Truth Seeking Pluralist

[The graphic used for this post is of the cover of the book “Anti-Semitism” by R. B. Thieme, Jr. which represents the views and beliefs I had on the Jewish Question that I learned from his teaching during the time I was one of his devout followers. I claim fair use of this image.] [Preliminary comment about the God Virus theory of Dr. Darrel Ray. I have written about Dr. Ray’s work in previous blog posts. I have found his God Virus theory explained in his book to be very helpful to me. You know how fundamentalist Christians will often say something like, “we don’t hate the sinner, we hate the sin.”? Well, I can now say or think an analogous thing when I reflect back on spiritual leaders and teachers who indoctrinated me with wacky ideas that have taken me a lifetime to unravel. It is harder to have anger and bitterness toward them when you realize that they are just vectors for a virus that they had themselves been severely infected with. So I think the God Virus theory is goo...

Belief systems (many of which are religious) motivating conversion, worship, and practice based on extreme views on both rewards (prosperity in this life and/or beyond such as heaven) and threatenings of punishment (suffering in this life and/or beyond such as eternal-conscious-torment-in-hell) can be hazardous to your health. TRAGIC CONSEQUENCES OF MALIGNANT BELIEFS BEG FOR BENIGN ALTERNATIVES Beliefs can lead to actions, some good and some bad. It is important to scrutinize beliefs and systems of belief. If beliefs can be shown to be likely false, then an important part of seeking truth can also be determining those which are false. A truth movement also needs a falsification movement. I was formerly a hard core fundamentalist Christian of a certain evangelical, dispensationalist, Zionist flavor. That was my belief system. I am going to explain some particular beliefs within my former belief system and give two real life examples of how those beliefs led some peo...

Those who knew and flew with my dad during his 60 + year flying career should especially appreciate this article from over 70 years ago. Flying Taught Here In From 8 To 12 Hours (San Jose News 1945) (from personally scanned newspaper clipping) Flying instruction is now available to civilians at Orcutt’s Flight Service at Reid’s Hillview Air Field, East of San Jose. Don and Harold Orcutt, operators of the Service, report that it takes less than a dozen hours of instruction to learn to solo and costs a little  over $100.  Shown above, left to right, are Don Orcutt and Bill Hightower, student pilot; Harold Orcutt Jr., in the cockpit, and Harold Orcutt Sr., spinning the propeller on the plane in the foreground. --- San Jose News photo. By PATRICIA LOOMIS It takes only 8 to 12 hours to learn to fly. Some 30 flying students are now receiving flying instructions at Orcutt’s Flight Service School, Reid’s Hillview Air Field, on the east side of S...

How a flat earth 400 m running track would layout over actual San Jose CA Lynbrook High track Here are two 400 meter track traces laid out over the Lynbrook High School track in San Jose, CA, one according to spherical earth surface geometry, and the other according to flat circular disk earth geometry, which is shifted slightly to the west (i.e. left) to make it easier to distinguish between the two for comparison purposes. It is worth pointing out that there are two ways to compare spherical to flat geometry that should be distinguished to avoid confusion. Two blog posts ago where I first introduced walking a track and taking GPS data where I did this at Prospect High School, I showed how the actual GPS trace coincided accurately with the real map of the track and I will further note here that 5.58 km/12 = 465 m/lap is reasonably close to what would be expected for the 8 th lane based on a quick web search for that information which gave 454 m/lap. And if you keep the...

These are actual traces of what properly proportioned 400 m tracks laid out in Santiago Chile according to flat earth circular disk geometry would look like compared to an actual existing properly proportioned track there at Escuela PDI. Three flat earth geometry tracings of properly proportioned 400 meter tracks overlaying actual 400 meter track in Santiago Chile, one tracing with long dimension running north south and two with long dimension running east west. The flat earth trace with the long dimension running north south exhibits the proportion similar to that of a cigar, whereas the two flat earth traces with long dimensions running east west exhibit the proportions of a pill box. The Excel file with these traces is documented here. ChileLeftRightShaftV2Vis       Excel file https://www.scribd.com/document/366968591/Chile-Left-Right-Shaft-v-2-Vis This graphically illustrates the gross distortions in dimensions that occur in the...