Brain Drain

Blog

March 19

Milestone #2

WOW!!! Six months later ( almost ) - no new posts ( except for this one) and my stats have doubled!

2083 visitors! - i am impressed with your good taste, people!

For any of you who can handle a MORE spiriutal (but still just as as irreverant! - not the same as irrelevant!!) side of the Brain Drain's author feel free to visit: lovewillbringustogether.wordpress.com ... its where i post most these days.

Thank you all who drop in - your visits and comments are most gratifying.

EV'reee-BODeee-wants-to rule-the-Wuuuurrllddd-AH!

(3000 by June!)

October 06

Milestone

YAYYYYYY!!!

Brain Drain just got it's 1000th viewing!! : )

Ok, so maybe 896 were me viewing my own site and another hundred or so were from people googling the wrong kind of braindrain, but in just 2 and a half short years over 5 people might have viewed what i write out of something bordering on interest! : )

Now lets see if i can make 10,000 views!

Today, Windows Live Spaces - TOMORROW THE WORRLLLDDDD!!!!! HahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaH!

(ok - maybe not tomorrow?)

October 05

I Knew There Was A Good Reason to Mistrust Cats...

I watched my favourite Science magazine show last night and something i had not considered before was made clearer to me.

Toxoplasma tachyzooites!! they are worrying...

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s2050191.htm

For those not willing to follow the whole thing I'll give you the basic idea.

Rats have been found to have a unique kind of parasite ( well not really all that unique actually - but what it does is extraordinary!)

The parasite ensures it's life cycle continues by getting rats to adopt suicidal tendencies.

It does this by living in the little rat brains and neutralising that part of the brain that makes rats terrified of cats!

So, when faced with a cat that can rip the rat to shreds it does not follow it's basic instinct to turn and run away - it hangs around and waits for the cat to follow it's instincts and rip the rat to shreds ( if it is a hungry or merely bored cat looking for something new to kill). This serves the parasites need for a cat to infect to enable it to become a fully fledged adult parasite which it does not do in the rat.

The frightening part?

40 % of humans carry the same parasite, thanks to either their cat or eating some kinds of uncooked meat.

Here's a little tid-bit you may find interesting:

Other parasites are much more common in human populations. Some may have the ability to enact subtle, but long-term, changes in behaviour – to the extent of changing personality. The most notable example is Toxoplasma gondii. This parasite is primarily of concern because it can cause pathology under some circumstances. Obstetricians warn expectant mothers that this parasite can pass through the womb and blaze through an immunologically immature fetus (resulting in blindness, permanent central nervous system dam-age or death). Toxoplasmosis is also a significant mortality source of the immune suppressed. Nevertheless,clinical cases are rare compared with latent toxoplasmosis that occurs, on average, in 40% of adults (average estimates vary). Although the medical profession treats these latent cases as asymptomatic and clinically unimportant (Webster, 2001), accumulating evidence indicates that the infected 40% behave in subtle, but statistically different ways from the uninfected 60%.;

"Look What he Cat Dragged in"; Kevin D Lafferty.

www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/eemb/labs/kuris/pubs/Lafferty_05_BP.pdf

Just what the parasite does to human brains or their fear response is not fully researched just yet but one study has shown people (women actually) with the parasite have a 250% greater chance of being killed in a car crash than those ( women) who don't!!!

You still think cats are better pets than dogs??

September 24

God and Man - A Troubled Relationship (repost)

(Sure it's a little long but the message IS Important and needs some time to express and absorb)

The biggest problem man has in understanding God is that most of his understanding comes from Organised Religion which must maintain a delicate balancing act, sitting between both man and his Maker and man and his Overlords. (at least in Judeo-Christian religions; other major religions such as Islam, Shintoism, Hinduism and the 'naturalistic' religions require their preists to just come between man and God).

Preists rely upon us lesser mortals for their daily bread and upon Kings or Presidents for their existance in one country. God, much as they would like us to believe otherwise, does not feed them from his own pocket, but from our human ones. If we suddenly realised that God was actually able to communicate with us directly without preistly guidance for interpretation of the Divine Word, the dole office would be up to it's ears in a priestly 'surplus'.

And so, for 2 millenia now, christian preists have ensured their own welfare by teaching us 'all' about God, or all they can get away with and still keep themselves in a job.

Occasionally some priests disagreed upon the division of the spoils and perhaps even over aspects of 'the One True God' and so split from a group and started a new flock for their own.

In Medieval England a new religion was required when the King of Catholic England needed a divorce and the church wouldn't grant him one, Anglicanism and the various schisms that derived from it was the result.

All schism's retained the formulation of the original Christian model: someone has to explain the real word of God and understanding of God to us dumb simple folk... and earn a living from it in the process. It is known as 'Ministering' or ADDministering for short.

The great problem with that is the dumb simple folk then follow someone else's idea (perhaps many times removed from the parishioners) of what God actually is rather than perfecting just their own one-on-one understanding.

In one sense, the priests role can be viewed as a 'useful' service for arbitrating against the natural tendency of many humans to disagree on certain essential points, as we can be so wont to do in matters spiritual (as well as many others such as political, sexual and intellectual). But my feeling from observation of the past 2000 years of christian history is that, in general, we would be far better off without priests and if we just stuck to the 'everyman is my brother' theory and had respect for a divergence of thought and belief in order to be able to better view the entirity of an infinite 'being' such as God, when compared to a finite being, such as the God one person believes in, or chooses not to believe in, as the case may be.

Serious problems arise when our imperfect understanding of God, gained through listening more to priests than to God, or our own hearts (led by God) leads us to inevitable actions determined to prove that our belief is better than 'their' belief of some group of opposing thought preists. Or we are forced to 'defend' our religion because we have been convinced by either the priests or those to whom the preists must pay allegiance (such as Kings) that another religion or enemy of God is about to destroy us if we don't. (see GWBush for example).

Accordingly, here is my suggestion for easing our troubled relationship with God:

1. Acknowledge there can be only one Infinite (all powerful) God and that all creation is directly connected with this God. That means You, Me, the family dog, plants, The Earth and those weird looking types down the street and across the boarder.

2. Acknowledge that God is Infinite and you are not, neither is the bloke who believes in Islam over the road or the atheist at work. God is easily able to appear to each of us as we prefer to believe and even stay out of sight as long as the atheist so chooses. This is GOD we're talking about not some bloke with a kindly smile and white flowing beard.

3. Respect everyone you meet as belonging to God - your God - whether he does (believes) as you do, or not.

4. Do NOT force anyone other than yourself to believe as you do, trust me that is NOT what God actually wants - if God DID want that we would all be just exactly alike and without differences.

5. By all means discuss your God with others and see where you agree and where you disagree. I think you will find the areas you actually agree upon will seriously outweigh the areas you don't, Unless you insist upon reinforcing the differences (which will be quite minor in most cases).

6. Forget all that you have been told about God by someone else (including in books or movies) before you read this and just go by what your heart tells you is the right thing to do after reading this. (This most likely will not be all that easy!)

7. Do not hold fast to a belief that separates you irreconcilably from your brother over scriptural observations or religious practice. Do what you feel helps you, let him do what helps him (or her). What works for one does not work for all (once again, we are NOT all exactly alike). If you can observe a solution to a problem your brother faces caused solely by an imperfect understanding by all means engage in discussion with him as to potential ways to overcome the problem/misubnderstanding but grant him the right to do the same with you. None of us are yet perfect

8. Be extremely suspicious of anyone who tries hard to 'convert' you to their way of thinking. Free discussion of pro's and con's is fine but the final decision between you and God should be JUST that, between you and God, no-one else. If someone is a good 'salesman' and pressures you without you being aware you have been pressured, wake up to that. Some people are just damn sneeky and can't help themselves when it comes to exerting a power over you that you really should be in full possession of all by yourself!

9. Some people only seek God at times of extreme vulnerability and uncertainty about the future of their life. Anyone who takes advantage of this for their own purpose should be reviled by the entire community and shunned by all as scavengers of dying meat. Those of spiritual awareness should neutrally support any such individual until they are in a position to think clearly and seek God with a clear and open mind and heart.

10. Do your best at all times to remember that God is Infinite and so is equally Good and Bad. What evil exists, exists because of and through God. Denying evil is to deny God. If you look within yourself and determine that you truly want to do Evil things, it just might be a part of some Grand Plan. WE should not Judge that but trust that God will 'judge' what we do at some stage in our evolution. Man has a long history of doing evil, even under the name of a 'Good' God. if that is the only will you can follow, then so be it**. I trust that there will be sufficient numbers of those who feel the need to do only Good in God's name to maintain sufficient balance within our nature. Christ declared we should do only Good for Evil and that it is better we die of an earth-centred existance for our beliefs than killing our 'brother' for them, that it was evil (not of God's will) to kill.

Seems to me our priests have not reinforced that message strongly or often enough for us or our politicians to get it in the slightest.

That in itself is enough reason for me to point out their shortcomings concerning knowledge of God.

** It should be borne in mind that I am referring to what God is about here. To me, God is the Highest (Spiritual) Authority we can follow as humans. Some human's, on the other hand, insist upon their Authority as being the highest one we should follow and so doing an 'evil' that is contrary to the laws of the land you are in will likely have quite negative consequences for you. It requires strength, courage, honesty and a good deal of self-understanding to decide what is right and what is wrong for you personally, both physically AND spiritually, and doing what you believe is most appropriate in the circumstances.

I would not encourage doing 'evil' (breaking God's or man's laws) but believe there are times when the two are not in harmony (like killing in a 'just' war) and so at those times careful judgement of the issues and decision-making upon what is most right for you personally is required. Often, just doing what you feel like (until your will is in perfect alignment with both God and man (if that is ever possible?) ) will have negative consequences for you.

I do not believe myself enlightened enough yet to fully understand if God 'has a Plan' or if God just set things in motion (along with a set of 'laws' to avoid utter chaos) and is leaving us to work things out as we see fit. (Or if God is a logical consequence of the Universe's evolution of which we form but a minute part?)

I do feel enlightened enough to be able to see the true way to God and God's true nature more clearly than almost any religion or priest and desire that all should gain a better awareness than religion has so far shown itself capable of delivering to them.

Hence the reason for this post.

I hope it made sense to someone other than just myself?

September 13

Think About It

Every one of us has at least one thing in common... we prefer being 'right' to being 'wrong'.

That is, even if other's believe that something is 'right' and we believe differently (truly believe so) we will tend to believe that our view is the right one over the possibility of us being 'wrong'.

Unless we make a huge effort of will (not a thing most of us are wiling to do all that often) we will automatically conform our thinking to this tendency so that anything we consciously attend to or observe inherits a definite bias, known as Confirmation Bias, with the result that we give more credence to things that confirm our existing views of 'right and wrong' and reinforce the 'fact' that we are 'right' to think the way we do while denying or diminishing those facts that point to any potential error in our thought/belief.

Any rational observer should be able to see that this could lead to problems and is something we need to take account of and, whenever possible, Avoid!

Sadly, many of us are not even aware of this fact and so remain blissfully ignorant, and therefore likely to be ever-increasingly wrong when we believe ourselves to be 'right'.

One of the most obvious examples of this (in a group setting), and today one of the ones with the greatest consequences for the Human race, is in our belief about 'our' religion. Only slightly less of an example is in the political belief we hold. (Which party we vote for, for those 'fortunate' enough to have a vote).

So become aware that your mind is most likely doing it's best to make you happy by adding weight to what you currently think is 'right' and denying you as much as is possible the ability to take note of things which would mean that you are actually slightly 'wrong' - even when it is very likely that you are in fact incorrect in your belief of the validity of any given thing.

Once you can accept that you may just have a better chance of seeing 'reality' for what it is and not what your brain wants to tell you it is.

If you can do that it increases the chance of elimination of misunderstandings and may even help bring peace into the world (or your world at least).

But it will likely take a long time to improve your current 'reality' (firstly your mind has to overcome your present life's accumulated biases)... and it will take a hell of a lot of effort.

It seems to me that most of the world doesn't think the effort is worth it and it is preferable to just go on being biased and not viewing a more real 'reality'.

With the result that a few of us are so certain that we are 'right' and the World is 'wrong' that we are willing to die to prove it. Even worse some fools take others with them when they do.

That Confirmation Bias sure can be a bitch sometimes.