 99%
Syria -- Muslim 90%
Tajikistan -- Muslim 90%
Turkey -- Muslim 99..8%
United Arab Emirates -- Muslim 96%

100% will usher in the peace of 'Dar-es-Salaam' -- the Islamic House of Peace.

Here there's supposed to be peace, because everybody is a Muslim, the Madrasses are the only schools, and the Koran is the only word, such as in:

Afghanistan -- Muslim 100%
Saudi Arabia -- Muslim 100%
Somalia -- Muslim 100%
Yemen -- Muslim 100%

Unfortunately, peace is never achieved, as in these 100% states the most radical Muslims intimidate and spew hatred, and satisfy their blood lust by killing less radical Muslims, for a variety of reasons.

'Before I was 9 I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; the tribe against the world, and all of us against the infidel. -- Leon Uris, 'The Haj'

It is important to understand that in some countries, with well under 100% Muslim populations, such as France, the minority Muslim populations live in ghettos, within which they are 100% Muslim, and within which they live by Sharia Law.

The national police do not even enter these ghettos.

There are no national courts, nor schools, nor non-Muslim religious facilities.

In such situations, Muslims do not integrate into the community at large.

The children attend madrasses.

They learn only the Koran.

To even associate with an infidel is a crime punishable with death.

Therefore, in some areas of certain nations, Muslim Imams and extremists exercise more power than the national average would indicate.

Today's 1.5 billion Muslims make up 22% of the world's population.

But their birth rates dwarf the birth rates of Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and all other believers.

Muslims will exceed 50% of the world's population by the end of this century.

Adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond's book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Skeptics; Atheists; Realists; Agnostics; Humanists

Future evidence for extraterrestrial life might come from dying stars

Even dying stars could host planets with life—and if such life exists, we might be able to detect it within the next decade. This encouraging result comes from a new theoretical study of Earth-like planets orbiting white dwarf stars. Researchers found that we could detect oxygen in the atmosphere of a white dwarf's planet much more easily than for an Earth-like planet orbiting a Sun-like star.

"In the quest for extraterrestrial biological signatures, the first stars we study should be white dwarfs," said Avi Loeb, theorist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and director of the Institute for Theory and Computation. When a star like the Sun dies, it puffs off its outer layers, leaving behind a hot core called a white dwarf. A typical white dwarf is about the size of Earth.

It slowly cools and fades over time, but it can retain heat long enough to warm a nearby world for billions of years. Since a white dwarf is much smaller and fainter than the Sun, a planet would have to be much closer in to be habitable with liquid water on its surface. A habitable planet would circle the white dwarf once every 10 hours at a distance of about a million miles.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/13MAdKF
Image credit: David A. Aguilar

HIDDEN MICRO-CONTINENT FOUND IN THE INDIAN OCEAN

Beneath the islands of Reunion and Mauritius lies a hitherto undiscovered microcontinent. The continental fragment Mauritia is believed to have detached about 60 million years ago, while Madagascar and India were drifting apart. The fragment was hidden under huge masses of lava.

Continental break-up is usually associated with mantle plumes, which is where giant blobs of hot rock rise from the mantle, intruding tectonic plates until the plates break apart at the hot spots. The ancient supercontinent Gondwana began to break apart in this fashion about 184 Mya (million years ago). This break up was accompanied by massive eruptions of basalt lava, when East Gondwana (Antarctica, Madagascar, India and Australia), started to separate from Africa. About 130 Mya South America started drifting westward from Africa and the South Atlantic Ocean; this resulted in open marine conditions by 110 Mya. About 120 Mya East Gondwana began to separate, as India started moving northward.

Mantle plumes currently underneath the islands of Marion and Reunion may well have played a role in the formation of the Indian Ocean. If the zone of the rupture is situated at the edge of a landmass, then fragments of the land may separate off; the Seychelles are a prime example of this.

A team of geoscientists from Norway, South Africa, Britain and Germany studied lava sand grains from the Mauritius beach. Their study suggested there were more continental fragments. The sand grains contained zircons aged between 660 and 1970 million years; the lava carried these zircons when it pushed through subjacent continental crust of the same age.

This dating method was supplemented by recalculating the hotspot trail. This showed the position of the plates relative to the two hotspots at the time of rupture, and also showed that the continent fragments continued to wander over the Reunion plume; this explained how they were covered with volcanic rock. What had previously been thought of as the trail of the Reunion hotspot turned out to be continent fragments. This research suggests micro-continents occur ore frequently than previously realised.

The coloured track (left colour scale) west of Reunion in the image is the calculated movement of the Reunion hotspot. The black lines with yellow circles and the red circle indicate the corresponding calculated track on the African plate and the Indian plate, respectively. The numbers in the circles are ages in millions of years. The areas with topography just below the sea surface are now regarded as continental fragments.

-TEL

http://www.gfz-potsdam.de/portal/gfz/Public+Relations/Pressemitteilungen/aktuell/130224_Mauritia;jsessionid=5025B9C7341A54D4B5DB8C3C2714C008?template=gfz
Trond H. Torsvik, Hans Amundsen, Ebbe H. Hartz, Fernando Corfu, Nick Kusznir, Carmen Gaina, Pavel V. Doubrovine, Bernhard Steinberger, Lewis D. Ashwal, Bjørn Jamtveit. A Precambrian microcontinent in the Indian Ocean. Nature Geoscience, 2013; DOI:10.1038/NGEO1736

Image: © GFZ/Steinberger

Image: © GFZ/Steinberger
HIDDEN MICRO-CONTINENT FOUND IN THE INDIAN OCEAN

Beneath the islands of Reunion and Mauritius lies a hitherto undiscovered microcontinent. The continental fragment Mauritia is believed to have detached about 60 million years ago, while Madagascar and India were drifting apart. The fragment was hidden under huge masses of lava.

Continental break-up is usually associated with mantle plumes, which is where giant blobs of hot rock rise from the mantle, intruding tectonic plates until the plates break apart at the hot spots. The ancient supercontinent Gondwana began to break apart in this fashion about 184 Mya (million years ago). This break up was accompanied by massive eruptions of basalt lava, when East Gondwana (Antarctica, Madagascar, India and Australia), started to separate from Africa. About 130 Mya South America started drifting westward from Africa and the South Atlantic Ocean; this resulted in open marine conditions by 110 Mya. About 120 Mya East Gondwana began to separate, as India started moving northward.

Mantle plumes currently underneath the islands of Marion and Reunion may well have played a role in the formation of the Indian Ocean. If the zone of the rupture is situated at the edge of a landmass, then fragments of the land may separate off; the Seychelles are a prime example of this.

A team of geoscientists from Norway, South Africa, Britain and Germany studied lava sand grains from the Mauritius beach. Their study suggested there were more continental fragments. The sand grains contained zircons aged between 660 and 1970 million years; the lava carried these zircons when it pushed through subjacent continental crust of the same age.

This dating method was supplemented by recalculating the hotspot trail. This showed the position of the plates relative to the two hotspots at the time of rupture, and also showed that the continent fragments continued to wander over the Reunion plume; this explained how they were covered with volcanic rock. What had previously been thought of as the trail of the Reunion hotspot turned out to be continent fragments. This research suggests micro-continents occur ore frequently than previously realised.

The coloured track (left colour scale) west of Reunion in the image is the calculated movement of the Reunion hotspot. The black lines with yellow circles and the red circle indicate the corresponding calculated track on the African plate and the Indian plate, respectively. The numbers in the circles are ages in millions of years. The areas with topography just below the sea surface are now regarded as continental fragments.

-TEL

http://www.gfz-potsdam.de/portal/gfz/Public+Relations/Pressemitteilungen/aktuell/130224_Mauritia;jsessionid=5025B9C7341A54D4B5DB8C3C2714C008?template=gfz
Trond H. Torsvik, Hans Amundsen, Ebbe H. Hartz, Fernando Corfu, Nick Kusznir, Carmen Gaina, Pavel V. Doubrovine, Bernhard Steinberger, Lewis D. Ashwal, Bjørn Jamtveit. A Precambrian microcontinent in the Indian Ocean. Nature Geoscience, 2013; DOI:10.1038/NGEO1736