From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 12:10 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Children's Lit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Muir" > > Read "The Lemonade Trick" ; it will probably be at the local library and > > can be read at one sitting. I defy you not to think of amphetamines or > > cocaine as the active ingredient in most cases, with some hints > > of Electric > > Kool-Aid at the school dance. > > > Go on, what occured there? Whoops. Turns out it was the Sunday school pageant, not a dance. Kerby gets a chemistry set from a mysterious old lady. He fiddles around and concocts a potion that apparently reverses personality. Kerby, for instance, not only does all of his chores but looks for more to do. Happy happy happy at his work. You could interpret that as him being a hardworking good boy, but I saw a lot of manic activity that you just knew was going to end with him hallucinating bugs under his skin. He did an MK-ULTRA number on the school bully by slipping him some of the potion. You know those films of a cat cowering away from a mouse after being dosed by Army researchers? The school pageant had some amusing reversals when he tricked the lemonade for everyone. Shy kids got bold and such. I thought of Ken Kesey's happenings at Rio Honda. Mark McFadden _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 11:37 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Children's Lit ----- Original Message ----- From: "William Timmins" > > > > His depiction of pure evil fascinated me when I read them. > > > > "Ransom." > > "Ransom." > > "Ransom." > > "Ransom." > > "What?" > > "Nothing." > > I found this fascinating and inspiring, myself. Evil that just was whatever > it had to be. > > The devil plucked the legs off of small animals and other innocent beings in > Venus, which was in a state of grace. Long story. I have always considered PERELANDRA one of the greatest of books, but what makes it powerful is the vision of Hell inside it. In fact it is this vision of Hell (I now realise) which runs through all of Lewis's work and which makes him, just a little, applicable to DG. Here is a fairly lengthy quote: Ransom is speaking to the submerged "human" remanent in the devil-possessed Unman. Or maybe it's all a trick. If you don't want to read the whole quote, just skip to the last bit. "I'll tell you what's true," said Weston presently. "What?" "A little child that creeps upstairs when nobody's looking and very slowly turns the handle to take one peep into the room where its grandmother's dead body is laid out and then runs away and has bad dreams. An enormous grandmother, you understand." "What do you mean by saying that's truer?" "I. mean that child knows something about the universe which all science and all religion is trying to hide." Ransom said nothing. "Lots of things," said Weston presently. "Children are afraid to go through a churchyard at night, and the grown-ups tell them not to be silly: but the children know better than the grown-ups. People in Central Africa doing beastly things with masks on in the middle of the night and missionaries and civil servants say it's all superstition. Well, the blacks know more about the universe than the white people. Dirty priests in back streets in Dublin frightening half-witted children to death with stories about it. You'd say they are unenlightened. They're not: except that they think there is a way of escape. There isn't. That is the real universe, always has been, always will be. That's what it all means." "I'm not quite clear-" began Ransom, when Weston interrupted him. "That's why it's so important to live as long as you can. All the good things are now, a thin little rind of what we call life put on for show, and then the real universe for ever and ever. To thicken the rind by one centimetre, to live one week, one day, one half hour longer that's the only thing that matters "Of course you don't know it: but every man who is waiting to be hanged knows it. You say 'What difference does a short reprieve make?' What difference!!" "But nobody need go there," said Ransom. "I know that's what you believe," said Weston. "But you're wrong. It's only a small parcel of civilised people who think that. Humanity as a whole knows better. It knows-Homer knew - that *all* the dead have sunk down into the inner drakness - under the rind. All witless, all gibbering, twittering, decaying. - Bogeymen. Every savage knows that all ghosts hate the living who are still enjoying the rind: Just as old women hate girls who still have their good looks. It's quite right to be afraid of the ghosts. You're going to be one all the same." "You don't believe in God," said Ransom. "Well, now, that's another point," said Weston. "I've been to church as well as you when I was a boy. There's more sense in parts of the Bible than you religious people know. Doesn't it say He's the God of the living, not of the dead? That's just it Perhaps your God does exist, but it makes no difference whether He does or not. No, of course you wouldn't see it, of course. But one day you will. I don't think you've got the idea of the rind - the thin outer skin which we call life - really clear. Picture the universe as an infinite globe with this very thin crust on the outside. But remember its thickness is a thickness of **time**. It's about seventy years thick in the best places. We are born on the surface of it and all our lives we are sinking through it. When we've got all the way through then we are what is called Dead: we've got into the dark part inside, the real globe. If your God exists, He's not in the globe.He's outside, like a moon. As we pass into the interior we pass out of His ken. He doesn't follow us in. You would express it by saying He's not in time - which you think comforting! In other words He stays put: out in the light and air, outside. But we are in time, We 'move with the times'. That is, from His point of view, we move away, into what He regards as nonentity, where He never follows. That is all there is to us, all there ever was. He may be there in what you call 'Life', or He may not. What difference does it make? We're not going to be there for long." "That could hardly be the whole story," said Ransom. "If the whole universe were like that, then we, being parts of it would feel at home in such a universe. The very fact that it strikes us as monstrous ---" "Yes," interrupted Weston, "that would be all very well if it wasn't that reasoning is only valid as long as you stay in the rind. It has nothing to do with the real universe. Even the ordinary scientists, what I used to be myself are beginning to find that out. Haven't you seen the real meaning this modern stuff about the dangers of extrapolation and bent space and the indeterminacy of the atom? They don't say it in so many words, of course, but what they're getting to, even before they die nowadays, is what all men get to when they are dead - the knowledge that reality is neither real nor consistent nor anything else. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 12:15 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Casting Call ----- Original Message ----- From: > John Tynes once confided that his inspiration for Lepus was Willem Dafoe's > role in Lynch's "Wild at Heart." Doh! How the hell did I miss Willem? > As for me, I was thinking of Leo Mackern when I dreamed up Alphonse, although > Wilfred Brimley would do in a pinch. Wilfred's character in 'The Firm' didn't eat oatmeal. Mark McFadden _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Bill Nichols [themaninawhitecar@yahoo.com] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 12:35 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Children's Lit As a former theological school student, (Andover Newton Theological School, to be exact, see their website at: http://www.ants.edu/) I can add a few thoughts to this. Note that I myself could probably best be described as "deist" these days, just so you know where I'm coming from. --- The Lizard King wrote: > From: "Nerva Vels" > > I know this has been said before, but > frankly, and forgive me those of you > > who are deeply faithful, but isn't religion > in itself slightly creepy? Depends as always on one's point of view. Any all-encompassing worldview that I myself do not share does tend to creep me out a bit as well. Reminds me of my college days, hanging out with the local Marxists. Talk about a creepy worldview. > I > > mean, think of it, generations of mankind > conditioned to believe in > > something larger, older, greater, more > powerful than themselves, some'one' > > who's coming soon to cleanse the earth, and > certain people shall survive > in > > a paradise. Depends on which interpretation. For instance, up until Augustine, there was a surprising number of near-univeralist thoughts running around Christianity. One early tradition even had Jesus throwing open the gates of Hell to let out everyone who had been committed there prior to his "sacrifice." And quite frankly, I suspect (but do not know) that many people since Augustine have been functionally universalist in their beliefs. (There was a separate Universalist church here in the U.S. Now those congregations are part of the Unitarian-Universalist Association) > Nervy, I'm so glad it was you that brought > this up. I still cringe about > some thoughtless comments I made awhile ago. > Now let's see how many people I can alienate > with some thoughtful comments. > ;-) > > Bill Hicks once questioned the wisdom of > considering a Christian (I was > going to use the term "devout", but that would > send crossed signals) to be a > good choice for President. Wouldn't you want > someone who *doesn't* believe > in an afterlife with his finger on The Button? > Someone who *doesn't* think > Armageddon is inevitable? Well, we've had more than one President who at least proclaimed strong faith, Carter for one, whom I think does genuinely believe what he says, and Reagan, whom I would classify as more of a "Christianity as a good civic religion" type, more than an orthodox Christian. I don't think either of them was more likely to press the button than some non-Christian. Something about not killing billions of people, I think, being just as important a part of their beliefs as in the eventual End of the World. In any case, someone who takes Armageddon seriously spends most of his/her time trying to identify the 'signs' listed in the book of Revelation in current events. Here's where I can throw in an ObDG. If you are looking for inspiration regarding the beliefs of some cult in your campaign, take a look at the various schools of thought among fundamentalist Protestants regarding how to interpret the book of Revelation. > The dominant faiths in American politics (or > politicians) teach that trying > to make a better world is futile, the > Apocalypse is predestined. I'm sorry, but that's just plain wrong. The dominant faiths do not make that argument. That some of the smaller groups do, is true, but the main ones do not make such statements. Rather, the formulation typically goes something like belief in the eventual return of Jesus, but of course they do not provide a timetable. In the meantime, there are certain obligations like helping the sick, the poor, etc., that are commanded by Jesus himself in the Gospels. Also, Paul made more than a few statements in that vein as well. > No heaven > on Earth until *after* the carnage. There > doesn't seem to be much incentive > for delaying the inevitable, especially for > those sure they will disappear > in the blink of an eye when the going gets > rough. Again, depends on who you ask. True, the ones who drive around with the bumperstickers that say their car will have no driver in the event of the Apocalypse think that, but some others will disagree. > Suicide had to become a mortal sin to keep the > serfs from opting out of > their short brutish lives. Actually, that showed up a long time before there were any serfs. I'm pretty sure that was one tradition carried over from Judaism, in fact. Something about not rejecting the gift of life God has given. Bill __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals http://personals.yahoo.com _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Davide Mana [michelina.ponsetto@tin.it] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 12:52 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Children's Lit Greetings. Berin dug out one of those bits that make me think living in the USA must be scary sometimes... >But a few concerned parents and one local radio personality successfully >killed the trip after raising concerns about the movie's depiction of >witchcraft. > >The fact that some consider witchcraft a religion, the protesters said, >meant that the school-led trip to the movie theater would constitute a >violation of the separation of church and state and possibly lead to legal >action. > >``It's a little bizarre,'' said Fargo School Superintendent David Flowers, >who supported the field trip. ``We believe that we were on firm ground in >letting the kids go. But (the school) made the decision ... that they >would just as soon not be embroiled in a controversy.'' The scary bit is of course how easily an institution that's supposed to take care of kids can be intimidated by a few idio... ehm, less than enlightened individuals. As for this separation of church and state bit, sorry, but I do not see the point. So witchcraft's a religion and the Potter movie's a film about a kid following his religious call. Would such a self-righteous minority put its step down the same in the case of, let's say, "Little Buddha", "Brother Sun, Sister Moon" (about St. Francis of Assisi) or one of those old colossals, like "Quo Vadis" or "The Tunic"? >Meanwhile in Memphis at least two Catholic schools said they were keeping >the series of ``Harry Potter'' books by author J.K. Rowling out of their >libraries because of the witches and wizardry content. Oh, before any yank decides to take a flamethrower at me - this sort of nonsense is going on hereabouts, too, if not so high-profile. Fools have no nationality. What becomes interesting under a DG perspective is a . how easily institutions get scared by mumbling minorities (expecially if they have media access). b . how much import is given to matters that would be risible to any right-minded individual while there's so much grief going for good. c . how useless this scare about neopaganism/witchcraft/sin&perdition is, considering the stats about the following of New Age beliefs and stuff. d . what weird attitude parents have towards their children, that supposedly are able to fend for themselves in that jungle that is pre-teen/teenager life without a serious parental for support (again, look at the stats) but are not smart enough not to be indoctrinated by a silly British movie. All in all, my dear DG agent, the "sane world" you are protecting is peopled by bigoted dimwits that would shrug-off the Mythos, and possibly deal with it for an immediate gain, but would willingly wage holy war against "perverted children's books". Let's admit it - having a face-to-face talk with Steven Alsiz must be hell.... Davide Mana Scared of people scared of books Torino, Italy _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 12:25 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: EOWM and The new Masters Yeah but. My point is that Class Consciousness is just a product of a universal inbuilt impulse to form tribes: that is, WCMPs . I don't think you get this *universal inbuilt* aspect from Modern Political Philosophy, which really assumes that money and wealth are the sole drivers in human behaviour. However I'm not a student of the subject. If you want to discuss, do you want to relpy offlist maybe? The Glove Cleaner ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeff Ewing" > "D" in Modern Political Philosophy, Mr. Robertson. What you're > proposing is nothing new. It's called "class consciousness," and no > one who has given it any thought has failed to notice that it's the > upper classes that developed it first, have held onto it through the > putative "democratization" of the west post WWII, and continue to > develop and maintain it. However, I'd argue that it was at it's full > flower a hundred years ago. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 2:18 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Children's Lit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Nichols" had some good things to say, including: > Depends as always on one's point of view. Any > all-encompassing worldview that I myself do not > share does tend to creep me out a bit as well. Now we're back to Trekkies and Elvis fans. ;-) > Well, we've had more than one President who at > least proclaimed strong faith, Carter for one, > whom I think does genuinely believe what he says, Same here, and he acted on it even when it cost him. He promised an interview in Playboy when he was in the pack, and kept his promise when he was a front-runner. He got a lot of flack about that, but to him a promise is a promise. Opinions may be mixed about his term in office, but I think most agree he's possibly the finest *ex*-President this country ever had. I had no qualms about his finger's presence next to The Button, and I was in the military at the time. > Something about not killing billions of people, I > think, being just as important a part of their > beliefs as in the eventual End of the World. That's it exactly. A guy who builds houses for poor people and speaks out against world hunger has his priorities straight. > In any case, someone who takes Armageddon > seriously spends most of his/her time trying to > identify the 'signs' listed in the book of > Revelation in current events. With a certain relish, if I'm not projecting. Sorry if the plain label "Christian" muddied the waters, because I don't mean to indict an entire belief system. What I meant by > > The dominant faiths in American politics (or > > politicians) teach that trying > > to make a better world is futile, the > > Apocalypse is predestined. which I can see was poorly worded, is that the sects that devote the most time and money to interfering in American politics are of the Apocalyptic camp. > I'm sorry, but that's just plain wrong. The > dominant faiths do not make that argument. That > some of the smaller groups do, is true, but the > main ones do not make such statements. So let's not talk about Christians as a whole and talk about the Christian Coalition. I believe you will find a majority of them with "666" and "The Late Great Planet Earth" at home. Maybe the silent majority doesn't believe in the Endtimes, but they aren't the ones lobbying and power-brokering. Some churches believe in the separation of church and state. Others feel they answer to a higher authority than any secular humanist one. > > No heaven > > on Earth until *after* the carnage. There > > doesn't seem to be much incentive > > for delaying the inevitable, especially for > > those sure they will disappear > > in the blink of an eye when the going gets > > rough. > > Again, depends on who you ask. True, the ones > who drive around with the bumperstickers that say > their car will have no driver in the event of the > Apocalypse think that, but some others will > disagree. It's the ones with the bumper stickers who have the phone trees and boycotts and Coalitions. They don't wait for you to ask, they tell you. > Here's where I can throw in an ObDG. If you are > looking for inspiration regarding the beliefs of > some cult in your campaign, take a look at the > various schools of thought among fundamentalist > Protestants regarding how to interpret the book > of Revelation. Boy howdy. Check the transcripts of last video made by the Branch Dravidians at www.parascope.com. Again and again and again they speak of how David Koresh opened their eyes about the Book of Revelations and the Seven Seals. I kept asking myself what he could have been saying to top Salem Kirban and all those films the Campus Crusade kept showing, or Chick comics (http://www.chick.com/catalog/tractlist.asp ) for that matter. People pulled up roots in England and Australia and moved to Waco to live in a commune, and they don't come across in the transcripts as stupid or naive. Mark McFadden _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Greg Muir [gregmuir@adelphia.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 5:51 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Re: LOTR > LORD OF THE RINGS? > > You can't dodge it. > > Not superficially Lovecraftian, no. But . . . I mean, it's a myth, > nearly a religion for our time. And you wait till the films come out. > > Well, what do people think? > We'll think that Trekkies are nothing in comparison to . . . what would these guys be called, Tolkeinites? _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 2:36 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] Re: Religion & brains ----- Original Message ----- From: "The Lizard King" > > Boy howdy. Check the transcripts of last video made by the Branch > Dravidians at www.parascope.com. Again and again and again they speak of how > David Koresh opened their eyes about the Book of Revelations and the Seven > Seals. I kept asking myself what he could have been saying to top Salem > Kirban and all those films the Campus Crusade kept showing, or Chick comics > (http://www.chick.com/catalog/tractlist.asp ) for that matter. People pulled > up roots in England and Australia and moved to Waco to live in a commune, > and they don't come across in the transcripts as stupid or naive. Do I strike you as a stupid or naieve? Naieve maybe ;-) But I counted myslf a "born again" Christian for seven years and would probably have upped sticks and gone to the US or anywhere else if I'd been convinced that it was what God wanted me to do. Having been ridden hard by one of these memes I can tell you that there are cases where **being highly intelligent only makes you more vunerable**. My remarks to Gil a few days back about Barbarians caring only for "lower things" and so being protected from the Mythos were wrong; but they were based on my experience with religion. Sometimes it's the dumb fucks who care for nothing but the simple pleasures of life who escape most easily. The Glove Cleaner _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Greg Muir [gregmuir@adelphia.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 6:02 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Children's Lit > a cat cowering away from a mouse after being dosed by Army researchers? > The school pageant had some amusing reversals when he tricked > the lemonade > for everyone. Shy kids got bold and such. I thought of Ken Kesey's > happenings at Rio Honda. > And then he slipped some into the water supply of a catholic girls' school, whipped out his video camera, sold copies over the Net and made a fortune. :) _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Greg Muir [gregmuir@adelphia.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 6:02 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Casting Call > > As for me, I was thinking of Leo Mackern when I dreamed up Alphonse, > although > > Wilfred Brimley would do in a pinch. > > Wilfred's character in 'The Firm' didn't eat oatmeal. > That's what they want you to think. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 3:01 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: LOTR God knows. A lot of Tolkien fans in Russia. I did a search on Tolkien and religion as a joke and got this: http://www.cesnur.org/conferences/Riga_prg.htm NEW RELIGIOSITY IN THE 21st CENTURY 14.30-16.15 SESSION 13 (ROOM C) RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN RUSSIA AND EASTERN EUROPE Chair: Boris FALIKOV Mark SEDGWICK (American University, Cairo), "Russian Traditionalism" A.M. SALNIKOVA, K.T. SERGADINA and P.G. CHISTYAKOV (graduate students, Russian State University of Humanities, Moscow), "Tolkienism in Russia and Other Countries of CIS" . Apparently there are people in the USSR who take to Tolkienism as a "religion"!! Just how widespread or serious this might be I do not know. JRRT bought down the Evil Empire?? The Glove Cleaner -- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Muir" To: Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 11:51 PM Subject: RE: [DG] Re: LOTR > > LORD OF THE RINGS? > > > > You can't dodge it. > > > > Not superficially Lovecraftian, no. But . . . I mean, it's a myth, > > nearly a religion for our time. And you wait till the films come out. > > > > Well, what do people think? > > > We'll think that Trekkies are nothing in comparison to . . . what would > these guys be called, Tolkeinites? > > _______________________________________ > The Delta Green Mailing List > http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ > > > _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Shane Ivey [shane@revolutionsf.com] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 3:44 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Re: LOTR <> Kazakhstan recently cracked down on hardcore Tolkien fans, along with a number of groups representing "unconventional" lifestyles. http://www.revolutionsf.com/article/137.html "The Kazakhstan police say the Tolkienists are accused of 'being Satanists and conducting dark rituals'." (Put that pipeweed in your ObDG and smoke it!) Shane Ivey Producer, RevolutionSF http://www.revolutionsf.com/ _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of trueprophet@talk21.com Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 4:08 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: Slumberpunk correction [was [DG] Children's Lit] Well, either someone's using that icky dream-sending spell that I can't remember the name of at the moment on you in order to drive you insane, or Cthulhu is talking to you in your dreams, or the Yithian's have earmarked you for mind-swapping but there was a glitch with the device, or... So, the question is, have you pissed off any vindictive, highly occult powered girlfriends lately ;)?(the Cult of Transcendence class ring is a dead givaway, I always find) Dreams are weird things. Mine usually aren't strange in the sense you describe - they're almost worse, in a way. Sometimes, when I'm stressed or not sleeping enough, I start to have dreams which mimic real life. I have conversations with people. Then, when I meet the person again, I can't tell if I've really had the conversation or if I've only had it in my dream. And sometimes, I have the same conversation and have an overwhelming snse of deja vu. Freaks the hell out of me. I'm not sure what's worse: really freaky dreams, or dreams that almost overlap with reality and leave you almost unable to distinguish between the two.(that level of blurring's only happened to me once so far, when I had the dreams for more than a week. I was pretty stressed at the time, and I never what to go there again.) ObDg: Look at the first half of the e-mail, ya mook. Voidchaser. >Incidentally, almost time for another story, I think. >God knows I've had quite some weird dreams lately - apart for the usual >return of a certain recurring character and locations (as usual, when I'm >under stress), there was a bit about a sitting for the Certamen >Pedemontanum in which I was asked by a highly aggressive referee to >translate from Latin a terribly convoluted piece about the origins and >traditions of the Savoia Cavalleria horse guards. >Crazy. >Now I'm carefully checking sources, as I can remember a fair chunk of the >text (hey, I did translate it, right?), and, hell, it's proper Latin - if >clearly very late in structure and extremely nasty - lots of passive verbs >and stupid stuff the Romans never used. >Sounds exactly as the kind of fake thing someone would have put in a 19th >century textbook to torment students and impress them with the past glories >of the royal house. >Did my brain make up a fake 19th century text? >Or did I dream an actual document I'm pretty sure I never read? >Both alternatives are pretty weird. > >Davide Mana >started waking up in a sweat again >Torino, Italy > >_______________________________________ >The Delta Green Mailing List >http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ -------------------- talk21 your FREE portable and private address on the net at http://www.talk21.com _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 4:27 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: LOTR If you can read Russian, http://www.kulichki.com/tolkien/ has a lot of stuff on Tolkienism in CIS. First L. Ron Hubbard, now J.R.R. Tolkien. I think I might have to take a trip over there and share water with a receptive audience. Vodka is mostly water isn't it? We'll be grokkin' round the clock in no time. Mark McFadden _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Bill Nichols [themaninawhitecar@yahoo.com] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 5:03 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: LOTR --- Davide Mana wrote: > Cheers. > As for Mythos possibilities, I generally give > LOTR a reading time of about > 1 month and a SAN loss of 1d4. > No spells acquired, but certainly traces of > derangement, and the unnerving > habit of drastically separating Good and Evil. > 1d8 SAN loss if you actually learn speaking > Qenia or Sindarin. > +2 Cthulhu Mythos - you understand Detail is no > guarantee of Reality (and > should read Dick at this point, only most > Lotries won't). Tolkien's original manuscripts, including his drawings of major landmarks in the books, are part of the Department of Special Collections and University Archives of the Marquette University Library (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) http://www.marquette.edu/library/collections/archives/tolkien.html They even have an upcoming presentation by a Tolkien scholar: http://www.marquette.edu/library/information/news/Shippey.html Bill (MA, Marquette University, 1999) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Find the one for you at Yahoo! Personals http://personals.yahoo.com _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Graeme Price [graemep@immagene.mcg.edu] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 5:06 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] LOTR, Totalitarianism etc.... on 11/17/01 5:27 PM, The Lizard King at lizardrex@charter.net wrote: > If you can read Russian, http://www.kulichki.com/tolkien/ has a lot of > stuff on Tolkienism in CIS. > > First L. Ron Hubbard, now J.R.R. Tolkien. I think I might have to take a > trip over there and share water with a receptive audience. Vodka is mostly > water isn't it? We'll be grokkin' round the clock in no time. I suspect the appeal is partly due to the fact that (along with a large majority of "Western" literature), the works of Tolkien and Hubbard were banned in the USSR until perestroika (possibly after that). Suddenly allowing an unfamiliar public access to a large body of fiction (and indeed religious works) from other cultures is going to effectively open the flood gates for people wishing to adopt alternative lifestyles in the post-totalitarian era. Plus there's the whole "if they banned it, there's something to it" impression. [ObDG: Well, it's obvious. If what the West regards as pure fiction can influence people unfamiliar with it so drastically, imagine what else might be brewing? If LOTR can be regarded as practically biblical, what effect might the combined works of HPL have? Real life Cthulhu cults? Why not? From detached observer perspective, this might prove an interesting sociological experiment.] Moving at a slight tangent, it runs a little deeper as well. Look at the impact of the free-market on Albania (pyramid schemes invested in by people who simply didn't understand the rules of capitalism, leading to expanded poverty). In the former USSR, consider the rise of organized crime. There's interesting ground for a cultural backlash here - if the poor get screwed in dodgy investment schemes, might it not be considered by them that the whole capitalism thing is another unworkable system which promises more than it can deliver? A system no better than the one they just escaped? Where will such people turn? Presumably religion... the rise of islamic fundamentalism could be equated to something similar. Seemingly, the most fertile breeding ground for the West's current foes is Saudi Arabia... not the most unoppressive regime in the world (although the motivation and realpolitik of murderers [I dislike the word "terrorist"] is another story altogether). Oppression breeds discontent. Discontent breeds revolution. Revolution breeds hope. Hope denied brings backlash. One can only imagine what will happen when North Korea finally opens up. And lets not even get started on Afghanistan. End Times? Let us hope not. Graeme -- graemep@immag.mcg.edu _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 4:44 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] Re: Tolkien and Wolfe Well now. What provoked me into his question was the following. Last night I was staggering around drunk, after zee puub, at Dave Pringle's house, discussing the next issue of INTERZONE. http://www.sfsite.com/interzone/ wot I am an unpaid assistant editor of in my spare time as I may have mentioned. Dave had a copy of an article by Gene Wolfe on LoTR. The article was very deeply moving, very deeply felt, and very interesting. Essentially it stated that: 1) Reading LoTR saved Wolfe's sanity when he was alone in the big city as a young man. 2) Wolfe thinks that the LoTR is a vital repository of true moral values. Yup. "True moral values". Now, I wouldn't blink an eye if this was some fanboy saying it, but this is GENE WOLFE. And if I remember the article right he thinks that the salvation of the West depends on cleaving again to the values of Tolkien's heroes. And he really means it. And has, all his SF writing career, from THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS onward. It sounds very much as if Wolfe is positioning or confessing himself a literary disciple of Tolkien, and something rather close to being a believer in a moral sort of "Tolkienism". --- *** --- Dave was all worried. "This is the most . . . **conservative** . . thing we will ever publish in INTERZONE . . . ." I held that we had no right to silence Wolfe, one of the great writers of SF, and (like JRRT) a mystic/Catholic. So I guess it will be coming out next month. I intend to get the article, post it on my website, and spam every Tolkien mailing list in existence. Of course I will pay Mr Wolfe for it. So now you know. I guess I am really posting this because I am exited from a critical POV. I have always held that there is a coherent tradition of "neoCatholic Fabulation" reaching from ancient pre-Christian legendry through to people like Tolkien and Wolfe: but this is the first evidence I have had of so close an inspiration of Wolfe's work. However, ObDG. Tolkienism is rumored to have had some small moral part in the downfall of the USSR. Is it too far fetched to think of ways that Tolkienism might become a "religion", or at least a coherent set of myths, in the West, particularly as the war with Islam gathers pace? The position of Middle-Earth, demographically declining and attacked from the South and East, is very much that of the West in general today. You can work that in to all sorts of endtime scenarios. The Glove Cleaner _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 4:47 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: LOTR ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Nichols" > > Tolkien's original manuscripts, including his > drawings of major landmarks in the books, are > part of the Department of Special Collections and > University Archives of the Marquette University > Library (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) PAH! Oxford will get them back one day. > > Bill > (MA, Marquette University, 1999) > The Glove Cleaner (BA, St Edmund Hall, Oxford,1978) _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of The Lizard King [lizardrex@charter.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 5:50 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] LOTR, Totalitarianism etc.... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Graeme Price" > [ObDG: Well, it's obvious. If what the West regards as pure fiction can > influence people unfamiliar with it so drastically, imagine what else might > be brewing? If LOTR can be regarded as practically biblical, what effect > might the combined works of HPL have? Real life Cthulhu cults? Why not? From > detached observer perspective, this might prove an interesting sociological > experiment.] Ooooooo. Dark, doomed, moody, without hope. Now there's a faith suitable to the Russian national character if Dostoevsky got it right. ;-) "We are as nothing to the Great Old Ones. Nichevo." There are plenty of folks stateside who mix Lovecraft with their Satanism for effect. I've met people who think those paperback copies of the Necronomicon are the real deal, and act on it. You don't have to believe to be a tad weirded out when someone gets ticked at you, points at you and recites about a page of Ia! and apostrophes at you from memory. I ain't afraid of your curse Sunshine, but your intensity and commitment are disturbing. Have you considered a pre-frontal, or at least decaf? My cat is staying indoors for the duration, so don't get any ideas. Maybe we should be thankful Tolkienism got a foothold. Mark McFadden What if White Wolf got there first? _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Greg Muir [gregmuir@adelphia.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 8:55 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Re: Religion & brains > Do I strike you as a stupid or naieve? > > Naieve maybe ;-) > > But I counted myslf a "born again" Christian for seven years and would > probably have upped sticks and gone to the US or anywhere else if > I'd been > convinced that it was what God wanted me to do. > > Having been ridden hard by one of these memes I can tell you that > there are > cases where **being highly intelligent only makes you more vunerable**. > So where do you see yourself now? How does your previous self seem to you now that the true belief has passed, or at least waned? I grew up in the church believing everything by default but eventually growing distant because of the contraditions and sanctimoious actions of some members. I find it interesting for someone to approach it later in life but it could be just the new convert's zeal people talk about, where the new religion is all wonderful and rosy and faults cannot be seen, thus it's a wonderful new sensation, like a new love. Anyway, if it's a sensitive topic you needn't reply. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 5:46 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: Religion & brains ----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Muir" > So where do you see yourself now? How does your previous self seem to you > now that the true belief has passed, or at least waned? I'm a Cthulhuvian. :-) Jokes apart, I am an athiest. I didn't gradually gain and lose my religious faith in any default unconscious way. I adopted it after considering it very carefully for a long time, tried hard to live by it, and dropped it only when it drove me nuts. I take things far too seriously. The Glove Cleaner. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Greg Muir [gregmuir@adelphia.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 9:25 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] LOTR, Totalitarianism etc.... > There are plenty of folks stateside who mix Lovecraft with their Satanism > for effect. I've met people who think those paperback copies of the > Necronomicon are the real deal, and act on it. You don't have to > believe to > be a tad weirded out when someone gets ticked at you, points at you and > recites about a page of Ia! and apostrophes at you from memory. I ain't > afraid of your curse Sunshine, but your intensity and commitment are > disturbing. Have you considered a pre-frontal, or at least decaf? > My cat is > staying indoors for the duration, so don't get any ideas. > I've read people who have written seriously of having success in their invocations regarding Cthulhu and other Lovecraftian entities. I cannot understand it unless they are approaching this completely from the perspective of "human minds need human creations to understand the forces they are dealing with. Just as one may name the large stones used as landmarks when navigating the forest, we must devise human names and attributes for the powers we manipulate to better control them." Even at that, it's pretty fucked up. "Ia, Ia, Darth Vader! I have cursed your liver!" Waker. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Greg Muir [gregmuir@adelphia.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 9:55 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Re: Religion & brains > I'm a Cthulhuvian. :-) > > Jokes apart, I am an athiest. I didn't gradually gain and lose > my religious > faith in any default unconscious way. I adopted it after considering it > very carefully for a long time, tried hard to live by it, and dropped it > only when it drove me nuts. I take things far too seriously. > That is the thinking man's dilema. Started a new job recently in my same company. The system must have been setup by Machiavelli after an extended BDSM session with de Sade. I'm driving the people nuts because they keep giving me low-level explanations of tasks and I keep asking for overviews. Instead of starting with an overview of what our goals for the department are, what the tasks are, breaking it down like that, they just start out in the middle of everything. I'm keeping my mouth shut when I see them doing things in obviously stupid ways but it's tough. Just imagine this: we print reports from the as/400 to then manually enter into excel spreadsheets to run calculations on to then print out the spreadsheets to reenter into the system. Uck. You can imagine the rest from there. If I were a drone I'd just memorize the patterns they teach and would be great at my job. Since I am not a drone I need to understand what they're showing me before I can learn it. Where am I going with this? A lot of people grow up with their religion because it is their religion but they do not think. You ever really think about the implication of "flesh and blood of christ?" when communion is given? We're talking cannibalism of God. It's really quite sick. I'm surprised we have not yet seen cults who have tried to get back to the roots of communion with "Lambs of God" culled from their own ranks. Most people are content to go church, sing and nod, not really understand the actions they're taking, the motions they're going through. Their faith is little more than custom. There are other questions with no good answers. "How did Noah get all the animals of the world into the ark? How did he get every beetle, every ant, etc? what about the new world?" There are also more fundamental questions such as "If Jesus died for our sins because no one could get to heaven under the old system, what about the people who died before Jesus? Are we to believe that Moses is in Hell because no one had ever lived a perfect life before Jesus?" The best answer I get on that one is "Well I'm sure that God would--" and I have to say "Stop. Is it in the Bible? No? Then it's supposition and you are inventing additions to your faith." Another good question is "What about the people in the new world? Jesus did not appear to the Indians, the Chinese, etc, so are they to be damned to hell when they did not ever have a chance to recieve the word? How about the Indians after the spaniards came. They had the worst introduction to the religion imaginable. Can you hold their disbelief against them?" That's why I am agnostic. I have an inexplicable belief that there is something greater than us out there but I am at a loss to explain anything about it. I just feel that any human religion has gotten it wrong. _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Nick Brownlow [stabernide@netscape.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 7:55 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: Re: [DG] LOTR, Totalitarianism etc.... <> The Liz King lives in L.A., so this shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone. I can confirm though that the rot has spread. I once met a pair of Wiccans in Birmingham, England who worshipped Great Cthulu with a complete lack of irony as well. -- __________________________________________________________________ Your favorite stores, helpful shopping tools and great gift ideas. Experience the convenience of buying online with Shop@Netscape! http://shopnow.netscape.com/ Get your own FREE, personal Netscape Mail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com/ _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of ialdaloboth *genzundheit!* [ialdaloboth@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 8:27 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Casting Call > > John Tynes once confided that his inspiration for Lepus was Willem >Dafoe's > > role in Lynch's "Wild at Heart." ooooo. I like it. That was one serious piece of work, there. "Say fuck me.... fuck me.... fuck me..." Speaking of David Lynch movies... anyone seen Muholland Drive, yet? How is it? (Keep in mind I loved 'Lost Highways') J. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of ialdaloboth *genzundheit!* [ialdaloboth@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 8:40 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: RE: [DG] Re: Religion & brains > > Having been ridden hard by one of these memes I can tell you that > > there are > > cases where **being highly intelligent only makes you more vunerable**. I'll second that. My sister in law's a genius - literally - and she's been a hardcore fundie for years. She also might be mildly autistic, but we're not sure. But we love her... and she may be having a book pubslished soon for the christian teen market, and that's better than my track record, so who am I to say aught? Did I just say that? J. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of ialdaloboth *genzundheit!* [ialdaloboth@hotmail.com] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 8:51 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] "I was a teenage demiurge" (was LOTR, Totalitarianism etc.... > > There are plenty of folks stateside who mix Lovecraft with their >Satanism > > for effect. I've met people who think those paperback copies of the > > Necronomicon are the real deal, and act on it. >I've read people who have written seriously of having success in their >invocations regarding Cthulhu and other Lovecraftian entities. I cannot >understand it unless they are approaching this completely from the >perspective of "human minds need human creations to understand the forces >they are dealing with. Well, there's a few possibilities, here: 1) They're full of shit. Occam's Razor and all that. 2) They saw something that their minds interpreted to be you-know-what, because it's one of those things that people can only see through the mirror of their minds' eye. It looks like what you think it should look like. 3) The thing took that shape to pull a fast one on the person (spirits can be assholes, too. Look at all the ones claiming to be Elvis) 4) There is the theory that collective or powerful belief can bring things into being that weren't there before, or else give them a face we can interract with. In that sense, we make gods instead of their making us. So have these fools created Cthulhu? "I was a teenage demiurge?" In all things magical, belief is king. If you really, truly believe that the paperback copy of the Necronomicon is the real deal, you can get it to work. Magic is just belief turned into reality. Any belief at all. But when it comes to saying "WTF was that?" there's at best only guesswork to go by. Get ten willworkers who don't work with one another on a regular basis in a room to do something, and if you're lucky there'll be a little consensus on what they saw. If you're not lucky, you'll have a punch-up. The best that can be said is that "we saw SOMETHING, but no one's quite sure of one another's interpretations - only our own." That's one of the things I liked about Grant Morrison's "invisibles": the characters were all seeing the same thing, but interpreting it in different ways. The blueish-silver spacetime fluid was one thing to the Brazillian shaman, another thing to the witch doctor, something else to someone else. But yet they could all get past their interpretations to work together. Rant rant rant. i got a chapter to write, here. J. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Jeff Ewing [ambjpe@gis.net] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 10:10 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: LOTR On Sat, 17 Nov 2001 11:59:34 -0000, Andy Robertson wrote: >LORD OF THE RINGS? > >You can't dodge it. > >Not superficially Lovecraftian, no. But . . . I mean, it's a >myth, >nearly a religion for our time. And you wait till the films come >out. > >Well, what do people think? LOTR: A tale deeply imbued with the impending Second World War. Potter: Written before Sept. 11, natch, but isn't it rather eerily *relevant*? The hidden enemy who strikes by proxy, killing families without compunction in order to advance his goals? A tale for the "first war of the 21st century." -- Jeff Ewing, ambjpe@gis.net on 11/17/2001 _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Dave Farnell [superdave@jcom.home.ne.jp] Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2001 10:27 PM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: LOTR From: "Jeff Ewing" > Potter: Written before Sept. 11, natch, but isn't it rather eerily > *relevant*? The hidden enemy who strikes by proxy, killing families > without compunction in order to advance his goals? A tale for the > "first war of the 21st century." Particularly the 4th book, which ends with a strong feeling of "This is it: the big moment. We've got to pull together, and anyone not actively on the side of Good is at least tacitly on the side of Evil." All pre-echoing 9-11 in a really spooky way. Since the 5th book will be written post-9-11, I expect things will be quite dark. Dave _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Gil Trevizo [furrylogic@mindspring.com] Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2001 2:48 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: Religion & brains At 08:35 PM 11/17/01 +0000, Andy Robertson wrote: >But I counted myslf a "born again" Christian for seven years and would >probably have upped sticks and gone to the US or anywhere else if I'd been >convinced that it was what God wanted me to do. > >Having been ridden hard by one of these memes I can tell you that there are >cases where **being highly intelligent only makes you more vunerable**. God, there are days when I would love to be ridden hard by one of those memes.... that came off sounding a lot dirtier than I intended. I almost died last month. Okay, it never really came to that, but I required pretty safe surgery that had a good chance of requiring a very dangerous surgery. But I took the tube, so they never had to cut my neck open. Still, I learned that I was gonna get this surgery about an hour before it actually happened. So I got to spend one hour in a depressing little hospital room contemplating that it might be the last hour I had. Ever. Luckily, I had my wife with me for that one hour, so I never really had to wonder if my life was a failure. I met and married someone that I love with all my heart and that does the same for me. As far as I'm concerned, I am complete. But even though I felt complete, I didn't know if I had fulfilled my potential - if there was something I should've done. I am an atheist. I had no epiphany that there are no gods or any gradual erosion of faith so much as an understanding that I had been going through the motions all my life. It's not really that I don't believe in God or religion as much as it is that I have no faith - or at least not the kind required for religious belief. But damn I understand now how powerful that belief can be, and there were several times during that hour that I wish I had that faith. My wife is Lutheran and I can see the strength it gave her that this would not all be over, that what we had would continue into an afterlife. But I didn't have that - I put my faith into "living in the moment" and now it was time to put up or shut up. It was rough. Still, my faith, or more appropriately lack of it, remained true during that hour. It was only afterwards, laid up in a bed with a tube stuck down my throat, wigged out on morphine that just wasn't working, that I had long barter sessions with God. "Give me one hour of true complete rest, and I swear to you, I'll give Mass another try." But when the hour was up and the anethesiologist brought the mask down to put me out - when the rest of my life might have been counted in seconds - it was easy to say "Aw well, I had a good run" and just let fate take its course. When it was all pain and living though, that's when it got hard and I actually called out to Jehovah. Simply put: It's easy to die - you don't need much for that. It's a pain in the ass to live - and it's there where covenants with supreme beings can be a real plus. And that is why religion will be no defense during the Endtimes. Just as the old religions got tossed aside during the Dark Ages as they provided little comfort while Christianity offered some succor (when the barbarians are coming to murder you, pillage your land, and rape your daughters, which would you feel better ending up - the cold sterile afterlife of Romans or the Heaven of the Christians?), the old religions will be tossed aside while the cults will gorge with new members. Sure we're all gonna end up as Cthulhu-snacks at crunch time, but death is easy and life until then will be a lot less painless for the cultists than it will be for those that remain Mythos-defiant. We don't need gods to deliver us from evil or even from death. We need gods to deliver us from pain. Gil _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Jim Clunie [jim_clunie@hotmail.com] Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2001 8:51 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: [DG] Flight 587 damage I've just been reading some details of the investigation into the crash on Monday. There seems to be some question, to say the least, about how it came to fall apart in mid-air. If it was Perth Airport, I'd have no hesitation: flying polyp. But it's a fair way from Western Australia to New York State. Maybe Project Gabriel's low-frequency sonic beam? http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,3252032%255E401,00.html THE pilot of flight 587 complained of massive turbulence just minutes before his plane plunged into a New York suburb. But investigators are still baffled about what caused the American Airlines Airbus to fall apart just after takeoff on Monday, killing up to 263 people. They say there seems to be nothing wrong with either engine. And they have ruled out the theory a flock of birds brought down the plane. .. National Transportation Safety Board member George Black said the plane's massive frame made a noticeable rattling noise that was caught on the recorder. At the 114-second mark, Mr Black said, the flight crew complained of a "wake encounter". Seven seconds later another rattle was heard. At 127 seconds, the pilots said there was a loss of all power. On the ground, people heard what they thought was a sonic boom as the engines roared. The No. 1 engine eventually crashed into a boat in a back yard while the No. 2 engine - which was due for a 10,000 hour overhaul - hit a nearby Texaco service station. The tail fin broke away and sank in Jamaica Bay. .. Investigators will now match the voice recorder to a second black box -- the instrument data recorder -- to see if they can shed any light on why an apparently perfectly sound plane fell out of the sky. Chief investigator Marion Blakey, head of the National Transportation and Safety Board, said nothing had been found to indicate the destruction of flight 587 was anything other than a plane falling apart. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of trueprophet@talk21.com Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2001 3:36 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: RE: [DG] Re: Religion & brains The one thing which really stings me about Christianity in particular is the incredible arrogance of it. God made us in his own image, God looks like us, God is male, God is human, we are the dominant species because of this. I'm thinking it'd be a lot funnier if God was a dolphin. Voidchaser, Athiest And Proud Of It. "God? Are you there?" "SCREE! CRRRRK CRRRK!" "wtf?!" (You know why *they* felt it necessary to silence Douglas Adams, right?) > > I'm a Cthulhuvian. :-) > > Jokes apart, I am an athiest. I didn't gradually gain and lose > my religious > faith in any default unconscious way. I adopted it after considering it > very carefully for a long time, tried hard to live by it, and dropped it > only when it drove me nuts. I take things far too seriously. > >That is the thinking man's dilema. Started a new job recently in my same >company. The system must have been setup by Machiavelli after an extended >BDSM session with de Sade. I'm driving the people nuts because they keep >giving me low-level explanations of tasks and I keep asking for overviews. >Instead of starting with an overview of what our goals for the department >are, what the tasks are, breaking it down like that, they just start out in >the middle of everything. I'm keeping my mouth shut when I see them doing >things in obviously stupid ways but it's tough. Just imagine this: we print >reports from the as/400 to then manually enter into excel spreadsheets to >run calculations on to then print out the spreadsheets to reenter into the >system. Uck. You can imagine the rest from there. If I were a drone I'd just >memorize the patterns they teach and would be great at my job. Since I am >not a drone I need to understand what they're showing me before I can learn >it. > >Where am I going with this? A lot of people grow up with their religion >because it is their religion but they do not think. You ever really think >about the implication of "flesh and blood of christ?" when communion is >given? We're talking cannibalism of God. It's really quite sick. I'm >surprised we have not yet seen cults who have tried to get back to the roots >of communion with "Lambs of God" culled from their own ranks. > >Most people are content to go church, sing and nod, not really understand >the actions they're taking, the motions they're going through. Their faith >is little more than custom. > >There are other questions with no good answers. "How did Noah get all the >animals of the world into the ark? How did he get every beetle, every ant, >etc? what about the new world?" There are also more fundamental questions >such as "If Jesus died for our sins because no one could get to heaven under >the old system, what about the people who died before Jesus? Are we to >believe that Moses is in Hell because no one had ever lived a perfect life >before Jesus?" The best answer I get on that one is "Well I'm sure that God >would--" and I have to say "Stop. Is it in the Bible? No? Then it's >supposition and you are inventing additions to your faith." Another good >question is "What about the people in the new world? Jesus did not appear to >the Indians, the Chinese, etc, so are they to be damned to hell when they >did not ever have a chance to recieve the word? How about the Indians after >the spaniards came. They had the worst introduction to the religion >imaginable. Can you hold their disbelief against them?" > >That's why I am agnostic. I have an inexplicable belief that there is >something greater than us out there but I am at a loss to explain anything >about it. I just feel that any human religion has gotten it wrong. > >_______________________________________ >The Delta Green Mailing List >http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ -------------------- talk21 your FREE portable and private address on the net at http://www.talk21.com _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/ From: owner-deltagreen@revolutionsf.com on behalf of Andy Robertson [andywrobertson@clara.co.uk] Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2001 3:18 AM To: deltagreen@revolutionsf.com Subject: Re: [DG] Re: Religion & brains ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gil Trevizo" > > I almost died last month. Okay, it never really came to that, but I > required pretty safe surgery that had a good chance of requiring a very > dangerous surgery. But I took the tube, so they never had to cut my neck > open. Thanks for sharing. I had (much less dangerous) surgery a while back. The oddest thing was the extinction of time. It's not like sleep, when you are somewhere. Time just jumps straight from you taking the gas to you waking up. ObDG. The use of drugs, anaesthetics, electrical stimulation, etc. in exploring the dreamlands. Obvious but underexploited. > Luckily, I had my wife with me for that one hour, so I never really had to > wonder if my life was a failure. I met and married someone that I love > with all my heart and that does the same for me. As far as I'm concerned, > I am complete. Amen. But you know, in my case, *she* died. My darling. My wife. I often feel I'm in a sort of after-life already: only half alive. > > Simply put: It's easy to die - you don't need much for that. It's a pain > in the ass to live - and it's there where covenants with supreme beings can > be a real plus. > > And that is why religion will be no defense during the Endtimes. Just as > the old religions got tossed aside during the Dark Ages as they provided > little comfort while Christianity offered some succor (when the barbarians > are coming to murder you, pillage your land, and rape your daughters, which > would you feel better ending up - the cold sterile afterlife of Romans or > the Heaven of the Christians?), the old religions will be tossed aside > while the cults will gorge with new members. Sure we're all gonna end up > as Cthulhu-snacks at crunch time, but death is easy and life until then > will be a lot less painless for the cultists than it will be for those that > remain Mythos-defiant. We don't need gods to deliver us from evil or even > from death. We need gods to deliver us from pain. Makes sense. At the moment I am in the reverse situation. My life is physically easy and painless. I find I am actively seeking things to fight, to fear, to give me a meaning equivalent to the emotional depth I lost. I have always been a bit that way which is maybe why I am vunerable to religious memes. But come he Endtimes and real agony I will probably be up there on the hills praying to Elbereth. The Glove Cleaner _______________________________________ The Delta Green Mailing List http://www.delta-green.com/comint/dgml/