Interstellar Communication Difficulties

[Jim Strong]

--- blacky@cbn.net.id wrote:
> I sorta regret opening my big yap and getting
> dragged into this no-win exchange. But having 
> dropped in for a chat I guess I should rise to the
> bait.
===============
     bravo

jim

 
> It's a pretty thankless task to approach these
> topics, particularly with
> an elderly citizen whose Mind Was Made Up long ago,
> and for whom Common
> Sense Lords Above All.
> 
> Like reincarnation. You either subscribe or you
> don't. As far as I m
> concerned, as a reasonably well-education white
> Western male, there is
> nothing in Buddhist or Hindu theory that is not in
> accord with
> contemporary Western scientific thought. Ever heerda
> "The Tao of Physics"
> or a load of those other attempts to cross cultures?
> 
> I think Jon may have tipped his hand with the pithy
> "Buddhist mumbo-jumbo"
> observation. Hey, Hinduism and Buddhism (not to
> mention the Tao) can pull
> rank on your desert religions in terms of history
> and culture. Long before
> the desert religionists (I lump together the Xtians,
> Jews and Muslims,
> along with their co-religionists the Zoroastrians
> and all the other
> tutti-frutti of Middle Eastern religions "borrowing"
> doctrine from each
> other round then) were running around burning bulls
> and bushes there was a
> whole cosmology / scientific apparatus going. As in
> several thousand years
> longer.
> 
> Why should reincarnation be any zanier than "this is
> my blood - drink it"
> or the customs of the Hasidim wearing their Abraham
> Lincoln drag in lower
> Manhattan?
> 
> Just how it comes to pass, whether you choose or are
> chosen, how it is
> possible to remember (even in fleeting fragments) --
> that is a much
> murkier matter. Having practiced Eastern spiritual
> discipline (somewhat
> half-heartedly, I will confess) for 35 years, I have
> experienced a
> pervasive influence on my world outlook.
> 
> Everybody tries to explain life around him or her on
> the basis of what
> they learn. That's all I was suggesting. And the
> idea of attraction (or
> repulsion, as negative attraction) influencing
> rebirth.
> 
> I did pick on a sore point, though. Just goes to
> show that you can't deal
> with Middle East political and military excitement
> without risking being
> drawn into the vortex. Ah.
> 
> Parenthetically, Ed Lacey, the Canadian poet and UT
> Grad Student in
> Linguistics I've referred to here before upon
> occasion, had a novel and
> intriguing notion about the "Jewish homeland". He
> thought that they should
> have been awarded Bavaria. Kind of cute, doncha
> think? But of course
> everybody lays claim to the same territory --
> otherwise it's no fun.
> 
> Here's Ed's poem (cut and pasted, from THIRD WORLD,
> the book of travel
> poetry I edited) on the subject:
> 
> Dome of the Rock
> 
> God was not love or law,
> God was the blood I saw,
> the ever-flowing blood
> staining water and sod.
> Irving Layton, "Orpheus"
> 
> Below, the Jews rock at their Wailing Wall:
> the dark, stiff-bearded, proud Hassidic Jews;
> tourist Jews in hot shirts and paper beanies;
> survivors, both? Perhaps. They nod and pray
> while an old Pole rains down death on Arab towns
> in their name, death on Arab cities like the one
> that spreads its tentacles of shop, dark alley
> and hate around them here, through which they wend
> to prayer, uncomprehending, as before.
> Pauvre peuple maudit. From having been
> prisoners of mellah and ghetto, to become
> colons in their own country, which they know
> will vanish like the others - Maccabees,
> Hasmoneans, Herodians, Crusaders.
> The Chosen People - of what mocking God?
> Here above, on this mound they cannot enter,
> where Solomon and Herod built their temples,
> which foreigners destroyed, where the Holy of Holies
> lies forever hidden, inexcavable,
> rude Arab guards shout at Gentile sightseers
> strolling among stiff cypresses and cedars:
> No entrance here! No shoes! No immodest dress
> Religion's endless litany of "no's."
> There is the Golden Gate, where Jesus entered
> the city on his donkey, Eternal Ass,
> but you cannot approach, follow his steps;
> the Arabs have blocked it up, for Jewish legend
> says the Messiah will enter here, and they
> want nothing of Him: they await the Mahdi.
> (Although these walls are not Herodian, anyhow;
> they were built by Suleiman the Magnificent,
> a Turk, in the sixteenth century). That dome
> of silver is El Aqsa, the Western Mosque,
> westernmost point of all Muhammad's wanderings
> (physical and mental ones, for he flew here).
> Built by Ommayyads, made a church by Crusaders,
> restored by Saladin (a Kurd),
> set on fire by an Australian (or was he Jordanian?
> - identities soon blur in the Middle East)
> twelve years ago. A guide will show the spot
> where a Palestinian gunned down King Abdallah
> as he left his Friday prayers, thirty years ago.
> Thirty years? Thirty centuries of hate! Below,
> the Jews stick messages to God in crannies
> of their Wall (all they have left), mumble and nod.
> Black suits, white shawls, skull-caps. The Arab
> merchants,
> defying Shabbat, wearing other kinds
> of skull-caps, or keffiyehs, work the tourists
> from those dark shops where they sprawl and smile
> and bargain
> and hate all day, moving like snakes, to strike.
> Arab women in the rich, red embroidery
> of Guatemalan Indians squat, sell their wares.
> The enemy? What if the enemy
> is oneself? One's own self-doubt? One's masochism,
> or a guilty conscience? (Didn't that concept
> arise with this Chosen People, anyway?)
> Down by the gate where Stephen, first Christian
> martyr,
> was stoned to death, Arab children celebrate
> Id-El-Fitr, in their new clothes, eating felaffel,
> riding donkeys, mounting wooden ferris-wheels
> spun by two brawny men, shrieking with delight
> as the wheel rises five metres: these belong.
> This is their land, their home, their festival.
> No one can take it from them. The Other People
> come from everywhere and nowhere. Where is here?
> They have no answer, self-fulfilling prophets,
> knowing what's taken must be given back,
> a paranoid people, always remembering
> Ahab and Naboth's vineyard and Elijah,
> and the dogs shall lick the blood of Jezabel.
> Approach the dome of gold now, with its blue
> and green faïence tiles, given by King Hussein;
> geometric lozenges, and an endless ribbon
> of calligraphy proclaiming God is Great
> and Beautiful and Only and Supreme.
> Enter, and in the darkness you'll behold,
> looming up craggily, the rock.
> The peek of Mount Moriah. The first land
> to emerge from primal seas, when God's hand pointed;
> and it will be the last, legend says, to sink
> in the final fire; that chain hanging from the dome
> points down to the exact centre of the earth
> (as all chains do - but let us not be quibblers).
> This the mountaintop where Abraham
> lured Isaac (Muslims say it was Ishmael,
> and Samaritans - who still exist - insist
> it's a different mountain), his best-loved son,
> to sacrifice him blindly to an angry
> God in a burning bush. That God was pleased
> by His servant's obedience, stayed his hand, sent an
> angel,
> and placed a sheep conveniently nearby,
> in a thicket's completely irrelevant
> to the fact that blood was spilt to please a God
> innocent blood was spilled on the Holy Rock
> to please a primitive God that lives on blood.
> Abraham, father of three religions,
> all drenched in blood. In a few weeks, the Muslims
> will celebrate the feast of the Sacrifice.
> Already they are fattening sheep; each family
> (even those living in apartment houses;
> the sound of baaing fills the quiet nights)
> has a pet ram now that is fed and coddled,
> paraded by proud children on daily walks,
> with its fat tail, pink ribbon and pink paint mark.
> It thinks it's loved, and it responds with love,
> 
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