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Mysteries of the World Are Exciting & Thought-Provoking!

This webpage is about "mysteries of the world" or "world mysteries" ... but first let's touch on about the use of the word "mysteries" in the usual popular sense.

 

"Detective/Crime Mysteries"

The word "mysteries" ordinarily would refer to "detective mysteries", "detective stories" or "crime stories" -- that is, fictional stories involving some form of mystery that would eventually involve the police or the law, and sometimes, private detectives ("private eye", or PI -- private nvestigator) for the solution of the mystery.

It is in these detective mysteries that I find myself enjoying what may be called the "logic of detection" -- the chain of evidence used to proceed from the crime (and crime scene) to the criminal(s)/culprit(s), aka perpetuator(s) or "perp(s)".

Anyway, as far back as I can remember -- probably no earlier than at the pre-teen stage, i.e., 10 years old or so -- I had been interested in such detective or crime mysteries. At that young age, the mysteries books I was reading included, naturally enough, Enid Blyton's books, especially the Mystery (Five Find-Outers) series, the Famous Five series and the Secret Seven series.




enid_blyton_the_biography_barbara_stoney_02.jpg enid_blyton_the_biography_barbara_stoney.jpg

Enid Blyton ( The Biography )

"Enid Blyton is known throughout the world for her imaginative children's books and her enduring characters such as Noddy and the Famous Five. She is one of the most borrowed authors from British libraries and still holds a fascination for readers old and young alike. Yet until 1974, when Barbara Stoney first published her official biography, little was known about this most private author, even by members of her own family. The woman who emerged from Barbara Stoney's remarkable research was hardworking, complex, often difficult and, in many ways, childlike. Now this widely praised classic biography has been fully updated for the twenty-first century and, with the addition of new colour illustrations and a comprehensive list of Enid Blyton's writings, documents the growing appeal of this extraordinary woman throughout the world. The fascinating story of one of the world's most famous authors will intrigue and delight all those with an interest in her timeless books." -- Amazon website of the book, Enid Blyton: The Biography, by Barbara Stoney

enid_blyton_1897_1968.jpg

Enid Mary Blyton (1897-1968)

"British writer who published over 600 children's or juvenile books during her 40-year career. Blyton's most famous series was The Famous Five . Its central characters were Julian, Dick, Anne, George, and the dog Timmy. Her works celebrated good food, spirit of comradeship, and honesty. By the 1980s, Blyton's books had sold some 60 million copies and had been translated into nearly seventy languages." -- http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/eblyton.htm




Wikipedia says of Blyton, as follows
Enid Mary Blyton (August 11, 1897 – November 28, 1968) was a popular and prolific British children's writer. She was one of the most successful children's storytellers of the twentieth century.

She is noted for numerous series of books based on recurring characters and designed for different age groups. Her books have enjoyed popular success in many parts of the world, and have sold over 400 million copies. By one measure, Blyton is the sixth most popular author worldwide: over 3400 translations of her books are available in 2007 according to UNESCO's Index Translationum; she is behind Lenin and almost equal to Shakespeare. One of her most widely known characters is Noddy, intended for beginning readers. However, her main forte is the young readers' novels, where children ride out their own adventures with minimal adult help. In this genre, particularly popular series include the Famous Five (consisting of 21 novels, 1942 – 1963, based on four children and their dog), the Five Find-Outers and Dog, (15 novels, 1943-1961, where five children regularly outwit the local police) as well as the Secret Seven (15 novels, 1949 – 1963, a society of seven children who solve various mysteries).

Her work involves children's adventure stories, and fantasy, sometimes involving magic. Her books were and still are enormously popular in Britain, Malta, India, Pakistan, New Zealand, Singapore, and Australia, and as translations, in former Yugoslavia, Japan, and across most of the globe. Her work has been translated into nearly 90 languages.





By my teenage years, I had graduated to the more hard-boiled mysteries, but I don't recall any of them.

There was, however, another series of fictional mysteries that I distinctly remember -- and can still enjoy even today as an adult ... this series was, of course, the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, in the form of short stories and novels, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Holmes was the world's first and finest CSI -- crime scene investigator -- and his logic surpassed, in my humble opinion, even that of Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin.

(We won't mention G. K. Chesterton's "Father Brown", who used a more EQ -- emotion quotient -- approach with hardly any forensic science whatsoever ... this was probably due to Father Brown's understanding, as a priest, of the human heart and, perhaps, of the human soul as well).



Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
arthur_conan_doyle.jpg
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He studied to be a doctor at the University of Edinburgh and set up a small practice at Southsea in Hampshire during his 20s. While the practice proved largely unsuccessful, the lack of patients provided him with the opportunity to create possibly the most popular character ever introduced in the history of fiction, Sherlock Holmes.

While at University, Conan Doyle had been greatly influenced by John Bell, one of his professors. Bell was an expert in the use of deductive reasoning to diagnose disease. Conan Doyle was so impressed that he used these same principles when creating his famous detective.

Sherlock Holmes was introduced in A Study in Scarlet (1887), followed by A Sign of Four in 1890, but didn't really take hold of the public's imagination until Strand magazine, newly founded in 1890, published a series of short stories called "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." From that point on the public couldn't get enough of Holmes and his always reliable confidant, John H. Watson, a retired military doctor.

Residing in London at 221B Baker Street, Holmes's character and personality set him apart from all others. "Holmes, with his keen sense of observation, his lean face and hooked nose, his long legs, his deerstalker hat, his magnifying glass, and his ever-present pipe. This personality is what caught the reader's imagination." ( The Literature of Crime and Detection )



Sherlock Holmes, Private Consulting Detective
sherlock_holmes_valley_of_fear.jpg
"The Valley of Fear"
"Sherlock Holmes, the amateur detective, chemist, violin player, boxer, and swordsman (among other talents), first appeared in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 's A Study in Scarlet in the Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887."
  -- http://221bakerstreet.org/

 

"221b Baker Street. Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and his colleague John H. Watson, .D., spent many years at this address in London, England, under the rent of Mrs. Hudson. Characters of every type have frequented the rooms of this place, calling on Mr. Holmes for help and assistance on mysteries only the finest criminal detective could unravel."
  -- http://221bakerstreet.org/

 

Sherlock Holmes is a famous fictional detective of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who first appeared in publication in 1887. He is the creation of Scottish-born author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A brilliant London-based detective, Holmes is famous for his intellectual prowess, and is renowned for his skilful use of "deductive reasoning" while using abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation) and astute observation to solve difficult cases.

Conan Doyle wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories that featured Holmes. All but four stories are narrated by Holmes' friend and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson; two are narrated by Sherlock Holmes himself, and two others are written in the third person. The first two stories, short novels, appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual for 1887 and Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890. The character grew tremendously in popularity with the beginning of the first series of short stories in The Strand Magazine in 1891; further series of short stories and two serialised novels appeared almost right up to Conan Doyle's death in 1930. The stories cover a period from around 1878 up to 1903, with a final case in 1914.

  --  Wikipedia





Professor Challenger

Of course, Sir Doyle also wrote a few stories involving another character (other than Sherlock Holmes), and that character is the infamous, fierce, cantankerous, and fearless Professor George Challenger.

Challenger was a different breed of scientific investigator altogether.

The "mysteries" that Prof. Challenger dealt with did not involved crimes committed by anyone.

Rather, Challenger was involved in solving the mysteries of evolution, extinct dinosaurs and, otherwise, lost worlds.

Along the way, he also got involved in poison gas belt that overwhelmed our planet and the rest of our solar system, as well as in proving the Gaia-like idea that Mother Earth was actually a living, breathing entity or organism in her own right.

Wow!

Now ... that's what I call "mysteries" (but not of the detective or crime-solving kind).


professor_george_challenger.jpg

George Edward Challenger , better known as Professor Challenger, is a fictional character in a series of science fiction stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Unlike Conan Doyle's laid-back, analytic character, Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger is an aggressive, dominating figure.

Edward Malone, the narrator of The Lost World , the novel in which Challenger first appeared, described his first meeting with the character:

His appearance made me gasp. I was prepared for something strange, but not for so overpowering a personality as this. It was his size, which took one's breath away-his size and his imposing presence. His head was enormous, the largest I have ever seen upon a human being. I am sure that is top hat, had I ventured to don it, would have slipped over me entirely and rested on my shoulders. He had the face and beard, which I associate with an Assyrian bull; the former florid, the latter so black as almost to have a suspicion of blue, spade-shaped and rippling down over his chest. The hair was peculiar, plastered down in front in a long, curving wisp over his massive forehead. The eyes were blue-grey under great black tufts, very clear, very critical, and very masterful. A huge spread of shoulders and a chest like a barrel were the other parts of him which appeared above the table, save for two enormous hands covered with long black hair. This and a bellowing, roaring, rumbling voice made up my first impression of the notorious Professor Challenger.
He [Challenger] was also a pretentious and self-righteous scientific jack-of-all-trades. Although considered by Malone's editor, Mr McArdle, to be "just a homicidal megalomaniac with a turn for science", his ingenuity could be counted upon to solve any problem or get out of any unsavoury situation, and be sure to offend and insult several other people in the process. Challenger was, in many ways, rude, crude, and without social conscience or inhibition. Yet he was a man capable of great loyalty and his love of his French wife was all encompassing.

Like Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger was based on a real person — in this case, a Professor Rutherford, who had lectured at Conan Doyle's medical school.

According to The Lost World , the character was born in Largs, a village in Strathclyde, Scotland, in 1863. He studied at Edinburgh University, where he studied Medicine, Zoology and Anthropology.

-- Wikipedia




The Challenger character was a science-fictional character rather than a police detective or crime-solving character.

Challenger was also more than grounded in science -- which Sherlock Holmes was, of course, except that Challenger was a professional scientist and not an amateur scientist that Holmes (as the world's first forensic investigator) was -- while most crime solvers, unless they are also forensic-minded or forensic-trained, are less grounded in science (most crime solvers know less science than the average American high-school dropout).

And, thirdly, Challenger was into solving scientific mysteries rather than into solving crimes -- which brings us to the second use of the term "mysteries", different from the use of "mysteries" in the popular sense of "detective mysteries" or "crime mysteries".

And, here I am referring to the use of "mysteries" to mean "mysteries of the orld" or "world mysteries" -- or, if you like, scientific mysteries.





Mysteries of the World
(World Mysteries)
(Scientific Mysteries)

M ysteries ... M ysteries ... M ysteries!!!

Mysteries ... that's what I thought about when I woke up some two months or so ago (end-February 2008) ...

Scientific mysteries ... world mysteries ... "mysteries of the world", in other words.

The question I wanted to be sure about was this: "Was I still really excited about the mysteries of the world?"

This may sound like superfluous question to ask ...

But, you see, when I was much younger, and right up to my early 20's, I actually did get really excited -- and even stay up half the night reading -- about Stonehenge, Easter Island, the Mayans and Incas, Egyptian pyramids and the Sphinx, and what-have-you ...

Heck ... I even bought and read up four or five of Erich von Daniken's books, although I -- as a "science stream" student in high school and during junior college (or pre-univeristy) days -- was filled with much skepticism even as I was being excited .

And, of course, I had often wonder -- and am still wondering, even today -- about all those stuff within the pages of the Bible, especially that bit about the pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night ...

There were days -- and sometimes even weeks -- on end, when I would go about wondering, "What does all those world mysteries really mean?"

Then, along the highways and byways of life, I got caught up with ... you guess it ... going to the university, then getting a job, buying a house, mortgage payments, car payments, marriage, raising a family, and all that ...

Somehow, these life matters veered me away from all those mysteries of the world ...

Not that I am complaining about my life, family and so forth. They were important ... and remain so.

But now, more than 30 years have passed, and I am sort-of semi-retired, I still help out at Sunday School, my wife and I are still an item (as the Generation Y or M, or the "Zippies" Generation -- as opposed to the Yuppies -- would say), my only begotten son is now a working adult, I have downshifted or downscaled my life to simplify my life, I have even read up on Zen and found it stimulating and humbling ... and so on and so forth.

And ... I am wondering, "Whatever happen to all those wonders of the world?"

I mean, are they still THERE? The answer, it seems, is that they are still there!

And, it was not a surprise to me, that I came to the conclusion that the world is indeed still full of the good and exciting stuff ...

Revelations of, and about, the world still can excite me, I realize ...

Life itself is, indeed, a mystery -- or a mysterious journey -- which is fraught with much uncertainties in one sense ...

And life -- or Existence (with a big-E) -- may also be regarded as a sort-of foregone conclusion in several other ways ... (some inklings of which appear in several ancient texts, including and especially the Book of Revelations , i.e., the last book of the Holy Bible , or the "New Testament").

While some wild conjectures and fringe theories are still floating around -- especially those from popular authors such von Daniken, Sitchin, Alford, Marrs, etc. -- there are indeed many questions in and about this world that still remain largely unanswered or unexplained or unsolved.

Or, at least, these mysteries of the world -- or world mysteries -- not answered, explained or solved in a really satisfactory manner.

Still, an investigation of these world mysteries should continue unabated ... if only in recognition of the fact that, despite our scientific and technological progress so far, we still know so little and are still in ignorance of much.

The humility would do us much good!

Cheers ... and God Bless!

Amen!





This site used to be variously called Paul Quek's Website and Paul's Free & SPLORKY Website @ Tripod.com ...

Oh well, we live and learn!

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Alien Fetus

From: The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 24 (TXF: 1x24)
The Erlenmeyer Flask
Inspired by YouTube's "The Erlenmeyer Flask"

Something I cobbled together ... on a sleepy Tuesday afternoon!
   —  Paul Quek

 

 

Here's a partial "Index - Mysteries"

 

 

Sensationalised Mysteries

When we examine these mysteries — and most of them are sensationalized mysteries (sensationalised either as a result of widespread exposure by the public media, or well-known as legends, myths, traditions, etc.) — we have to bear in mind the falsifiability criterion of science.

Thus, to "prove" something is (at best, tentatively) "correct", we set up our hypothesis in such a way that forces us to look for evidence to prove it wrong! That is, to falsify the hypothesis. In that way, we do not only look for evidence that supports our belief or position; instead, we look at all the evidence — especially those evidence that do not support our beliefs. Hence, we are less likely to ignore inconvenient evidence that do not support our beliefs!

Additionally, we mustn't let our emotions govern and control our decisions and actions, more than our intellect (or thinking). Just because we feel something must be, or should be, true doesn't make it true!

"Strangely enough," wrote Robert J. Lumsden, "our emotions are the enemies of straight, logical thinking. They tempt us to avoid facing facts, or to distort them. Particularly is this so if inwardly we believe that valid thinking would prove us wrong or compel us to abandon a long-held position or belief. This sometimes happen in religion or politics. It has even been known to happen in the scientific world!" (Source: Lumsden, Robert J., "Learn to Think for Yourself", in The Psychologist Magazine , September, 1972).

 

 

http://www.mysterious-strange-weird.com/images/eight_keys_to_eden__seven_doors_03.png -- for www.mysteries-of-the-world.info and www.mysterious-strange-weird.com

Quotes from Mark Clifton's book, EIGHT KEYS TO EDEN (Doubleday, NY, 1960):

  • "If you disbelieved what science said was true, where were you? And if it might not be true, why was it said?"

  • "The essence of E science, that any requirement outside of his own making didn't exist."

  • "That kind of mind (extrapolator) could not tolerate barriers, but spent itself constantly destroying them. Erect barriers of triviality, and it would waste its substance upon trivial matters."

  • "... would regard the absolutely true facts proved beyond question by science with an attitude of skepticism, temporarily accepting the uncontestably immutable as only provisionary, and probably quite wrong."

  • "Disregard everything everybody has ever said; to start out from scratch as if nobody had ever had the sense to think about the problem before; to doubt most of all the opinion of the experts, for, obviously, if the experts were right then there would be no problem."

  • "You tackle something outside the normal frame of reference, something that requires the E kind of thinking. You brought it off successfully."

  • "...an example of the way petty restrictions can bring a fine mind down to trivial problems."

  • "Anything is magic if you don't understand how it happens, and science if you do."

  • "An alien coordinate system, never before encountered by man. But how to get hold of it? How to reconcile with it? Coexist with it? ... Never before encountered by man?"

  • "Organized protoplasmic life? Felt close to a solution, or at least an understanding of the nature of the problem, which is the first step toward solution. Non-protoplasmic life?"

  • "Man manipulated natural laws by use of tools and materials, but he doesn't suspend them. Without tools, at least tools we can perceive (have perceived) - -"

  • "But answers also carry in themselves their commands and their penalties. The penalty being that when one thinks one has the answer, he stops looking for it. The command being that he must conduct himself in accord with the answer."

  • "Man was still tortured by his determination to be the center of things, himself the fixed absolute."

  • "If you were lonely, if you had searched through the years for companionship, and thought you might have found it, would it please you to have that companionship drop to his knees, grovel before you? Would this be your idea of companionship? What manner of monstrous egotism would require that?"

  • "Rightness and goodness, wrongness and evil, these could not possibly be other than assessments of furtherance or threat to the ascendancy of me-and-mine at the center of things, and had no meaning beyond that context."

  • "It is a law of the nature of man that he will resist the ascendancy of any special me-and-mine group over him; that this resistance will grow until man will even destroy himself in the attempt to defeat that ascendancy."

"Strongman regimes 'doomed to collapse'"


The Arab world is now embroiled in three revolutions (in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya) and three full-fledged revolts (in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain). —  mypaper [Singapore], "Arab Spring enters perilous phase", August 26, 2011

"We have three transitions now, in Tunis[ia], Egypt and Libya, and more will follow [said Beirut-based Middle East analyst Rami Khouri]. ... "It shows that if the protesters, opposition, freedom fighters or rebels in Yemen or Syria persist, they may be able to topple the regimes," said Middle East analyst Geoff Porter. —  mypaper [Singapore], "Strongman regimes 'doomed to collapse'", August 23, 2011


This is a mystery ("The Megalomaniac Mystery") ... how did these strongmen get to be where they are? How and why did entire nations fall under the spell of these megalomaniacs? And how and what kept these power junkies and control freaks in power for so long? And finally, what made them topple?

The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe — that the god in the sanctuary was finite in his power and hence a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.
— H.L. Mencken

Black Box UFO Secrets - http://www.mysterious-strange-weird.com/ufo/black_box_ufo_secrets.jpg -- for www.mysteries-of-the-world.info and www.mysterious-strange-weird.com Since the earliest years of man flight, pilots and astronauts from around the world have encountered UFOs high in our skies and beyond.

The History Channel's UFO Files: Black Box UFO Secrets reveals for the first time the cockpit and control tower audio recordings of pilot and astronaut confrontations and sightings of unidentified flying objects high in our skies.

From a detailed account of one of the very the first reported pilot case — the Arnold case in 1947 — to recent recordings over New England and Texas and NASA recordings and video from 2005, the programme features interviews with pilots, witness and experts, including UCLA's Joseph Nagy, actor Ed Asner, and pilot/UFO researcher Don Berliner.

   —   thehistorychannel.co.uk

In this UFO Hunters video, brought to you by the History Channel, learn why Bill Birnes thinks NASA has been hiding communications between the space crews and mission control. Birnes claims that the Apollo and other missions report seeing UFOs.

   —   www.history.com/videos/ufo-files-black-box-ufo-secrets

 

 

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Here's an interesting quote (adapted!) that I am somewhat in sync with ... the quote is a sort-of warning to all who choose to be totally skeptical of anything that they choose to be skeptical about!



" Hubris on a Cosmic Scale"



I am open to the notion of a nonphysical reality, and I believe that the reality in which we live here on earth is not — and quite simply cannot be — the only reality.

I believe that many of the people who report such things as UFO sightings, or who have had success at dowsing, or who claim to be in contact with the dead are often credible, are not delusional; nor (worse) are they blatant liars.

I believe that because something sounds absurd and impossible, it is not, therefore, de facto, absurd and impossible.

I believe that man as a species does not understand even a hint of the incredible complexities and mysteries of life in our universe. I believe it is easier to be cynical than open-minded.

I believe that I do not know everything.


The biggest problem with the unrelenting skeptics , those who rule out even the possibility that paranormal activity is real, is that their scorn and skepticism leave no room for anything outside their specific worldview. That is hubris on a cosmic scale.

Granted, the overwhelming majority of paranormal claims are bogus , but the literature of the supernatural offers countless incidents that are unexplainable, yet powerfully convincing.

Poltergeist activity is a field of paranormal phenomena that is extraordinarily convincing. Multiple witnesses have reported seeing the same thing : pictures spinning on a wall; chairs moving across the floor of their own accord; writing appearing out of nowhere. Are all these eyewitnesses to be treated as liars or crazy?

And what about statues that begin to "bleed," and it is later determined conclusively that the fluid they exude is real blood?

Or the people who claim to have been abducted and implanted with something that, when removed, is made of a material that is unidentifiable by scientists and doctors?

In the spring of 2003, a show debuted on the Showtime cable network called Bullshit! (Yes, you read that right ... those wacky cable programmers!)

The show was hosted by the popular magicians Penn & Teller, who became famous for performing astonishing tricks and illusions, and then revealing to the audience how they did them.

The show was a weekly anthology that looked at a range of fringe and paranormal topics, from alien abductions to chiropractics.

The show was defiantly one-sided and the problem with it was its hostility and utter closed-mindedness (not to mention the host's mockery and name-calling). It seemed to be nothing more than an enormous overreaction to the subject matter.

In the first few shows, they attempted to debunk mediums who talk to the dead, people who have been abducted by aliens, magnet therapy, reflexology, and chiropractics. (They later moved on to relationship counselors, sex therapists, and other mainstream enterprises. Guess they ran out of truly weird stuff to make fun of.)

The thesis of the show was blatant: there is no paranormal anything and no matter what anyone claims, it's all bullshit. This precluded any balance whatsoever and, thus, Penn & Teller came across as shrill zealots who accomplished nothing more than to leave the viewer wondering, "Why so angry, boys?"

Chiropractic treatment is paid for by insurance companies. If it is utterly useless (as some of the "experts" appearing on the show claim), then why is it a covered expense?

The benefits of magnet therapy are still inconclusive. Many people claim a great deal of relief from wearing them. Are all these people deluded? Penn & Teller would have you believe so.

Reflexology is based on the science of acupressure and acupuncture points, specifically on the feet. Does it work? For every mocking debunker, there are people who claim results.

One doctor proclaimed that testimonials are all anecdotal, and, thus, completely unreliable. As I say elsewhere in this book [ The Weird 100 ], the accounts of infections being cured by the application of a bread poultice were also anecdotal  —  until science discovered a little something in the mold called penicillin . Also, the accounts of pain being relieved by chewing on the bark of a willow tree were anecdotal — until science discovered something in the bark we now call aspirin .

It is arrogant and foolish to completely rule out all anecdotal evidence as worthless. Can all UFO sightings be false? All of them? Even the ones reported by Air Force pilots? Penn & Teller would have you believe so.

The Weird 100 is a plea for open-mindedness. It is also my hope that the book gives you something to think about.

I do not think it foolish or naive to be open to the possibility that science cannot explain everything. If anything, history has proven that repeatedly.
   — Adapted from Stephen J. Spignesi's       
The Weird 100 ("Introduction")


False Premises Likely to Lead to False Conclusions

The initial facts or statements by which, through valid thinking, we arrive at new knowledge are known as premises. If these are false it is highly likely that our conclusions will also be false.

Going on his sense alone, Man for long held the false premise that the sun went round the earth. From this [false premise] he reached the false conclusion that his world was the centre of the universe.

So, before reasoning from a premise, question it. Ask yourself what grounds you have for accepting it as true. Who discovered the facts? Are they based on hearsay or careful observation? Could the observer have been mistaken or prejudiced? When was the data reported [day, night? winter, summer? etc.]? Under what conditions?

     —  Robert J. Lumsden, "Learn to Think for Yourself", in The Psychologist Magazine (September, 1972)


 

 

Mystery of God

Excerpts from TIME Magazine Article: "Is God Dead?"

 (Apr. 08, 1966)

... secularization. In The Secular City , Harvey Cox of the Harvard Divinity School defines the term as "... the breaking of all supernatural myths and sacred symbols." Slowly but surely, it dawned on men that they did not need God to explain, govern or justify certain areas of life.

The development of capitalism , for example, freed economics from church control and made it subject only to marketplace supply and demand. Political theorists of the Enlightenment proved that law and government were not institutions handed down from on high, but things that men had created themselves. The 18th century deists argued that man as a rational animal was capable of developing an ethical system that made as much sense as one based on revelation. Casting a cold eye on the complacency of Christianity before such evils as slavery, poverty and the factory system, such 19th century atheists as Karl Marx and Pierre Joseph Proudhon declared that the churches and their God would have to go if ever man was to be free to shape and improve his destiny.

But the most important agent in the secularizing process was science . The Copernican revolution was a shattering blow to faith in a Bible that assumed the sun went round the earth and could be stopped in its tracks by divine intervention, as Joshua claimed. And while many of the pioneers of modern science — Newton and Descartes, for example — were devout men, they assiduously explained much of nature that previously seemed godly mysteries. Others saw no need for such reverential lip service. When he was asked by Napoleon why there was no mention of God in his new book about the stars, the French astronomer Laplace coolly answered: "I had no need of the hypothesis." Neither did Charles Darwin, in uncovering the evidence of evolution.

[ What I found the most mysterious was the fact that anyone could be so wimpy as to be willing to be placed under the thumbs of ecclesiastical charlatans-dickheads! — Paul Quek]

Science & Our Beliefs

We are living in an age in which religion has lost its power, in an age where scientific belief reigns supreme. In this situation, the rational explanations that scientific research provide for the phenomena around us are convincing, and we can no longer feel satisfied with the spiritual explanations that had such a powerful role in the development of western civilization up to the eighteenth century.

Science has illuminated so many of the corners which were unknown to our ancestors that we have come to accept scientific explanations in preference to religious explanations.

But belief in science, that is materialism, cannot satisfy us as a full explanation of reality because it is a one-sided view. Science can explain how, but it cannot explain why. Science cannot provide us with an ethical or moral basis for living our daily lives.

In this situation many people feel a loss of direction. They cannot find a belief system to follow. Science does not satisfy their need for moral guidance. Traditional religions are not believable in the face of scientific discovery. They can see no pattern in the way that life unfolds, and things seem hopeless.

In Japan today, most people have no religion. This may seems strange to people of other countries but it is true. The national religion of "Tennosei" or Emperor worship, a religion which was part political manipulation and part fanaticism, perished with Japan's defeat in World War II, and since that time most Japanese have followed the path of materialism in their efforts to rebuild an abundant and comfortable society. This lack of religious belief is increasingly troubling the young people of Japan.

[The same lack is obviously present in most countries. - Paul Quek]

[ ... ]
   — From "Foreward" by Gudo Wafu Nishijima
Tokyo (1999)
in Eido Michael Luetchford's
Introduction to Buddhism & the Practice of Zazen:
The Teachings of Gudo Nishijima Roshi

In the Gospel of Matthew's account of the Last Judgment, Jesus will separate the nations, telling those on his right: "I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink." But when? they ask. "And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.' "

 

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The Mystery of Death & Life

(in the 20th-21st Centuries, maybe?)

[ aka: "What is the meaning of life? Why am I here? What will happen after I die?"  ]

Death is the great leveler. Beggars die. Rich people die. Rock stars die. Unknown people die. Everyone eventually faces death.

Death is no respecter of persons. Money, success, and social standing make no difference when death comes knocking. Malcolm Forbes. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Howard Hughes. John Lennon. Jimi Hendrix. Kurt Cobain. Marilyn Monroe, River Phoenix, James Dean — even Elvis Presley died.

     —  Greg Laurie, Life: Any Questions?  (1995), Chapter 5, "What Happens When I Die?"




... Actor Michael Landon after realizing he was terminally ill said, "While life lasts, it's good to remember that death is coming, and it's good we don't know when. It keeps us alert, reminds us to live while we have the chance. Somebody should tell us right at the start of our lives that we are dying. There are only so many tomorrows."

[ ... ]

Movies, television, and the popular culture can make death seem so unreal. After all, we still hear the music of John Lennon, Buddy Holly, Jim Morrison, Nat King Cole, and Elvis Presley. We still see John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King making speeches on TV. We still see James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and John Wayne in movies.

[ ... ]

But death knocks at every door. It is no respecter of how famous or wealthy, beautiful or powerful we were. ...

     —  Greg Laurie, Life: Any Questions?  (1995), Chapter 5, "What Happens When I Die?"




Wade Clark Roof, a professor of religion at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says that our generation [i.e., Baby Boomers] is facing up to the reality that jogging, liposuction, and all that brown rice in China can't keep us young forever: "As our bodies fall apart, as they weaken and sag, it speaks of mortality." I don't know about you, but I can relate to that statement. Roof further explains that the Boomers "are at a point in their lives where they sense the need for spirituality, but they don't know where to get it." [ Source quoted: Wade Clark Roof, A Generation of Seekers (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993) ]

     —  Greg Laurie, Life: Any Questions?  (1995), Chapter 4, "Why Am I Here?"




Many people bristle at the mention of the word hell! Hell is a controversial, unpopular subject. But according to the Bible, hell is real. Many think it is nothing more than a joke, imagining it as an eternal party place where the bar never closes.

Woody Allen once said, "Hell is the future abode of all people who personally annoy me." But hell is no joke! In fact, Jesus spoke more about hell than all the other preachers of the Bible put together!

     —  Greg Laurie, Life: Any Questions?  (1995), Chapter 5, "What Happens When I Die?"




In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said to Peter who was trying to defend the Lord, "... do you think that I cannot now pray to my Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26: 53). Legion was a Roman term. A legion numbered around six thousand. If Jesus was speaking literally here, it meant that He had at His immediate disposal seventy-two thousand angels — all waiting for a word from Him. From Scripture, we know that angels are very powerful. In the Old Testament we read that one angel alone killed 185,000 enemies of Israel. Thus, seventy-two thousand angels could do considerable damage. His army was there. It was His humility and His destiny, that stopped Him from calling upon them.

     —  Greg Laurie, Life: Any Questions?  (1995), Chapter 6, "What does Jesus' Crucifixion Mean to Me?"




... one of the world's most commonplace maladies ... [is] Emptiness . All of us have experienced it — from the most famous to the completely unknown. ... It makes no difference whether we're a world leader, Hollywood celebrity, rock star, or a brilliant scientist. That gnawing emptiness can eat away at the soul. It plagues the lifestyles of the "rich and famous" just as surely as the lifestyles of the "poor and unknown".

Emptiness and loneliness are not unique to ... my generation [i.e., Baby Boomers] ... or the generation before ... or the generation before that. Nor will they be unique to the next generation [Generation X, aka "13th Generation"] and the one following [Generation Y, aka Millennial Generation or Millennials, Generation Next, Net Generation, Echo Boomers]. ...

[ ... ]

It feels as if there's a hole inside us big enough to drive a truck through ... so we follow countless pursuits in our frantic efforts to fill it up. What we want is some sense of purpose and meaning in our lives. We start shoving things into that hole, trying to fill it, stop its aching, close the distance ... make ourselves happy. What will do the job? Money? Beauty? Celebrity?

[ ... ]

Actor Nicholas Cage echoed those ideas: "I wonder if there's a hole in the soul of my generation. We've inherited the American dream, but where do we take it? It's not just about cars and wealth. It has to do with freedom. We'll fight for freedom, but are we free in our thoughts, or are we paralyzed by our dreams of consumption?"

Harrison Ford, the most successful actor in the history of Hollywood — a man whose movies have grossed two billion dollars, told a magazine interviewer: "You only want what you ain't got."

What ain't he got? "Peace," was his response. [ Source quoted: " GQ , 1993" ]

Media mogul Ted Turner described life as "... like a B-grade movie. You don't want to leave in the middle, but you don't want to see it again." That's a sad commentary on life from one of the world's most successful men.

We sometimes think that if we only had money and fame, we would be happy. If only we could be rich, like Aristotle Onassis ... but it was his daughter, Christina, who said: "Happiness is not based on money, and the greatest proof of that is my family." Christina Onassis committed suicide shortly after making that statement.

People have long been trying to fill the emptiness in their lives with other things. One of the most popular ways has been with drugs. The list is long of those whose lives ended prematurely due to drug use. A most recent example [note: this is a 1995 book!] is Jerry Garcia — lead guitarist, singer, and founding member of the sixties rock group, The Grateful Dead, dead at fifty-three of a heart attack after long years of widely publicized heroin addiction. Garcia was for many a living link to the sixties. Thousands of "Dead-heads" would follow the band's concert circuit across the nation in celebration of the culture and philosophy of that bygone era. Garcia, however, had tried to kick drugs more than once; he had been in and out of drug rehab centers for years.

LSD-guru Timothy Leary tried to comfort mourning Dead-heads with a nineties spin on his sixties axiom — "Turn on, tune in, drop out."

"Hang on, hang in, hang out!" Leary advised bereaved Dead-heads.

Jerry Garcia was one in a long line of successful rock 'n' rollers and Hollywood multimillionaires caught in the sixties whose lives ended tragically:

  • Rolling Stone Brian Jones, twenty-five — dead from a drug-related drowning

  • Keith Moon, thirty-one, drummer for The Who — dead of an overdose

  • Sid Vicious, twenty-one, of The Sex Pistols — dead of a heroin overdose

  • Elvis Presley, forty-two, "The King of Rock 'n' Roll" — dead of heart failure due to drugs.

    [ Cf. "While preparing for his concert series This Is It , [Michael] Jackson died of acute propofol intoxication on June 25, 2009, after suffering from cardiac arrest. Before his death, Jackson had been administered drugs including propofol and lorazepam. The Los Angeles County Coroner declared his death a homicide, and his personal physician pleaded not guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter." —  Wikipedia  ]

Add to this list rock icons Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison, comedian John Belushi, and actor River Phoenix. This list is by no means complete, but a sample of the many lives tragically ended due to drugs. And still, drug use continues to spread.

Or take the example of Kurt Cobain, the leader of the platinum-selling rock band Nirvana. He made a career from singing about confusion and frustration. Then one day, at the age of twenty-seven, Kurt Cobain took out a shotgun and killed himself in his Seattle home. Ironically, he was only a year younger than Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix when they died.

Here was a man who had so much. He had success. He had fame. Yet his life was empty — so empty, in fact, that he had begun killing himself with a heroin addiction long before he finally pulled that shotgun trigger. Cobain reportedly wanted to title one of his albums, "I Hate Myself and I Want to Die". In his suicide note he wrote, "I must be one of those narcissists who only appreciate things when they are alone. I'm too sensitive. I haven't felt the excitement for too many years now." [ Source quoted: "Article by John Carlson, Knight-Ridder News Service, April 13, 1994" ]

His mother was quoted in a newspaper as saying, "Now he is gone and has joined the stupid club." Referring to other rock stars, such as Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin, who died young, she said, "I told him not to join the stupid club." [ Source quoted: "Article by John Carlson, Knight-Ridder News Service, April 13, 1994" ]

Courtney Love, the widow of Kurt Cobain, said in an interview that appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine: "I don't think God necessarily put us here to be sober all the time, but I also don't think He put us here to be junkies." [ Source quoted: " Rolling Stone Magazine, July 1995" ]

Reflecting on Cobain's death, John Carlson wrote: "In a sense, Cobain is what the spirit of the sixties once envisioned: complete freedom from social, moral, or political constraint, almost universal licence to compose and explore whatever landscape he chose, liberation from middle America and its traditional values." [ Source quoted: "Article by John Carlson, Knight-Ridder News Service, April 13, 1994" ] No boundaries. No sets of absolutes. And so Cobain's life came to a tragic end. Clearly, there's more to life than economics — than material possessions.

[ ... ]

Pop icon Madonna was asked the question: "Are you a happy person?" She replied: "I'm a tormented person. I have a lot of demons I'm wrestling with. But I want to be happy. I have moments of happiness. I'm working toward knowing myself, and I'm assuming that will bring me happiness." [ Source quoted:" Us Magazine, June 1990" ]

Apparently fame does not necessarily equate with happiness, as another cultural icon will readily testify. "I feel something's missing," hugely successful actor-comedian Eddie Murphy told People magazine. "I don't think there's anyone who feels like there isn't something missing in their life. No matter how much money you make, or how many cars or houses you have, or how many people you make happy, life isn't perfect for anybody." [ Source quoted: " People Magazine" ]

Another Hollywood celebrity [unidentified!] discovered that fame and fortune couldn't fill that empty spot deep inside his soul: "I found that I couldn't shove enough drugs, women, cars, stereos, houses, stardom in there to make me feel good. I guess that's why a lot of people overdose — they get to the point where the hole is so big they die."

[ ... ]

It's not just the fast lane of Hollywood stardom that leaves this void in people. It touches even world leaders. At the pinnacle of his career as president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos wrote: "I am president. I am the most powerful man in the Philippines. All that I have dreamt of, I have. But I feel a discontent." [Marcos was later driven out of the Philippines by a popular so-called 'people's power' revolution, and he had to exile himself in Hawaii, where he passed away.]

That feeling of discontent, restlessness, and disappointment plagued J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Project, a research team that produced the atom bomb. When asked about his achievements a year before he died in 1966, he replied: "I am a complete failure! They leave on the tongue only the taste of ashes."

     —  Greg Laurie, Life: Any Questions?  (1995), Chapter 1, "Why Am I Empty?"




I WAS BORN in 1952. That makes me a Baby Boomer.

The fifties — what a time to be alive! It all began so innocently.

James Dean was a movie star and so was Marilyn Monroe.

John [Fitzgerald] Kennedy was a senator and Ike [i.e., Eisenhower] was president.

Ernest Hemingway was in his prime.

Elvis was king.

You could buy a handful of candy for a penny and for twenty-five cents, you could get a burger complete with the trimmings.

I ... remember watching "I Love Lucy" and "Leave it to Beaver" on black-and-white television. ...

[ ... ]

Then one day shots cracked the air in Dallas, and as bullets ripped through the body of President John F. Kennedy, the age of innocence came brutally to an end for me and my generation. No more illusions that life would ever be like it was depicted on TV — always a happy ending.

Other icons of our generation were checking out ahead of schedule too. James Dean was killed in a head-on car crash. Marilyn Monroe was found dead of an overdose of barbiturates. Then while running for president Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, following in his brother's bloody footsteps.

Now it was the sixties and kids my age were trying to get a handle on all ... [our] dreams going up in smoke. Like millions of other teens, I thought I could — we could — change the world. "Never trust anyone over thirty," now a cliché to describe the mindset of the generation, rang true for me too.

I remember the first time I saw the Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show". I was living with my grandparents at the time. They were thoroughly disgusted with those four moptop lads from Liverpool. But I was intrigued by their music and its message — a message that became increasingly drug-motivated.

As The Beatles went through their many phases of musical and personal discovery, I followed suit on the heels of a whole generation. We didn't follow the music as much as the musicians — Pied Pipers of a generation playing the soundtrack to our lives. It was as though an entire generation was caught in an unseen current that pulled us along in an uncertain direction. None of us knew where it was leading, but we were enjoying the ride.

[ ... ]

As did so many others of my generation, I bought into the idea that drugs might contain some of the answers I was looking for, so I could truly "find myself". It seemed that everyone was doing drugs and that drugs were actually being celebrated in our culture. Love beads. Flower power. Long hair. Peace symbols. Psychedelic prints. Bell-bottom jeans.

I followed along at first, almost believing that the answers to the questions would eventually come, as promised. However, it wasn't long before I saw the futility of this lifestyle as I watched my creativity, motivation, and skills diminish. I was told drugs would "make me more aware", and in many ways that was true. I became more aware of how empty and lonely I was deep inside myself. After a particularly frightening drug-induced experience, I knew that I had to stop doing drugs forever. At that moment I knew drugs would be part of my past, not my present, and certainly not my future.

I had also seen the devastating effects of drugs on the lives of sixties cult heroes who self-destructed while still in their prime: Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison ... all gone.

Add to that the ominous cloud of the Vietnam War that hung over the heads of the nation's young men — including me. We sat in our living rooms watching the daily news reports while the statistics piled up of the latest casualties — guys the same age who had been struggling with the same issues. Every one of us who were draft age lived with the uncertainty that any minute we could be headed for the Orient, right after being hastily taught how to handle a gun.

Then there was Watergate. We watched the highest office in our country unravel and saw a president fall.

All these converging issues caused fear and disillusionment. ... I found myself asking the Big Questions:

What is the meaning of life?

Why am I here?

And the one that really kept me up nights was, What will happen after I die?

[ ... ]

Eventually, each of us asks the Big Questions.

[ ... ]

Many ... are probably painfully aware that we no longer have all the time in the world to settle these issues. ...

My generations has finally inherited responsibility for maintaining — and hopefully improving — all those institutions that it once opposed. Now my generation is over thirty, wearing the pin-stripe suits, carrying the briefcases, and shuffling off to work — the fast track, if you please. Now we're the ones concerned about house payments and soccer games and car-pooling and coaching little league. Now we're the ones wondering how we're going to successfully keep our kids off drugs, in school, out of trouble, and on the right track. Now we're the ones faced with the challenge of shaping the world for yet another generation to inherit.

How good will we be at it? Only time will tell. But I know one thing for certain: None of us can do it on our own. We need help — divine intervention. ...

Where will we find the direction, the purpose, the guidelines we need as we journey into a future racked with rocketing crime rates, AIDS and other mysterious killer-viruses, the information explosion, earthquakes, global warming, Middle East unrest, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, and bombings in America's heartland? ...

[ ... ]

     —  Greg Laurie, Life: Any Questions?  (1995), "Introduction"




Sometimes people say, "It does not matter what you believe so long as you are sincere." But it is possible to be sincerely wrong. Adolf Hitler was sincerely wrong. His beliefs destroyed the lives of [at least six] millions of people. The Yorkshire Ripper believed that he was doing God's will when he killed prostitutes. He too was sincerely wrong. His beliefs affected his behaviour. These are extreme examples, but they make the point that it matters a great deal what we believe, because what we believe will dictate how we live.

Other people's response to a Christian [ not the same as being a "Catholic"!] may be, "It's great for you, but it is not for me." This is not a logical position. If Christianity [ not the same as "Catholicism"!] is true, it is of vital importance to every one of us. If it is not true, Christians are deluded and it is not "great for us" — it is very sad and the sooner we are put right the better. As the writer and scholar C. S. Lewis put it, "Christianity is a statement which, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important." [ Source quoted: "C. S. Lewis, Timeless at Heart , Christian Apologetics (Fount)" ]

     —  Nicky Gumbel, Questions of Life  (1995), Chapter 1, "Christianity: Boring, Untrue and Irrelevant?"




... how can we test people's claims? Jesus claimed to be the unique Son of God; God made flesh. There are three logical possibilities. If the claims were untrue, either he knew they were untrue — in which case he was an imposter, and an evil one at that. That is the first possibility. Or he did not know — in which case he was deluded; indeed, he was mad. That is the second possibility. The third possibility is that the claims were true.

C. S. Lewis put it like this:

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse ... but let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. [ Source quoted from: "C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity " (Fount, 1952) ]

     —  Nicky Gumbel, Questions of Life  (1995), Chapter 2, "Who is Jesus?"




John Wimber, an American pastor and church leader, describes how the cross became a personal reality to him:

After I studied the Bible ... for about three months I could have passed an elementary exam on the cross. I understood there is one God who could be known in three Persons. I understood Jesus is fully God and fully man and he died on the cross for the sins of the world. But I didn't understand that I was a sinner. I thought I was a good guy. I knew I messed up here and there but I didn't realise how serious my condition was.

But one evening around this time Carol [his wife] said, "I think it's time to do something about all that we've been learning." Then, as I looked on in utter amazement, she knelt down on the floor and started praying to what seemed to me to be the ceiling plaster. "Oh God," she said, "I am sorry for my sin."

I couldn't believe it. Carol was a better person than I, yet she thought she was a sinner. I could feel her pain and the depth of her prayers. Soon she was weeping and repeating, "I am sorry for my sin." There were six or seven people in the room, all with their eyes closed. I looked at them and then it hit me: They've all prayed this prayer too!  I started sweating bullets. I thought I was going to die. The perspiration ran down my face and I thought, "I'm not going to do this. This is dumb. I'm a good guy." Then it struck me. Carol wasn't praying to the plaster; she was praying to a person, to a God who could hear her. In comparison to him she knew she was a sinner in need of forgiveness.

In a flash the cross made personal sense to me. Suddenly I knew something that I had never known before; I had hurt God's feelings. He loved me and in his love for me he sent Jesus. But I had turned away from that love; I had shunned it all my life. I was a sinner, desperately in need of the cross.

Then I too was kneeling on the floor, sobbing, nose running, eyes watering, every square inch of my flesh perspiring profusely. I had this overwhelming sense that I was talking with someone who had been with me all of my life, but whom I failed to recognise. Like Carol, I began talking to the living God, telling him that I was a sinner but the only words I could say aloud were, "Oh God, Oh God."

I knew something revolutionary was going on inside of me. I thought, "I hope this works, because I'm making a complete fool of myself." Then the Lord brought to mind a man I had seen in Pershing Square in Los Angeles a number of years before. He was wearing a sign that said, "I'm a fool for Christ. Whose fool are you?" I thought at the time, "That's the most stupid thing I've ever seen." But as I kneeled on the floor I realised the truth of the odd sign: the cross is foolishness "to those who are perishing" (1 Corinthians 1:18). That night I knelt at the cross and believed in Jesus. I've been a fool for Christ ever since. [ Source quoted from: "John Wimber, Equipping the Saints Vol 2, No 2, Spring 1988 (Vineyard Ministries Int.) ]


     —  Nicky Gumbel, Questions of Life  (1995), Chapter 3, "Why Did Jesus Die?"

 

 

YouTube: "But, Yeah, I Have a Good Heart..."

 

 

Each of us has sinned. But the ultimate issue is the Son of God: What about Him? Is Jesus Lord? Is He the Son of God? Did He die on the cross for the sins of mankind? Was He raised from the dead on the third day? Is He Savior and Lord? Or a fraud or a liar or a lunatic?

C. S. Lewis said, "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said wouldn't be a great moral teacher. He'd either be a lunatic ... or else He'd be the devil of Hell." Each of us must make a choice: either this man was, and is, the Son of God ... or else a madman or something worse.

"Wait," you might say, "I don't reject Him. I admire Him." But Jesus did not say, "Admire Me." He said, "Follow Me." And to be quite honest, I don't think He appreciates it when people classify Him merely as a great humanitarian or moral teacher. He made claims that were very specific and exclusive. He claimed not only to be a messenger from God, but God the Messenger. He claimed to be God incarnate — a human being. And He claimed to be the only way to the Father. Now, was He right or wrong? That's what each individual must decide. The answer to that question — and nothing else — decides one's eternal fate.

So what's it going to be? Heaven or hell? Comfort or torment? [Non-smoking — or smoking?]

     —  Greg Laurie, Life: Any Questions?  (1995), Chapter 5, "What Happens When I Die?"


 

UNSATISFACTORILY UNEXPLAINED

What is the dark secret behind real-life zombies?

How did Stone Age man complete the mammoth feat of engineering that is [today known as] Stonehenge?

Are mysterious codes encrypted in the Bible that contain the hidden word of God?

This comprehensive anthology of the world's most intriguing mysteries will keep you hooked from start to finish.
— Lucy Doncaster, Karen Farrington, and Andrew Holland
      The Complete Book of the Unexplained
      A Thrilling Exploration of the Earth's Most Baffling Mysteries
     [Adapted]


 

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"The Fermi Paradox is the apparent contradiction between the high probability extraterrestrial civilizations' existence and the lack of contact with such civilizations."
   —  www.fermisparadox.com

 

 

Ancient Mysteries - The Great Flood - http://www.mysterious-strange-weird.com/great-flood/Ancient_Mysteries_-_The_Great_Flood_188x135_rnd.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
Ancient Mysteries - The Great Flood
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Ancient Mysteries - Nazca Lines - http://www.mysterious-strange-weird.com/nazca-lines/Ancient_Mysteries_-_Nazca_Lines_188x135_rnd.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
Ancient Mysteries - Nazca Lines
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Ancient Mysteries - Easter Island - http://www.mysterious-strange-weird.com/easter-island/Ancient_Mysteries_-_Easter_Island_188x135_rnd.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
Ancient Mysteries - Easter Island
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Ancient Mysteries - Stonehenge - http://www.mysterious-strange-weird.com/stonehenge/Ancient_Mysteries_-_Stonehenge_188x135_rnd.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
Ancient Mysteries - Stonehenge
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Secrets of Stonehenge - http://www.mysterious-strange-weird.com/stonehenge/Secrets_of_Stonehenge_188x135_rnd.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
Secrets of Stonehenge
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Stonehenge mystery solved? - http://www.mysterious-strange-weird.com/stonehenge/Stonehenge_mystery_solved_rnd.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
Stonehenge mystery solved?
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Mysteries of Economics
(aka Mysteries of the "Dismal Science")

 

What's a US Dollar Worth? : The Fed, Money as Debt - http://www.mysterious-strange-weird.com/us-economy/What_s_a_US_Dollar_Worth____The_Fed__Money_as_Debt.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
'What US Dollar Worth, Ah?'
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Satirical-Comical Sketches

John Bird & John Fortune - Subprime Crisis -- Bird_and_Fortune__Subprime_Crisis__rnd.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
Subprime Crisis
 
John Bird & John Fortune - Subprime Crisis -- Bird_and_Fortune__Financial_Adviser__rnd.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
Financial Adviser
 
John Bird & John Fortune - Subprime Crisis -- Part_1_of_2_Bird_ortune_-_Financial_crisis_-_Silly_Money_Nov_08__rnd.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
Silly Money #1
 
John Bird & John Fortune - Subprime Crisis -- Part_2_of_2_Bird_ortune_-_Financial_crisis_-_Silly_Money_Nov_08__rnd.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
Silly Money #2

 

 

"The Star [of Bethlehem]"
(Fictional, But Possible, Solution — Supernova Hypothesis)

The Star of Bethlehem - The_Twilight_Zone_The_Star_Part_1__TTZ_01x13c_rnd.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
The Star, Part 1
 
The Star of Bethlehem - The_Twilight_Zone_The_Star_Part_2__TTZ_01x13c_rnd.jpg -- www.mysteries-of-the-world.info -- www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
The Star, Part 2


Depending on how your system is configured, read or download the PDF renderings of the following named webpages ( note: new tab or window will appear ):
  1. The Star (The Twilight Zone) [Wikipedia]

  2. Arthur C. Clarke [Wikipedia]

  3. Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World [Wikipedia]

 

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Some Brief Presentations


  1. On "UFOs"

More:


 

  1. Why We Fight

    Alternate:


 
  1. Is God Dead? (PDF)
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     —  Wikipedia entry on the TIME Magazine Article dated April 8, 1966

Is God Dead? - TIME Magazine Article (April 8, 1966) -- http://www.mysterious-strange-weird.com/is-god-dead/Is_God_Dead__TIME_magazine_cover.jpg -- for www.mysteries-of-the-world.info and www.mysterious-strange-weird.com
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More:



 

  1. "End Of The World 2012" (WTF???)

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It is my sincere hope that you are not, or have not become, so gullible as to fall for anything bogus or nonsensical or farcical, such as falling for stuff like "Astrology" or "I-ching" or some such similar garbage ... including falling for anything that is featured, as a warning , in our public service webpages — our entire Website is geared to warn readers and viewers of these scams, hoaxes, frauds and tricks, in other words, we are asking you to beware and be aware!

It is intellectually dishonest to believe in something that is not true, even if it is profitable (that is, even if it makes you a lot of mullah, money, cash, whatever); surely, you are not chained to the "bean-counter" mentality, are you? Because if you are, that is really, really sad!

If you want to be liberated or if you want to awaken , then walk away from that which is not the truth! ("The truth shall make you free", says the Bible, right? Yes!) Especially, don't be so chained to the money, that you become "richly asleep", unable to awaken from the nightmare of your own making that has ensnared you!

As Stephen Batchelor

[ Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening ;
see also Living with the Devil aka ego or Mara ]
puts it:
"A person who is asleep is either lost in deep unconsciousness or absorbed in a dream [or nightmare! — Paul Quek]. ... An unawakened existence, in which we drift unaware on a surge of habitual impulses, is both ignoble and undignified."

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'Nuff said!

Cheers!

Paul Quek
Webmeister
Woodlands, Singapore