NonStampCollector

Perhaps Ken Ham's proposed replica of the Tower of Babel will inspire amongst linguists the same kind of reaction that biologists have always made to creationism rubbish. Look out Kentucky, you're about to be descended upon by hordes of rabid etymologists.

I'm purposefully not tagging the author because I'm scared and embarrassed.

I'm finding that I get the same thrill when I've comprehended an entire paragraph as when I've read a paragraph of Japanese and followed the gist despite encountering a few unfamiliar Kanji.

To be clear: the deficiency is entirely at my end, not the author's! The breadth and depth of knowledge that the writing has to convey demands some serious verbiage. I think it's intellectually healthy to occasionally delve into writings that make one feel like a dumbshit.

Looking for God in the Bible or indeed in RELIGION is like looking for nutrition in a desert. If there's a consciousness behind the universe, it's surely shown better in and via beings that grasp & express its deepest beauties.

I could go on and on with insane, but accurate, comparisons and contrasts. And I'm not making the claim that the purpose of the universe is necessarily music. But music and other amazing properties of this universe DO exist. Stand in awe!

"Never mind the universe being 'visible' thru harmonic beauty, what's probably more important is figuring out what kind of killing rituals it wants us to perform, and how it would perform its own (of itself unto itself)."

Compared to Mozart, the Bible is a sewer. Mozart gave us a glimpse of what glory is. Imagine saying "Well yes, that's nice, but not as important as knowing about Joshua's genocidal rampages. Not as important about psycho dietary restrictions, and regulations regarding slavery...

But whoops! Instead the world looks to a couple of fucked up books of bullshit for answers. Books full of mistakes, insane human failings, tales of death and of the universal creative force being hateful, and being a complete asshole towards humans.

If I were theistic, I'd be looking for "God" in and thru figures like Mozart, Debussy, Bach, Corea, Herbie Hancock, Coltrane. In such beings, the universe seems to be saying "Look at me! Look what I produced! See what I am, what I have, what I do!"

It's like the universe wants to create beings that can grasp complex musical harmony, so it can be expressed and experienced. Seeing and hearing musicians and composers with a deep deep awareness of harmony is like witnessing the willed expression of the universe we're in.

When a favorite musician died earlier this year (Chick Corea) I pondered that his superhuman grasp of harmony was very much superhuman indeed. People like him seem to be an inevitable part of a universe of which one property is aural harmony.

Some members of this species are particularly adept in manipulating these harmonies and purposefully arranging sequences of them for no other reason than the enjoyment of perceiving them.

I'm interested in how the universe has proven to be arranged in a such a way as to give rise to the development of beings that can perceive aural harmonies. In fact, a conscious species that appears to be attracted to them.