SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2023
MUSIC / ROCK AND ROLL / LED ZEPPELIN
So a bunch of kids get together to play one of their favorite Led Zeppelin songs, known as "The Ocean". Yes, these youngster are THAT talented, and do an absolutely amazing job covering this tune!
THIS IS MUST SEE TV! You'll love it.
SUNDAY, APRIL 23, 2023
CHRISTIANITY / ANGLICAN / GAFCON
Well, they did it. GAFCON is the splinter group that broke from the worldwide Anglican Communion, also know as the Church of England ( C of E ). They recently held their international conference in Kigali, Rwanda.
Right from the start, they called the Archbishop of Canterbury to REPENT for his "blessing" of same-sex unions, which is blatantly un-Christian, illogical, and idiotic. The LGBT virus has infected every institution in the world, including the Anglican Church. For those who are not under the sway of the Gay Mafia, the capitulation of Christian leaders to the gay agenda is mind numbing. Might as well give the green light to pedophiles and beastiality while you're at it.
Basically, GAFCON has now officially broken-off from the Church of England, and is providing a refuge for all Anglicans who are sick and tired of the LGBT agenda being shoved down their throats at every turn. This is a major event that the entire news media is completely ignoring, and for good reason: the global news media complex are all cheering on the LGBT movement, with a few notable exceptions. They will never air anything the least bit critical of gays. Not going to happen.
This is very good news for all Christians who are tired of their churches and leadership being co-opted by LGBT. Thanks mainly to the African contingent in GAFCON, there will never be any LGBT infiltration into this new denomination, as they all know what tremendous evil and heresy is involved with that movement. It's a sad day when Africans are far more civilized and rational than the European Christians who evangelized them. But so it is.
May God greatly bless GAFCON and all the Anglicans who are gathering under this new movement.
SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2023
RECIPES / ASIAN / CHINESE / BEEF
The newest recipe from Mandy at "Souped up Recipes". As soon as I saw this, I had to make it myself, and did so. It really tastes wonderful!
I substituted regular button mushrooms for the fancy ones Mandy uses, sliced thin, and cut my onions into much smaller strips than the large "scoops" that Mandy uses, and cooked them both until the mushrooms and onions caramelized. For the beef, I used flank steak and prepped it and cooked it almost exactly as Mandy recommends.
The biggest difference: I used the carbon-steel wok that Mandy sells to prep everything! Her wok is fantastic! I've even purchased it for other friends and relatives. For an oil-fried dish like this, a wok is actually the better way to go.
After everything was cooked, I served it over Jasmine rice. It was really good! But I do recommend cutting the amount of pepper used by half.
SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2023
DEATH / HOSPICE CARE / PHENOMENA
Is there life after death? Well, there is one profession where almost everyone believes in life after death, and no, it's not Christian ministers or pastors, it's nurses--especially nurses who work in hospice care.
In this short video, Nurse Julie tells us about the many things she and other nurses have seen during the end of a person's life. Well worth taking the time to watch.
SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2023
PHOTOS / THE SKY
Took this photo a few days ago in an industrial park. Love those clouds! Nice of a jet plane to show up right when I snapped the shutter.
SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2023
HISTORY / NATURE / MEGAFAUNA EXTINCTION
The most amazing and incredible mystery is the megafauna extinction that has been going on for the best 50,000 years or so, especially about 15,000 - 5,000 years ago. All sorts of amazing animals that once were all vanished: cave bears, dire wolves, woolly mammoths, giant sloths, elephant birds, and lots of other amazing creatures.
In this video, Ross MacPhee talks about possible reasons for the extinction of the megafauna. Must see TV!
FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 2023
MODEL TRAINS / GARDEN RAILWAYS / BRITISH NARROW GAUGE
This video is from a show featuring "16mm" British narrow gauge model trains. Notice how MOST of the trains are using real steam engines! Also notice the use of real plants and trees in some of these layouts.
While this exhibition was indoors, most British 16mm narrow gauge train modelers have their layouts outside in their gardens! Hence the layouts that use real plants and trees. It has been very common, for a very long time, for Europeans to have train layout outdoors in their gardens. The trains they use are of course much bigger than the HO trains common in the US, normally being "O" scale or much larger. And the use of real steam engines is very common, in that it's much easier just to use real steam engines that run the electric needed to run a typical model railroad, though there are plenty of outdoor layouts that use weather-proof wiring for the trains.
Absolutely amazing!
SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 2023
PHILOSOPHY / CONSCIOUSNESS
For some odd reason, philosophers love to talk endlessly about "the problem of consciousness", as if it were a problem. That we are conscious beings seems to be beyond dispute, but why we are conscious certainly is not.
Do realize that the only philosophers who have a problem with consciousness are materialists. The reason they have a problem is that that materialism, as an ideology, is woefully inadequate to explain anything other than that there are things that can be measured and observed. Hence, materialism is always incapable of asking the hard "why is this so?" questions, because it excludes them from consideration. Consciousness is a real problem for them, because their ideology is literally incapable of explaining why it is. Then again, their ideology is incapable of explaining the why of absolutely anything that exists, so this should not be surprising.
I'm not a materialist. I find the ideology to be incredibly stupid. If I were to label myself, it would be a familian informationalist. What does that mean? Let me break it down:
FAMILIAN = from the Latin familia, where we get the word family. It means that I view families as being the utmost in importance in regards to human flourishing.
INFORMATIONALIST = Regarding information. The world is not made up primarily of material, it's primarily made up of information. As a matter of fact, it's made up almost entirely of information. An informationalist is one who believes that the primary building blocks of all reality is information.
So what does a familian informationalist believe regarding consciousness? Consciousness is the filter between everything that is out there in the world, and everything that exists in the inner world.
The outer world is all that information that we take in via the five senses: taste, touch, smell, hearing and seeing.
The inner world is all that information that we store internally, and retrieve via intuition, pattern matching, and various other strategies. The method used most often is just simple pattern matching.
How does this work? We see in the neighbor's yard a nice friendly animal, with four legs, a wagging tail, that makes a barking noise. We literally take that animal's essence into ourselves via the the filter of consciousness. Once the essence is inside, we take and compare the essence of that animal with our storehouse of animal essences (information) until we find a match. Once we find a match, we decide that there is a black labrador retriever in the neighbor's yard.
Here's the problem for materialists: , unlike dogs, the consciousness cannot be seen, felt or measured. You can't take a ruler or scale and figure out how big it is, or how much it weighs. And yet, it's certainly there alright, as it seems most everyone has the attributes of being conscious.
If you are looking for a material cause for consciousness, you are already zooming down the wrong track, as the consciousness is not a material thing: it is spirit, and it exists because we spiritual beings inhabiting a material body. The informational evidence for this is overwhelming, and unremarkable.
Hence consciousness is just an intake and filtering mechanism that takes all the input from the world "out there" and brings it into your "inner world"-- that space that only you have access to, no one else.
How well a person deals with the world, and their place in the world is very much dependent on the development of their consciousness. While everyone has consciousness, the quality of consciousness varies widely between individuals. That is why education is so crucial for human development, as it can be used to shape consciousness it make it far more efficient and effective at living life. If education becomes corrupted, or has corrupted elements in it, then a person's consciousness will suffer as a result.
So consciousness is not just a fixed filter, it's adaptable and changeable to a certain degree. And it is changed and molded by the information it takes in from the outer world. The conscious is capable of learning. Through effective learning, a conscious being can improvise, adapt and overcome a multitude of situations.
The real "problem of consciousness" is not why or how it exists, but rather how to we best train and educate our consciousness to become the best possible version of ourselves.
Yet there are fixed constants ingrained into consciousness that cannot be changed, no matter what. There are core attributes that are immutable, and it's of critical importance to understand what those immutable attributes are, because attempting to change something unchangeable will result in horrific levels of frustration, distress, pain and suffering, all of which are quite unnecessary.
So what are the attributes of consciousness that are immutable? Here are just a few significant ones:
The education of an individual must take into account those aspects of consciousness that are immutable, and strengthen them rather than cripple or hamper them. Of course individuals will have their own personal set of immutable attributes that exist in addition to those that are common to all, as that's what makes humans such an interesting creation.
- Pseudo Boethius
SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 2023
JORDAN PETERSON / CHRISTIANITY / LATIN MASS
It seems that Jordan Peterson was spotted attending a traditional Latin Mass. According to what I've been able to find out, it was at the Oxford Oratory in London.
Does this mean Jordan Peterson is a Catholic, and that he's a supporter of the Traditional Latin Mass? I have no idea. But, if I were Jordan Peterson, I would certainly be attending Latin Mass, as it fits perfectly into his psychological and philosophical ideals. There is a tremendous sense of history, spirituality, mystery and reverence in the old style mass.
Strange but true: Jordan Peterson is, by far, the most successful and well known Christian evangelist in the world today, even though he's not quite a Christian! How can this be? Well, whether or not he's a Christian, he does fully understand the importance of the bible, symbolism and tradition. Because of that, the denomination that has benefited the most from his talks and lectures has been the Catholic Church.
Here is a video clip of a testimony of a young man who embraced Catholicism as a direct result of listening to Jordan Peterson.
SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 2023
RECIPES / CHICKEN / CHICKEN PARMESAN
Saw this recipe come across my YouTube feed, and I knew I had to make it. It was AMAZING. Really nice and crispy chicken. You don't even need the sauce and cheese, the breaded chicken cutlets would be fine all by themselves!
The simple sauce Ashley makes using canned tomatoes was very tasty. As a matter of fact, it was so good that I cooked up a batch of fresh linguine and used the sauce for the noodles. It was wonderful!
Highly recommended.