Religious scriptures can contain some mention of facts, but usually they seem to be on the order of say the mention of the Kennedy assassination in the Illuminatus! triology of Shea & Wilson, where there is quite a lot of mention of historical people in an otherwise unbelievable story. There is more historical information available for Pontius Pilate than for Jesus. JR's view of the world does not seem to rest much on factual data, and seems to lack an underpinning of basic logic. Religious scriptures and apologetics basically just want to convince you of something, and there is nothing I see wrong in that, but buyer beware. Our societies tend not to give us the tools to think critically. The Netherlands has been a place where free thinking has had a better hold than in most, but I am ignorant of how well that is holding up currently.
I don't remember the pink box in Buckaroo Banzai, but it has been years and years since I saw that film. One year, probably in the min-1980s, I was talking to my sister on the phone. She was travelling and in a motel or hotel somewhere, and she said 'I am watching the strangest movie I have ever seen'; after a few questions I was able determine she was watching Buckaroo Banzai. You had to have lived in the late 40s and early 50s to get some of the things in that film, such as the relationship of comic books to characters actors played in films and on TV, especially because some of the actors played themselves in the films, like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry etc. I had been watching a laid back modern-day western on Netflix that was cancelled by AMC: Longmire. Peter Weller had been in it occasionally and directing some episodes. Netflix has picked it up to produce an additional season, so perhaps Weller will get to direct some more episodes. Still snow on the ground here. Went to a Connecticut mall this morning to walk around as the trails here are muck for a while as the snow and ice melt away. Usually I make my own coffee, but I had some at Starbucks, which is about the only thing around here. There is one good small non-Starbucks coffee shop I am aware of, but it is normally too far to drive (57km round trip). ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : I am aware of the problems with establishing the historical existence of many religious figures, Xeno, but that isn't what I was getting at with JR. I have noticed in him a tendency that I doubt he is aware of -- or, if he is, he probably sees nothing wrong with. When claiming to believe in the existence of Krishna or similar figures from religious myth here in the past, he has cited as proof "scriptures" such as the Gita. Bzzzzzzt. Thanks for playing, but no win. Religious scriptures are NOT factual, no matter how many people believe they are. Scholars often don't even know the *century* many of them were written in, much less who wrote them. Best to consider them creative fiction written with the intent to inspire IMO. The only *other* mechanism by which JR can claim to have "done research" on the question of whether someone like Krishna existed in real life or not is "seeing" -- meaning some kind of subjective realization or vision or intuition. While I admit that such things exist -- subjectively -- I do NOT admit that any of these "seeings" have anything to do with fact. If they did, more people who claim to be able to see the future would be millionaires. :-) I was just hoping to see JR try to actually posit and then defend some mechanism by which he thinks "proof" could be offered of Krishna's existence. If he actually tried, it might wake him up to the fact that the only reason he *does* believe in such silliness is that someone he holds as an "authority" said so. In other words, his only "proof" is the word "Maharishisez." Now, as for Schroedinger's cat, I for one have no problem with someone being both alive and dead at the same time. Just look at Keith Richards -- the guy has looked like death on a stick since the 1960s, yet he still manages to tour and play some pretty good guitar. If that's not an example of Schroedinger's paradox, I don't know what is. :-) As for the answer to "What's in the big pink box, man?" that is as much of a koan as it was when posed in the movie "Buckaroo Banzai." Me, I kinda doubt it's enlightenment. :-)
