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THE CREATOR IS A BEETLE (OR A STAR)

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80-beetles

The evolutionary biologist J.B.S. Haldane Is famous for having repeatedly said that “the Creator must have an inordinate fondness for beetles, for the simple reason that there are just so many varieties of beetles on Earth.” (He also noted that the Creator also was “endowed with a passion for  stars” – again, because there are just so darn many of them.)

Stephen Jay Gould added to this by noting:

“God is most likely to take trouble over reproducing his own image, and his 400,000 attempts at the perfect beetle contrast with his slipshod creation of man. When we meet the Almighty face to face he will resemble a beetle (or a star).”

The Coleoptera /koʊliːˈɒptərə/ order of insects is commonly called beetles. The word “coleoptera” is from the Greek κολεός,koleos, meaning “sheath”; and πτερόν, pteron, meaning “wing”, thus “sheathed wing. The Coleoptera include more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known types of animal life-forms. About 40% of all described insect species are beetles (about 400,000 species), and new species are discovered frequently. Some estimates put the total number of species, described and undescribed, at as high as 100 million, but a figure of one million is more widely accepted.   ————–

stars

According to astronomers, there are probably more than 170 billion galaxies in the observable Universe, stretching out

into a region of space 13.8 billion light-years away from us in all directions. And so, if you multiply the number of stars in our galaxy by the number of galaxies in the Universe, you get approximately 1024 stars. That’s a 1 followed by twenty-four zeros.  That’s a septillion stars. But there could be more than that.

It’s been calculated that the observable Universe is a bubble of space 47 billion years in all directions. This is a minimum value, the Universe could be much bigger – it’s just that we can’t ever detect those stars because they’re outside the observable Universe. It’s even possible that the Universe is infinite, stretching on forever, with an infinite amount of stars. So add a couple more zeros. Maybe an infinite number of zeroes.  That’s a lot of stars in the Universe.

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/102630/how-many-stars-are-there-in-the-universe/#ixzz2uK83T2IZ

FREE ADVICE, INSIDE THE BOOK, READING MATTER, SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE

V is for VEGGIE VAMPIRE

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“Count Dracula, and his kindred spirits, may be considered to be “evil” from the point of view of mankind.  However, apart from the prejudice of the human victims who do not desire to serve as food for others who drink their blood, the vampire can not be considered to be anything other than an immortal spiritual being, attempting to persist and survive in a quasi-corporeal form.

I esteem that there is only one principle difference between a human being who eats a roasted chicken or pork or beef, and a vampire who drinks the living blood of a human being.  That is, that the vampire, by consuming the living blood, derives a more sustainable form of energy than the man who eats the dead flesh of an animal.

The man who eats dead meat lives 65 years, his own spirit is confined inside a fragile piece of flesh, with little or no self-awareness regarding his potential capabilities as a spiritual entity. Whereas, the vampire, consuming only the living blood of its victim, maintains an extreme spiritual power and ability, as well as physical strength and longevity which borders upon immortality!

Who is to say which condition is more or less desirable? There seems to me to be absolutely no limit to the inanity and credulity of the human race. Homo Sapiens! Homo idioticus!

Yet, it is entirely understandable that men do not trouble themselves with grotesque speculations as to the nature of life beyond the grave.  They have enough to do in this world. Life is a beautiful thing. The man who appreciates its beauties enjoys a sufficient understanding of life without dabbling in religions or spiritualism.

Religion is a fraud which have been exposed a hundred times and yet priests continue to find fresh crowds of foolish devotees whose insane credulity and superstitious prejudice make them impervious to all rational arguments.  One can only leave them to seek destinations of their singular Fates, which they have been predetermined for them.

Unless we practice eternal vigilance against these vampires, we will continue to be afflicted and effected by the contagion of their parasitical insanity.  The vitality of every civilization which has crumbled into disrepair and dust was drained of life by these diabolical beings!”

— Excerpted from the book SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE, by Lawrence R. Spencer

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8 PERCENT PEACE

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Plataea, Greece --- Spartans at Plataea. --- Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

War is defined as an active conflict that has claimed more than 1,000 lives.   

Has the world ever been at peace?

Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history.

How many people have died in war?

At least 108 million people were killed in wars in the twentieth century. Estimates for the total number killed in wars throughout all of human history range from 150 million to 1 billion. War has several other effects on population, including decreasing the birthrate by taking men away from their wives. The reduced birthrate during World War II is estimated to have caused a population deficit of more than 20 million people.

(Source: NY Times)