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Category Archives: SOUNDS
Music, video or voice recordings that relate to Life, Universes and Other Stuff
MALE PERCEPTION OF FEMALES
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Here is a video montage of Female Faces portrayed in paintings by Western (male) artists during the past 500 years. Although the faces portrayed were thought to be “beautiful” by the MEN who painted them, the reality of their “beauty” was very short-lived. By the age of 18, most women were “middle-aged” and “matronly” If a girl was not already married and bearing children by this time, her chances of surviving — in the lower economic classes — were not very good. The girl who was not “pretty enough” to be married was doomed to be supported by her father, or other family members, until she was “lucky” enough to find a husband, or until she died of old age or disease. There were no “jobs” or “careers” for women outside the bedroom and household.
If Females had painted portraits woman during the 500 year period shown in this video, what would they look like? Oh, but of course, females were not PERMITTED to paint… or read… or become educated… or go to school…. or discuss ideas in the presence of men. During the 500 year period during which these portraits were being painted by MEN, the women being portrayed were really little more than slaves, who were literally the owned property of their fathers or husbands. Women were expected to endure a life of child bearing, domestic drudgery and mind-numbing “female” work, like cleaning, washing, cooking, sewing, and having sex whenever their spouse demanded it of them (without any birth control, or abortion.) So, in retrospect, I think we must realize that the male view of women has not really been very “beautiful”.
SPINOZA: AN ETERNAL ASPECT
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“In so far as the mind sees things in their eternal aspect, it participates in eternity.”
“The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.”
“Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.”
“If you want the present to be different from the past, study the past.”
“I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused.”
Watch the excellent video excerpt about the life and philosophy of Spinoza from the book The Story of Philosophy, by Will Durant
Baruch Spinoza (1632 – 1677 ) has been called by some “The Prince of Philosophers”. By the Catholic Church and the Jewish priests he was banned as a “heretic”. Spinoza was raised in the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. He developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the Divine. The Jewish religious authorities excommunicated him, effectively excluding him from Jewish society at age 23. His books were also later put on the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books.
If you are fundamentally heretical, like me, how can you not love this guy?
IRISH EYES
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THIS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU’VE HAD A WEE BIT TOO MUCH GREEN BEER…
SHERLOCK HOLMES ON THOMAS PAINE
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“I read the most excellent treatise and critique of that superstitious body of mythology written by the American revolutionary, Thomas Paine. Although Mr. Paine is not a popular fellow in Britain, having fathered the uprising against King George which resulted in the loss of the greatest possession ever claimed by the throne of England, he is nonetheless a man of preeminent intellect and prodigious reasoning ability.
His book, The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and *Fabulous Theology, to my own system of logical assessment and evaluation represents the most thorough, factual and incontrovertible dissection of the Bible, which unfortunately serves our civilization as a guideline for survival. After having read his preeminent work of logical vivisection upon the content of the Bible, and by abstraction, a commentary upon the paradigm of Western Civilization, it is no longer a mystery to me that humanity has endured so great an extent of war, misery, chaos, greed, destruction and mayhem inflicted by Western imperialism upon the Earth at the behest of, and with regal and religious blessings.
As for my personal observation and conviction concerning the matter of religion, I concur with the statement most ably stated by Thomas Paine himself:
“I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy. I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.”
— An excerpt from SHERLOCK HOLMES: MY LIFE, by Lawrence R. Spencer
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(Definition of the word “fabulous” — adjective: based on or told of in traditional stories; lacking factual basis or historical validity)