Freethought Nation

8 thoughts on “Easter radio program on March 25th!”

1. Great show ar paramania radio
   Just finished listening to the paramania broadcast. You did your usual excellent job of communicating your points. I was encouraged at how well you were received. Keep up the good work.

2. Thank you for your kind regards. I’m so glad you enjoyed the program, and thanks for your participation!

   I draw inspiration from the enthusiasm and love of others for these fascinating subjects.

   :cheer:

3. Thank You
   Thank you Acharya and all your followers,,,y’all made the show a great experience!!

   1. Thank you, Beth! That was a lot of fun. I always enjoy speaking to knowledgeable and interested folks.

4. Look at the sky!
   Hi Acharya, this is a wonderful talk. I particularly liked your emphasis on how different it was in the ancient world when the stars of the night sky were well known. As you suggest, there must have been numerous folk stories for all the visible constellations. I have loved looking at the stars since I was a boy. Seeing our mysterious galaxy and the moon and planets seems to me the most natural and wonderful and beautiful thing, and a mystery as to why it is so hard to share with others.

   Perhaps I have assumed that most people were familiar with or interested in looking at the stars. I started to realize the depth of anti-nature conditioning in our society when I read Doris Lessing’s superb book [i]Shikasta[/i], in her [i]Canopus in Argos[/i] Pentateuch. This book series is a deeply wise and satirical parable for our society. In Shikasta, anyone who looks at the sky is punished by having to wear a heavy collar designed to make them look at the ground.

   Older readers know what happens in the Three Stooges when a dreamer looks at the sky. What does a stomp on the foot or a poke in the eye say about prevailing attitudes to looking up? Against this conditioning, Leonardo Da Vinci in The Last Supper includes one apostle with a forefinger pointing straight up, symbolising the events of tonight as a cosmic parable.

   Stellar mythology presents a really interesting way to read the Bible, especially with the annual Easter motif of the dying of the sun in winter and its resurrection in spring.

   One example of how stellar myth has been lost is a little known southern constellation called Columba the Dove. It is just north of Argo the Ship. Modern astronomy claims that Columba was invented in the 1600s, and that Argo has nothing to do with Noah’s Ark. We see here a fine example of modern prejudice. It is far more plausible that Columba and Argo were used to tell the Bible story of the flood.

   As you point out in your talk, the ancients must have had stories about all the visible star groups. In the case of Columba, Sir Norman Lockyer notes in The Dawn of Astronomy that several ancient Egyptian temples were aligned to the rising point of Columba. And yet astronomy text books suggest that its absence from Ptolemy’s list of 48 main constellations means the ancients were unaware of it. The myth that Argo the Ship has nothing to do with Noah’s Ark is based on a highly prejudicial, selective and ignorant reading of the evolution of language. The root of Argo is cognate with the India God Agastya, which is still the Indian name for the brightest star of Argo, our Canopus, which we saw in Yucatan.

   Once we accept your premise that the ancients were aware of the visible stars, a whole panoply of possible interpretation becomes possible. Ignoring this material is bigotry. Thank you so much for your pioneering work to open our minds to the mythological wonders of the visible cosmos.

   Robert Tulip

5. Shout out to the pre-modern homo sapiens!
   Acharya is witty while being informative. Her point about cave dwellers of 20,000-plus years ago is well taken. They did not live in a constant state of spontaneously aggression, rather they fashioned tools, created artworks, probably sang, and passed down their learning to subsequent generations. As Acharya noted, their cranial capacities were the same as ours, therefore, there no doubt existed intellectually gifted members of their communities.

   All of this reminds me a Saturday Night Live sketch from about 1980. Steve Martin portrayed an exceptionally “smart” pre-modern human who developed artistic painting and discovered more efficient hunting techniques. Bill Murray portrayed the dull-witted, brawny leader of the clan. Murray’s character recognized that the clan members were starting to appreciate the merits of following the lead of Martin’s character. Therefore, as the clan slept at night, the Murray character bashed in the head of the Martin character. The Murray character then proclaimed, “Now ME smart!” The disconcerting message which I got out of the sketch is that we are derived from ancestors which represented the brutality-minded end of the gene pool.

6. Excellent Interview!
   Finally had the opportunity to listen to the interview! Truly excellent!
   Thank you for you hard work. Looking forward to that new book!

7. Lights!!! Camera!!! Action!!! Apollo and Zeus.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palomar_Observatory

   Some decades – I’m guessing – before the birth of Robert Tulip, George Ellery Hale and Edwin Powell Hubble were thinking pretty much the same as what Robert Tulip said he was thinking when he was a child – the Cosmos.

   Acharya D.M. Murdock and Robert Tulip entered the world in the 20th century and, during their schooling, were surrounded and soaked with scientific books and gadgets that Hale and Hubble had influenced.

   In Robert Tulip’s article, “Look At The Sky!,” he says, “I have loved looking at the stars since I was a boy.”

   Acharya D.M. Murdock has described her childhood fascinations and concerns for Mythological stories that were based upon the Cosmos.

   But remember that Hale, Hubble, AcharyaMurdock and Tulip were formally taught scientific truths about the ingredients that make up the Cosmos. With text books opened in front of them, Acharya Murdock and Robert Tulip were told the scientific and logical truth of what those floating bright white objects in the dark night sky are.

   Now go back 4000, 6000 and 8000 years and think of what the children were thinking then about those floating bright white objects.

   Six thousand years ago the children weren’t gazing thru telescopes at those white objects. They weren’t reading about them in science books. PhD’s in Astronomy weren’t lecturing to them about what those white objects were. Everyone then – even the Elders – could only guess what those floating bright white objects were.

   What I’m doing here is comparing the reactions of humans of 6000 years ago to the sight of the Cosmic sky to the human reaction to the Cosmic sky in the 20th century.

   As children of the 20th century, Acharya Murdock and Robert Tulip, while influenced by science, were absorbed by the complexities of the Cosmic sky.

   But six thousand years ago the kids and adults weren’t influenced by scientific fact.

   On a daily basis, the people, then, must have loved the oncoming darkness of the night hours.

   They must have loved and hoped and waited for those dark night hours with its floating white objects as much as they loved and hoped and waited for their next meal.

   Every night for the people of 6000 years ago must have been as exciting as going to a drive-in movie in the 1960’s.

   Wow!!! The sun goes down. The darkness arrives. On the giant screen appears the gigantic roaring MGM lion. Aaarrrhhh!!! The movie begins!!! Wow!!! It’s Apollo and Zeus!!!

   Six thousand years ago the people didn’t see images projected from a movie camera. Instead, they themselves – their very own minds – acted as the cameras imagining the animals and people that they made appear in the night sky.

   Lights!!! Camera!!! Action!!! The drive-in theatre was with them – above them – every night in the sky with all the mythological characters.

   The Cosmic Mythological Movie Theatre existed 6000 years before the Moving Picture Show.

   Today, Acharya S D.M. Murdock and Robert Tulip are writing about the stars and story lines of those old black and white films – whoops! the sky was blue not black – that played in the minds of everyone 6000 years ago. They deserve an Oscar.

   Cave boy says, “Mom!!! Let’s go to the movies!!!”

   Cave Mom says, “OK!!! Lay on your back and look up in the night sky!!! I’ll tell you what you see!!!”

   Cave Mom says, “Lights!!! Camera!!! Action!!!”

   Cave Mom gave birth to Zeus.

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