“Judgment Day” is May 21, 2011

Well I want to pass on, and I have it on good authority, that the world is going to start to end on Saturday, May 21st, according to Family Radio Worldwide and a number of religious believers. This ubiquitous prophecy that is posted on more than 5,000 billboards, posters, fliers and digital bus displays across the country. “Family Radio,” based in Oakland, Calif., is a nonprofit evangelical Christian group that has declared May 21, 2011, as the day of Armageddon. It has been funding the campaign to spread the word through an outreach program it calls "Project Caravan." Tom Evans, a spokesman for Family Radio, said the doomsday date is based on a complicated reading of the Bible and calculations that stem from the "7,000 year anniversary of the flood."

Family Radio also predicts massive earthquakes will strike all over the world on May 21, 2011 to herald the second coming of Jesus Christ. How do these Ultra Right Conservative Christians come to this date…..Because the Bible is written in CODE and Harold Camping has broken this CODE.

The thousands of billboards and fliers are Family Radio's way of blowing the trumpet. The radio network, which has 66 stations in the United States, is headed by Harold Camping.

A former civil engineer turned radio host, Camping, 89, is the president of Family Radio and is touring the country to spread his message of impending doom. It has been funding the campaign to spread the word through an outreach program it calls "Project Caravan."

Members of his fundamentalist flock show up to his presentations sporting yellow T-shirts, cheerfully disseminating word that the “Rapture” is almost here. The signs on their RVs proclaim, "Have you heard the awesome news? The End of the World is almost here."

Tom Evans said, “Camping and his followers believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. It is a manifestation of God's word." (OK….?)

While Family Radio says it has faith in the Bible, it has no use for organized religion and believes Catholics and Protestants, among others, have corrupted the word of God.
"If you're a Christian, you know that God does not elevate any man above any other man," Evans said.

Now one LITTLE draw back in the group's campaign is that Camping has predicted the end of the world before: in 1994, but Evans said, “Camping was thrown off a correct calculation because of some verses in Matthew 24." So when 1994 came and went, Camping headed back to the drawing board and came up with May 21.

So to all of my readers, I’m sure he got it right this time. (Yea Right)

So remember “Judgment Day” is May 21, 2011 and be sure to keep this day open for any plans.

These Ultra Right Conservative Christians also pass on the Bible passage:
“And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented FIVE MONTHS: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.” Revelation 9:5

This of course makes “The End of the World” October 21, 2011.

But before you start selling off your belongings, you might want to check your math. The real earth ending won’t arrive for another five billion years from now, when the sun runs out of hydrogen, evolutionary biologist and author, Richard Dawkins, claims.

I don’t know about you but I’m going with Science and Dawkins.

House Republicans Voted To Kill Big Bird

Yes the Republican led House of Representatives had the numbers as a block, by a vote of 235-189, to eliminate the funding for public broadcasting threatening millions of citizens throughout America with the loss of services that they rely on, especially parents and children.

“PBS and independently owned and operated public television stations is America’s largest classroom, available to all of America’s children including those who can’t attend preschool,” said PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger. “PBS' educational programming, as well as our training resources and tools for teachers prepare children for success in school and opens up the world to them in an age appropriate way and builds critical skills in young students. Costing about one dollar per person per year, public broadcasting is an effective, efficient use of leveraged tax dollars a public private partnership that delivers far reaching services that Americans trust and value.”

But in retrospect, just a few weeks ago we handed out tax deferment rewards to corporations by renewing the G. W. Bush’s 2000 tax cuts. This was money the country and tax payers did not have and it was this same tax cuts of 2000 that contributed greatly under funding the operations of the government and left us with the large deficits we are experiencing today.

It is not only the children missing out on educational and learning programs during their earlier years but are we to omit adult education and exposure to facts? Yes these Rush Limbaugh fawning Republican’s future hope of keeping political control is to make sure that the Adult U. S. Population is not exposed to programs like Frontline, BBC News, PBS News Hour (the only TRUE fair and balance U.S. News program), Nightly Business Report, Independent Lens, American Experience, Nova, Nova Science Now, Science Frontiers, Need To Know, well I could go on and on but you get the idea.

An example comes to mind of the Ken Burns documentary, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.” If voting-age-adults were not educated and reminded of the uniqueness of our National Parks passing on the fact that each and every citizen is an owner of these Parks, the Republicans could sell them off to their cronies to be developed for their own financial benefit.

Would anyone really think that private financed programs expose their own corruption or even ask embarrassing or probing questions? No!! It will be exactly like an Orwellian prediction of steady streaming the “Corporate Company’s Line.” Are we to become a, “Company Nation,” much like what was described in the poem written by Carl Sandburg titled, “Company Towns” written at the turn of the century? You know, back in the Good O’l Days!!

Company Towns
By Carl Sandburg

You live in a company house
You go to a company school
You work for this company,
according to the company rules.

You all drink company water
and all use company lights,
The company preacher teaches us
What the company thinks is right.

This poem written over a hundred years ago still speaks true today. With the consolidation of the dying newspaper industry by the one voice of Rupert Murdock, and talk radio under the guise of religious, conservative programming; one has to ask themselves, who is purchasing the advertising keeping these program and papers going. Is it the trade unions, the voice of the working class, the masses who pay the bulk of the tax base burden, or is it the same corporations that have recently participated in more and more labor abuses and environmental crimes that are now evermore going unpunished even though the laws are still on the books. Should one of these media venues report negative facts about one of these companies, they will quickly pull the advertisement funding, economically shutting down the programming and reporting from the source. Even in the late 15th century, Niccolo Machiavelli noted that, “Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.”

Are we to produce a whole generation that only repeats these corporate “Rush Limbaugh” sound bites without giving any thoughts behind them?

Here’s a better thought, “Let’s Repeal Those Corporate Tax Cuts And Let’s Vote To Keep U.S. Citizens Well Educated!!”

Stephen Hawking on Religion: “Science Will Win”

Stephen Hawking held the post of Lucas Ian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University. This was the same position that was held by Sir Isaac Newton, the "father of physics" himself. Hawking, who was honored last week at the World Science Festival in New York, is famous for probing the deepest questions of the cosmos.

When asked about some who perpetuate the controversy of God verses Science, Hawking replied, “One could define God as the embodiment of the laws of nature. However, this is not what most people would think of as God. They made a human-like being with whom one can have a personal relationship. When you look at the vast size of the universe and how insignificant an accidental human life is in it, that seems most impossible."
When asked if there was a way to reconcile religion and science, Hawking said, "There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."

Well with this statement of Steven Hawkins, just as Isaac Newton got in trouble with noted statements dealing with gravity and the religious segment groups of his time that came with the threat of death, I am just waiting for the Extreme Religious Fundamentalist today start the callings of how Hawkins is going to hell, speaking the Devils message, and all other sorts of similar attacks calling for his death.

Hubble Maps Matter Of Universe And Finds Further Evidence Of Dark Energy

Today’s posting we will go from science here on earth to science in space. Using the widest galactic survey ever conducted by Hubble, researchers think they've independently verified the existence of dark energy tugging at the cosmos, as well as reinforced tenets of general relativity theory.

Results from the largest and most ambitious survey of the cosmos ever undertaken by the Hubble Space Telescope are in, and the findings are suggesting dark energy is indeed real, and the general theory of relativity holds up even under larger intergalactic scrutiny.

The survey covered more than 446,000 galaxies and captured by 575 slightly overlapping images of the same corner of the universe taken by Hubble over nearly 1,000 hours. The researchers also tapped into redshift data from ground-based observation instruments to measure the distances of the galaxies surveyed.

The data, when pulled together an analyzed, allowed researchers to paint a detailed picture of matter distribution in space over great distances by looking at the distorted shapes of distant galaxies, a phenomenon known as weak gravitational lensing. The resulting data gave researchers unprecedented views of the shapes of distant galaxies that in turn lend further clues to how the universe is expanding.

The study suggests that indeed the universe's expansion is accelerated by a mysterious component known as dark energy, adding credence to a handful of other independent studies that suggest the same.

The weak lensing method of measuring the galaxies also further proved out Einstein's general relativity theory, as the theory predicts accurately how the lensing signal depends on redshift to get accurate readings of distant bodies.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Atom Smasher Achieves 'Big Bang' Collisions

This posting is a follow up to the earlier posting on the Large Hadron Collider. Scientists at the world's biggest atom smasher called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN said today, March 30, 2010, that they had conducted the first experiments at conditions nearing those immediately after the creation of the universe by colliding protons at record power, mimicking conditions close to the Big Bang that created the universe.

This is physics in the making and the beginning of a new era with relationship to the energy levels achieved as the detectors recorded the collisions of beams of sub-atomic particles at close to the speed of light.

It is also worth noting that today’s experiments did not destroy the world as some in the uneducated religious community said it would. Go Figure?!?

Large Hadron Supercollider "Atom Smasher" Restarts

Last year, various religious organizations and gullible alarmists forecasted the end of everything. The world would soon come to an end, it was asserted, and it was all due to the collective scientific stubbornness and meddling stupidity of scientists at the CERN that were adamant about conducting experiments to prove that the Higgs Boson Particle, the so-called, "God particle," actually exists. No one knew what would happen when the supercollider actual reached its full working capacity. Some believed that a miniature black hole would be created, one that would, due to its very extreme nature of attraction, gobble the world up in short order. Some religious organizations had even attempted to stop the experiments by going to court, but they failed.

But what reason and religion and courts could not or simply did not stop, outright mechanical failure did. Large Hadron Collider (LHC) went off-line for repairs just nine days after it first powered up in September 2008. It was found that an electrical failure had released liquid helium into the supercollider's tunnel, a massive conduit 27 kilometers or 17 miles long). The repairs bled into more repairs and regularly scheduled shutdowns until November, when it was successfully tested and ran millions of particle accelerator collisions through December, when it was shut down again for technical maintenance.

In August 8, 2009, CERN restarted the Large Hadron Collider. They hope the higher energy will enable them to see particles so far undetected, such as the elusive Higgs Boson Particle, which in theory gives mass to other particles and objects and creatures in the universe.

Physicists have used smaller, room-temperature colliders for decades to study the atom. They once thought protons and neutrons were the smallest components of the atom's nucleus, but the colliders showed that they are made of quarks and gluons and that there are other forces and particles. And they still have other questions about antimatter, dark matter and particle mass they want to answer with CERN's new collider.

They hope the fragments that come off the collisions will show on a tiny scale what happened one-trillionth of a second after the so-called Big Bang, which many scientists theorize was the massive explosion that formed the universe. The theory holds that the universe was rapidly cooling at that stage and matter was changing quickly.

On February 28, 2010, the Large Hadron Collider was restarted, and it seems that all systems are go again. This time the scientists will be looking for the Higgs Boson also referred to as the "God" particle and attempt to resolve whether or not "dark matter" and "dark energy" actually exist and / or have defined properties. Finding the God particle would help scientists understand how atoms acquire mass.

Will it be the end of the world? Doubtful. Just like the Linear Particle Beam Accelerator at Stanford (which I have seen personally) that smashed atoms and discovered the sub-atomic particles, like quarks, did not end the world, the LHC will not either. Now there will always be the group of people like those who say the planetary alignments could cause a disruption in the gravitational equilibrium of our little part of the universe. Of course if it does not, the perennial doomsayers and those always looking for an apocalypse will have to, and undoubtedly will, find another “END OF THE WORLD” scenario event, cascading series of incidents, or whatever is necessary to continue their “Godly Apoplectic” predictions grasping for a sudden end to it all.

The View from the Center of the Universe

Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos

I have just been made aware of the book called, “The View from the Center of the Universe,” and I think that it will be on my short list for reading very soon.

In The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos, Joel Primack, a leading cosmologist and professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his wife Nancy Ellen Abrams, a lawyer, writer, and musician, tell us that this cosmic alienation has its roots in the Copernican and Newtonian revolutions and a Faustian deal brokered by René Descartes and Francis Bacon.

This very important and fascinating book powerfully describes the scope and depth of human connections to our universe. Primack and Abrams make clear the revolutionary concepts and implications of the modern understanding of time, space, dark matter, dark energy, eternal inflation, and the stardust filling our bodies, and how that knowledge can affect our feelings about ourselves and our future. Drawing lessons from the history of creation myths in many cultures, and from the changing perspectives of science over the centuries, they use many complementary approaches, including images and symbols, to paint a comprehensive picture of the value of our place in the universe as we now know it, and our opportunities for action in this critical century. Their well-supported admonition to "think cosmically, act globally" can be a vital guide to build a "sustainable prosperity." This topic demands the attention of nearly every thoughtful adult at a time when our impact on our home planet is rising dramatically, as are conflicts between science and religions. So far, scientists have not succeeded in helping most people sense meaning or purpose when considering the vastness of space that astronomy has revealed over the past few hundred years.

We humans occupy an insignificant place in the grand scheme of things, and there is no evidence that the universe has taken or should take note of us. I suspect many other scientists, as well as nonscientists, have had a similar experience. Carl Sagan summed it up well: "We live on a hunk of rock and metal that orbits a humdrum star in the obscure outskirts of an ordinary galaxy"—and he said it before dark matter and dark energy were discovered and were found to account for 96% of the stuff in the universe.

In the wake of Galileo's bad experience with the Catholic Church, scientists adopted a policy of noninterference with religion, dividing the world into the material (realm of science) and the spiritual (realm of religion). This division allowed science to flourish unfettered. And flourish it did with profound advances in our understanding of nature, from quarks to the cosmos, and dramatic advances in our quality of life, from electricity and medicine to science-based agriculture and today's quantum-based information economy.

Yet Primack and Abrams argue that the bargain had a significant downside: the severing of humankind's connection with the universe. They also contend that the present revolutionary period of cosmic discovery is the right time to re-establish a widely shared cosmological myth that connects us to the universe. Reconciliation 400 years after a messy divorce is not easy; but with their complementary backgrounds and a decade of jointly teaching a course on cosmology and culture at Santa Cruz, this husband-and-wife team is well qualified to start the conversation.

The book is divided into three parts. The first part is a review of the cosmological myths that preceded the divorce of science and religion, from the cosmology of ancient Egypt to the heavenly spheres that survived from Ptolemy to the Middle Ages. The second part is an exposition of our present understanding of the universe; it focuses on recent breakthroughs such as inflation, dark matter, and dark energy. The third part is an exploration of how we might take advantage of this quantum leap in our knowledge to reconnect with the universe, and even learn lessons from the universe. In the authors' words, "think cosmically, act globally."

The discussion of contemporary cosmology is built around five simple and engaging questions: What is the universe made of? What is the "center of the universe"? What size is the universe? Where do we come from? Are we alone?

The Introduction Of Dauber

My oldest daughter and her fiancé have a new addition to their family. His name is Dauber named after the big goofy character of Swedish ancestry and the assistant coach from the show, “Coach.”

Being a mongrel they adopted from the local Humane Society and for curiosity sake, they had a DNA analysis of Dauber to see what his genetic makeup was.

Well the DNA analysis for Dauber has been completed using the state-of-the-art breed detection process, comparing his breed makeup to over 170 different breeds.
Dauber's ancestry report became available. Dauber is an



American bulldog,



Bulldog,



and Maltese….which just seems wrong on so many levels. OH the shame of uncontrolled and inferior breeding!!!! :-)

Now as many may know where I am going with this posting is from the science fact viewpoint of the validity of DNA genetic mapping. This science has progressed to the point that for a small cost, you can get the genetic makeup of your pet. The code and history of all organic things can be known by the simple understanding of DNA proteins of CGAT and in the order the mapping exposes itself.

Yes this is just another factual nail closing the lid in the fallacy of religious myths and superstition believers who wish to deny this science due to the fact it threatens these same beliefs.

Letter From Dan Brown To The Southern Jurisdiction Scottish Rite

I thought that I would follow up on The Lost Symbol book review. Being a Mason myself, I had this letter from Dan Brown to the Southern Jurisdiction Scottish Rite as they had invited him to attend and address the 2009 Supreme Council Session.



I can pass on that after you have achieved the 3rd degree; you have the choice of going on with your studies of either the Scottish Rite (more on the philosophical side) or York Rite (more on one’s introspection aspect).

I do want to pass on that the Freemasons are very pleased with Dan Brown’s book and it is very well received.

There are some Masonic details that Dan Brown did get wrong but it does not detract from the story. This can be expected because Dan is not a Mason but for the most part he presented the Freemasons very well.

1. The Scottish Rite in America is governed by two Supreme Councils, not just the one in Washington.

2. The head of the Scottish Rite is the “Sovereign Grand Commander” not the “Supreme Worshipful Master.” This latter position does not exist.

3. The 32nd degree is not conferred in a local lodge. Local Lodges that you see in your neighborhood are referred to as a “Blue Lodge” and they only go up to the 3rd degree.

4. You cannot see the altar in the Temple room in Alexander, VA Masonic Temple from the double doors at the entrance, the organ blocks the view.

5. The “circumpunct” or “point within a circle” is only one of many emblems, not uniquely important.

6. The emblem of the Scottish Rite is a double-headed eagle, not a phoenix.

7. A 33rd degree ring is composed of three equal-width bands, usually with a triangle containing “33°.” In the Scottish Rite, there are only 33 of these in the Rite. One can only be elected into this level after someone dies and a spot opens up.

Should anyone have any interest I will be glad to answer any questions that I am allowed to pass on. The Freemasons are not a secret society, but a society with secrets with the motto, “Making Good Men Better.”

Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol,” Book Review

I have taken some time tonight to pass on my review of Dan Brown’s book, “The Lost Symbol.” As many know it is about the influence of the Freemasons, whom many of our founding fathers were members of, had on the foundation viewpoints of the creation of this country. The ideas of “All men are created equal, pursuit of happiness, religious freedoms, etc.” are all viewpoints of Freemasons and were the bases of what this nation was founded on.

1. No matter at what station or stratification of birth one person had, all are viewed as equal within the Freemasons.

2. Every man has the right to pursue the truth of what is within ones own soul and the evidence obtained from science facts. (The Age of Enlightenment…i.e. Illuminati)

3. No matter if you are of the Jewish faith, Muslim faith, Christian faith, all are well accepted into the Freemasons.

So “NO,” this country was not founded as a Christian Nation as many of the ignorant claim today!


I have enjoyed many of the books Dan Brown has written and as I too am a Freemason, I took great interest in this book.

As many whom have been familiar with my writings in this blog and contributing to others, I have made it very well known how I have spent my life straining to be heard above the din of ignorance.

Below is an excerpt from the book, “The Lost Symbol,” that I found profound, speaking for my thoughts, and saw value in passing it on.

Page 327, 3rd. chapter from the top.
“From the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to American politics, the name Jesus had been hijacked as an ally in all kinds of power struggles. Since the beginning of time, the ignorant had always screamed the loudest, herding the unsuspecting masses and forcing them to do their bidding. They defend their worldly desires by citing Scripture they did not understand. They celebrated their intolerance as proof of their convictions. Now, after all these years, mankind had finally managed to utterly erode everything that had once been so beautiful about Jesus.”

This passage taken from the book sums up current events so true today.

So in conclusion, I highly recommend reading this book, I found it enlightening, educational but keeping in mind it is still fiction so don’t take everything as verbatim of everything that is within the Freemasons. A good easy read and will make a very good movie in the future.

Religious Myths Conflicting With Science Facts

Ralph Waldo Emerson in his book, "The American Scholar," predicted the day would come when America would end, and I quote, "our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands."

His prediction came true in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and in no area of learning more so than in science. This surely would have pleased Emerson. When he listed his heroes he would generally include Copernicus and Galileo and Newton along with Socrates and Swedenborg.

Although I think that Emerson would have mixed feelings today about one consequence of the advance of science that has led to a widespread weakening of religious belief.

Since the Renaissance, the tension between science and religion has primarily been the result of contradictions between scientific discoveries and specific religious doctrines. Galileo remarked in his famous letter to Grand Duchess Christina that "the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how to go to heaven, not how heaven goes," and this was not just his opinion of the time. Many such as Leonardo Da Vinci and even Cardinal Baronius, the Vatican librarian, were discovering through science that religious teachings of the time were inaccurate.

Contradictions between scripture and scientific knowledge have occurred again and again, and have generally been accommodated by the more enlightened among the religious. For instance, there are verses in both the Old and New Testament that seem to show that the earth is flat, and as noted by Copernicus (quoted by Galileo in the same letter to Christina) these verses led some early Church fathers like Lactantius to reject the Greek understanding that the earth is a sphere, but educated Christians long before the voyages of Columbus and Magellan had come to accept the spherical shape of the earth. Dante found the interior of the spherical earth a convenient place to store sinners.

The direct conflict between scientific knowledge and specific religious beliefs has not been so important in itself, it is the tension between science and religion that has become important.

The primary source of tension arises from the fact that religion originally gained much of its strength from the observation of mysterious phenomena such as, thunder, earthquakes, disease, that seemed to require the intervention of some divine being. There was a nymph in every brook, and a dryad in every tree. But as time passed more and more of these mysteries have been explained in purely natural ways. People believe in God because no other explanation seems possible for a whole host of mysteries, and then over the years these mysteries were one by one resolved naturalistically. The “Cause & Effect” outcome is a certain weakening of religious belief is to be expected. It is no accident that the advent of widespread atheism and agnosticism among the educated in the eighteenth century followed hard upon the birth of modern science in the previous century.

From the beginning, the explanatory power of science worried those who valued religion. Plato was so horrified at the attempt of Democritus and Leucippus to explain nature in terms of atoms without reference to the gods that in “Book Ten of The Laws,” he urged five years of solitary confinement for those who deny that the gods exist or that they care about humans, with death to follow if the prisoner is not reformed.

Isaac Newton, offended by the naturalism of Descartes, also rejected the idea that the world could be explained without God. He argued for instance in a letter to Richard Bentley that no explanation but God could be given for the distinction we observe between bright matter, the sun and stars, and dark matter, like the earth. This is ironic, because of course it was Newton and not Descartes who was right about the laws of motion. No one did more than Newton to make it possible to work out thoroughly nontheistic explanations of what we see in the sky, but Newton himself was not in this sense a Newtonian.

Of course, not everything has been explained, nor will it ever be. The important thing is that we have not observed anything that seems to require supernatural intervention for its explanation. There are some today who cling to the remaining gaps in our understanding, such as our ignorance about the origin of life, as evidence for God. But as time passes and more and more of these gaps are filled in, their position gives an impression of people desperately holding on to outmoded opinions.

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

THE EVIDENCE FOR EVOLUTION
By Richard Dawkins


Being a man of science myself, this week as we celebrate and recognize Charles Darwin’s published science facts, I decided to complement this evolutionary science with a posting of Richard Dawkins.

The bible thumping, delusional, science fact deigning, folks whom funded and visit the Creation Museums popping across the country, are accomplishing nothing but dragging their children into a pit of regressive education.

Since its conception, one of the strengths of this country’s economical edge was our science lead within the world. Putting this country’s science edge into the hands of the Fanatical Religious Right, as stated in the video clip, has just placed our standing well below the competitiveness of other countries we have to economically compete with.

One of the most important issues in this country today is not Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, it is the oppressive agenda from within of those whom would insist that science facts be ignored and be replaced with their religious fundamental viewpoints.

Those Whom Cannot Draw On Three Thousand Years Of History, Are Living From Hand To Mouth

A completely new way of thinking evolved in Greece about six hundred years before the birth of Christ. Until that time people had found answers to all their questions in various religions. These religious explanations were handed down from generation to generation in the form of myths.

Now mortals could not just sit idly by and wait for the gods to intervene while catastrophes such as drought or plague loomed. They had to act for themselves in the struggle against evil. They did this by performing various religious ceremonies, or rites. One can easily imagine how people's response to a drought or crop failure would be to enact a drama about the event. Perhaps a man from the village would dress up in the most ridicules costume one could imagine and dance around like he had a hot coal on his ass. By doing this, people were taking some action to make it rain so the crops would grow in their fields.

A mythological world existed in Greece when the first philosophy was evolving. The stories of the Greek gods had been handed down from generation to generation for centuries. In Greece the gods were called Zeus and Apollo, Hera and Athene, Dionysos and Ascle-pios, Heracles and Hephaestos, to mention only a few of them.

Around 700 B.C., much of the Greek mythology was written down by Homer and Hesiod. Now that the myths existed in written form, it was possible to discuss them.

The earliest Greek philosophers criticized Homer's mythology because the gods resembled mortals too much and were just as egoistic and treacherous. For the first time it was said that the myths were nothing but human notions. By man creating the gods in their own image, they had bodies and clothes and they spoke the same language as those who created them.

The earliest Greek philosophers came along around 500BC and were called natural philosophers because they were mainly concerned with the natural world and its processes instead of mythological superstitions.



One of these philosophers was Parmenides (c. 540-480 B.C.). Parmenides thought that everything that exists had always existed. Everything that existed in the world was everlasting. Nothing can come out of nothing, and nothing that exists can become nothing. His viewpoint on human reason is called rationalism and the primary source of our knowledge of the world.



Another philosopher to come along was Democritus and he conceived that everything was made up of atoms. Democritus agreed with his predecessors that transformations in nature could not be due to the fact that anything actually "changed." He therefore assumed that everything was built up of tiny invisible blocks, each of which was eternal and immutable. Democritus called these smallest units atoms.

The word "a-tom" means "un-cuttable." For Democritus it was all-important to establish that the constituent parts that everything else was composed of could not be divided indefinitely into smaller parts. Moreover, nature's blocks had to be eternal because nothing can come from nothing. Democritus believed that nature consisted of an unlimited number and variety of atoms.

Yes, Democritus developed the concept of the atom 2500 years ago and what is surprising to me is that there are some of extreme, fanatical, religious faith who still do not believe in this science fact. Today we can establish that Democritus' atom theory was more or less correct. Nature really is built up of different "atoms" that join and separate again. Democritus did not believe in any "force" or "soul" that could intervene in natural processes. The only things that existed, he believed, were atoms and the void. Since he believed in nothing but material things, we call him a materialist. According to Democritus, there is no conscious "design" in the movement of atoms. In nature, everything happens quite mechanically. This does not mean that everything happens randomly, for everything obeys the inevitable laws of necessity. Everything that happens has a natural cause that is inherent in the thing itself.

Some say in humor is what separates man from the animals is the desire to dress up in silly costumes and expound illogical superstitions as religious faith. For these people, their viewpoint is if you believe in Christianity, it was called "faith," but if you believe in another religion, astrology, or even Friday the thirteenth it is superstition! But who has the right to call other people's beliefs superstitions in these examples, when others see both as the same without any difference? Yet even today there are many who try to force their extreme religious beliefs on others because of their superstition mandates them to do so.

Democritus did not believed in this fate. He was a materialist. He only believed in atoms and empty space. The true faith in Science Fact.