Who is vexen crabtree

This page contains all the information that this user has chosen to make public on their OpenLearn profile. I study at degree-level with the Open University for personal interest; I will completely my Social Sciences degree in In the OU I concentrate on the social sciences, psychology and comparative religion.

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Vexen Crabtree's OpenLearn Profile. Vexen Crabtree OpenLearn Profile. Take your learning further 44 11 Making the decision to study can be a big step, which is why you'll want a trusted university. And to section "5. How to Pray in Islam, According to the Qur'an" I've added notes on several more Qur'anic verses, such as Qur'an , and , Is God All-Powerful? Responsible for making every aspect of evil and suffering possible and for creating the long chain of cause and effect that results in disasters and influences people to choose wrongly, god is so absolutely responsible for all evil and pain that it renders it an amoral being at best, and at worst, an immoral one.

On a sociological bent, I've added section "5. The Ineffectiveness of God to Answer Prayers", which is about the way choices of prayers give away the fact that people are saying them more as magic words rather than saying them with the confidence that God itself can change the laws of physics i.

Some become great and lead humankind forward, successfully encouraging others to shake off their shackles and dogmas, and face the wondrous world with imagination and open-mindedness.

Some become great through beauty, acting, entertainment, or other temporal endeavours, and find their egos drag them onwards. Both the humanistic greats and the egotistical greats are prone to thinking themselves better than others, and both can often be found bemoaning the state of the masses. Are you with me, or are you part of the deluded herd? Because of the two types of greatness I mention above, one is formed of breakable china, and the other is formed from rock, upon which we build humankind's greatest scientific, technological and moral victories.

When looks and talent fade, who has left the enduring legacy on which others can build? They are the greats, and they are ones who have permission to announce their disgrace at the state of humankind! Follow them, copy them, be inspired by them and read their books! Momen's use of the word "gnosticism" is a little problematic, as, nearly all gnostic documents discvovered archeologically have been largely Christian affairs, having as a saviour a Christ figure who comes and reveals the necessary secret knowledge, and, being heavily centered on the ways in which the Old Testament god is defeated by the Good News.

Momen's category mostly describes what are called mystery religions, rather than gnosticism. For this reason, although in when I first published this text I stated that there was a 4 out of 5 match between this category and Satanism, I am not revising that to 3 out of 5, due to the poor choice of category title by Moojan Momen. I follow this with a good description of actual Gnosticism.

Classical Gnosticism". Just added a few paragraphs on the Gnostics who were caught occasionally identifying with bad-guys such as Cain, Kresh and Judas. Because it turns out that if the God of this world is actually evil, then, those who oppose that god are in fact the good guys. A few of these updates I done a few weeks ago, but I've been busy with University work so I'm only just around to posting this.

The Early Slave Trade, War and Rejection of Slave Ownership : "Slavery was part of the culture of the entire Mesopotamian area from which Judaism and Christianity arose but in Babylon in the era of BCE, injury to slaves was a punishable offence, although the punishment was only a fine2, slaves were better off than in the surrounding areas.

Organized Judaism arose from Babylon, and the God that they described in their holy writings happened to reveal to them laws and guidelines regarding slaves that were eerily similar to those found in the wider Babylonian community. Some use this fact to argue that all the verses regarding slaves are merely cultural artefacts, and not God's word. Islam and the West: Pluralism, Immigration and Danger - Made a few minor updates and added section "4.

Violent Fanaticism and Terrorism, Starting With Intolerance" with an example of the way a pro-evolution and pro-women's-choice cleric was forced out of his teaching role in the UK by anti-evolution and anti-women Muslims. The potential scope of what I could put on this page is staggering, so much so that I've chickened out and only made a few minor updates at the moment, due to time constraints. Jesus and the Crucifixion - A Trick". The whole scheme of the life of Jesus does not add up, and it is very hard to reconcile it with the plans of an all-knowing, good God.

The crucifixion makes no sense, except if the God of the Bible is evil. Then the magic tricks are the successful attempts of an evil god to impress us simple mortals. Monotheism and Free Will: God, Determinism and Fate - added a note on the contradiction between Omnipotence and Free Will section 2 , added a few more verses from Qur'an to the list of determinist verses, and re-ordered the page a little bit.

Added section Atheism and Secularism 2. Lower-case or Upper-case Atheism? Sowing Seeds of Confusion - Not the Antics of a Good God" about Biblical statements on dreams, prophecies and the like and how they should be trusted, against the real-life situation that many conflicting religions and beliefs result from such visions. Also, the story of the Tower of Babel from Genesis 11 has God create all the conflicting languages of mankind, because otherwise "nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them".

And finally, Biblical Christianity Denies Free Will : I've added Matthew to the section on predeterminism; although it isn't about salvation, it is at least about justice. The verses say that the sun and the rain afflict both the good and the evil amongst us.

Also added a quote to section "4. And in other news, I'm loving the summer heat even though it makes it harder to do my marathon training - mostly means I'm having to go running a bit later in the day than normal. And I've added reviews of Romero's latest films to the classic page, and a review of Osombie where Osama Bin Laden comes back from the dead in Afghanistan!

Democracy: Its Foundations and Modern Challenges - relaunched this page and moved it to a new domain. I've added several sections, including results of the Press Freedom Index, showing which are the best 25 and worst 25 countries, and added a large section on the Mass Media, largely concentrated on the negative effects on democracy.

Although it was only a relatively light book, it still contained a few paragraphs I've quoted, and other factoids that I've added to this page, and, took the chance to clear up a few bits and make a few minor edits. Marriage: Its Diversity and Character - Added a quote to section " 1. The Diversity of Marriage " - "Pythagoreans taught that marriage is unfavorable to high intellectual development [and] the Pharisees taught that it is sinful for a man to live unmarried beyond his twentieth year" Stanton And I've added a chart to section " 5.

The Decline of Religious Marriages ". Islam: With Courteous Manners and Wisdom ; verses like Qur'an , , and in general agree with verses from the Christian Bible on the same subject, although you wouldn't believe it from the behaviour of many of the hot-headed Christians and Muslims!

The Evolution of Religion: The Bad Boys Survive at the Expense of the Nice Ones ; the conflict between various forms of Christianity became so legendary that even other religious books try to explain it - Qur'an asserts that emnity and hatred between Christians is a punishment from God for their "abandoning parts of God's message".

Islam ; I've added the right-hand box that summarizes Qur'an , which says that most Jews are liars. The 12 Tribes of Israel, 12 Disciples of God ; added a new paragraph on Qur'an , and , which records some strange details about the 12 tribes of Israel each having their own river, all stemming from one source. Astronomy: The Earth Orbits the Sun! Islam and the Qur'an ; Qur'an contains some of the same errors about basic science as does the Bible, assuming a flat Earth.

A lot of these notes have been appended to other pages because I haven't written enough to 'break out' the sections into their own pages. Everything is still growing! Posted by Unknown at No comments: Synthetically grown meat I've written a load more on synthetically grown meat; the introductory paragraph reads: Meat in vats, grown in culture from a chemical source derived from animal genetics, will result in meat being grown more like plants than livestock.

Such research aims to massively reduce the land and resources used by meat production, increase the safety and nutritional value of meat, stop animal suffering and prevent the further hunting of endangered species for food. It has even been researched by NASA in , as part of an investigation into food production on long-haul space flights.

The Economist newspaper in hailed it as a future industry. Animal farming as an industry is in distress in the modern world, and is criticized for its heavy use of water and inhumane nature. The potential benefits of growing synthetic meats in a sterile and controlled manner are huge. Posted by Unknown at No comments: Labels: food , GM , synthetic meat Voltaire - nothing is new in metaphysics!

I've added this quote to the beginning of " Nothing New: Religions Evolve From Previous Religions " by Vexen Crabtree : "In metaphysics, in moral philosophy, the ancients have said everything. We coincide with them, or we repeat them. All modern books of this kind are only repetitions. The Advantages of Pooled Transport. God Testing People in the Christian Bible. In Deuteronomy God reveals that the years in the wilderness was a test done by God to find out what was in people's hearts - whether they would still obey orders.

In Deuteronomy God sends some false prophets and wonder-workers as tests to see if people will follow other gods, and in 2 Chronicles God is doing similar fact-finding tests. Yet an all-knowing God, creator of all time, knows exactly who will pass any tests, and knows exactly what is in everyone's heart.

So either God is lying about his reasons, or, god is not actually all-knowing. Added section 1. I've rewritten an old page. See: 1 Samuel , Job ; ; , Psalm ; , ; , Proverbs , Jeremiah , , Acts , Hebrews , Matthew and 1 John Yet there are plenty of times when God doesn't know things, such as where people are.

Check these verses: Genesis - Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord, amongst the trees of the garden, and God had to go find them, and then asks them questions. Either Adam and Eve are so dumb that they can't grasp that God is all-knowing, or, God is genuinely asking because it doesn't know the answers. If not, I will know. God asks Jacob what Jacob's name is; yet an all-knowing god would surely know! Numbers - Balaam and some Moabite officials spend a night waiting for God, who duly pops down for a visit, "And God came unto Balaam, and said, What men are these with thee?

Job , - "And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. Sometimes, it is said in the Bible that God tests people. Finishes in about 16 years. Finish in early October. Finish in a week. Finishing them all in December. This year I'm doing a foundation degree in Communications System Engineering, for which I'm always revising for Cisco and Microsoft exams, and I'm doing another module towards my Open University degree in social sciences with religious studies.

I've relaunched this page and added loads of new stuff. The contents of " What Causes Religion and Superstitions? Whilst there are well-known contradictions between thses accounts who'd have thought that various people could have thought Jesus' last words were so different?!!

Find the quotes in section 3 of that page. It still opens with a list of all the main areas of the problem of evil natural disasters, angels heaven, babies going to heaven. And a list of all the main theodocies used to try to explain why evil exists free will, the absence of god, god testing us, etc. All these explanations do not answer the fundamental problem of evil, however. I've added a paragraph to " The Importance of Current Events is Amplified by our Egos " by Vexen Crabtree : End-of-the-world-mania is dependent upon certain properties of human ego.

We want to witness important historical times, and we want to be at the fore and center of tumultuous and attention-grabbing events. There have been thousands of end-of-the-world predictions. They have been the products of many great minds, many devoted believers in various religions and cults, with a lot of time and effort put in to each and every theory, building up supporting evidence from religious texts, historical trends and numerology.

What do all these predictions have in common about the end of the world? They have all been wrong. Those promoting these fears, and those subject to them, are all in the grips of their own ego!

This is based on my new page " The End of the World is Nigh! After some fansical ideas about spending the time learning, building a nest, taking up radio astronomy, I realized I would probably need to spend most my time on food-management and pre-emptive medicine-learning.

Assuming food-management was sorted, and I didn't go crazy I'd have to be strict with myself. Up at 7am every day or 8am, depending on day break , I'd always set an alarm. I'd give up most things computer-related no point. I'd obviously learn where hardware stores are, supermarkets for most my food, but I'd need to start growing veg and fruit straight away. Surival books, gardening books, health books. Find pharmacy, rig up kit to generate electricity.

Lots of Army bases in the SW have kit like that, that I've seen used before. But then what? Library: Astronomy, research, physics Broadcast my own radio station on AM and FM in case there is anyone else? I'd not be much interested in travelling around or thrill-seeking. Resources matter, that's all. So I need fuel for electricity; when resources run out, I'll go somewhere else, in a truck full of stuff. Build lots of large signs and message telling people how to find me. Just try to keep busy, rather than lose my faculties!

Posted by Unknown at No comments: How many Muslims are there? Muslims have a disproportionate share of such people, so their numbers are rising. Factors such as war and instability in the Middle East keep the reproduction rate higher.

The Muslim world is slowly aging. But on average, Muslims are starting to age. It is 24 now, and will be 30 by For French, Germans and Japanese the figure is 40 or over. This suggests Muslim numbers will ultimately stop climbing, but later than the rest of the population".

Because of this, the EUMC withheld publication until it was leaked. The report summarized country-by-country events, including large rallies against Jews by hundreds of Muslims chanting "kill the Jews", and no end of other incidents.

Throughout the West, violent anti-semitism is correlated with Muslim immigration. Synagogues have been burned down, schools vandalized, shops attacked, rabbis beaten, children assaulted, school buses shot at, [ At Muslim demonstrations shouts of "Death to the Jews" have become common. And the main index page: is finally done, with some javascript fiddlery pokery: " The Description, Philosophies and Justification of Satanism " by Vexen Crabtree.

Who is the Real Enemy? Posted by Unknown at 1 comment: How to fix newspapers I have added a section to my critical page on the Mass Media, with regards to newspapers and cheap sensationalist journalism, and their negative effects on individuals and society.

Here is a bit of the next text, view the rest by clicking on the title, above! Stronger international laws against the public spreading of disinformation. Broadcasters should be placed under extra legal obligation to check facts. Many journalists avoid legal trouble by claiming that they don't know what stories are true or not.

So, if it is scandalous and it will sell, then, they publish it without checking or admitting their sources.

There needs to be an international body that specifically deals with mass-media outlets, proscribing to them a greater responsibility to check their facts, with the ability to suspend printing or publication once a certain amount of abuse has built up.

Journalists should be required to be a member of a journalist association, which they get kicked out of if they produce very low quality information. Many developed countries already have such associations. It should especially be the case in wire agencies, from which most other news outlets get their news. Some methods of curbing the press's abuses are good-hearted, but occasionally dysfunctional: "In the Slovak parliament introduced one to guarantee the subject of a story the right to reply, of the same length and prominence as the original" - this sounds good, because the idea is that the press will have to print criticisms of itself in its own papers with such frequency that they will be compelled only to publish accurate information.

There is however a very unfortunate second part to that law - the right to reply stands even if the facts were correct. This would seem to me to lead to a barrage of responses from politicians and lawyers that abuse the right-to-reply principal, in effect, ending the ability of the press to be critical. In a healthy democracy, the press must free to be critical of governments and institutions.

In Poland, an old law gives sources the authority to withdraw or edit quotations right up until the point of publication So when a paper tries to quote someone out of context, as they are often eager to do, the subject can withdraw their quote. Unfortunately, it seems like it can again be abused by officials to ruin newspaper stories in order to hide truth.

In short, it appears to be very difficult to concoct laws that allow individuals to protect themselves against ridiculous press stories, but where instititons and democracies are still subject to critical journalism without fear of recriminations. What would be an ideal is a world where consumers, as pointed out above, avoid the more outlandish papers, and where editors and journalists only try to produce responsible pieces.

Unfortunately, neither is likely to happen. Posted by Unknown at No comments: Labels: crabtree , democracy , journalism , libel , mass media , newspapers , vexen , vexen crabtree The Creation of an International Military Force and the Fear of Progress I've added some text to " Uniforce: An International Military Force " based on stuff I've written in " General Neophobia in Everyday Life: Humankind's Fear of Progress and Change " which traces a few historical battles between progress in defence such as wearing camouflaged uniforms and those who worried that changes in defence were too dangerous to contemplate.

Experiments in pooled defence have so far proved successful and stabilizing, but, there are few attempts to explain this to the general public. Because it is big, and new, there is much opposition to it even though the status-quos in international defence are widely acknowledged to be broken.

In the future, when a European or International military force exists, historians will look back and puzzle over what our problems were. In practice, NATO and Europe are operating as if they had a unified worldwide force, and deploy it where is necessary. It makes sense to formalize this, so that it can be strengthened and made more dependable. But the public do not hear anything of these ideas or debates - they exist only in specialized military journals.

While the mass media, which is inherently sensationalist and nationalist, is the main voice on international military issues, most people receive reactionary information that is biased against intra-national accords.

Posted by Unknown at No comments: Labels: defence , force , international defence , mass media , military , war Neophobia and the Irrational Fear of 'Radiation' I've added some text to " General Neophobia in Everyday Life: Humankind's Fear of Progress and Change " by Vexen Crabtree : We saw that in zombie films and other hollwood products often used the idea of 'radiation', sometimes in a very simplistic manner, to sow the seeds of fear and horror.

There exists as part of the fear of the invisible and the unknown, a fear of 'radiation'. This is despite the fact that the colours of the spectrum and radio signals are both forms of radiation, along with infra-red light all are merely different frequencies on the electro-magnetic spectrum.

This general fear of immaterial waves plays a part in the unfounded fears of mobile phones. It would cause considerable fear, panic and social disruption, exactly the effects terrorists wish to achieve. The public fear of radiation is very great indeed, some say irrationally so. Posted by Unknown at No comments: Life is Mostly Procrastination All those things that you pursue to make yourself happy The things in life that make you happy are generally not the things that give your life worth.

In other words: Watch out for all those addictive little pleasures that take up lots of time, but will be completely forgotten as soon as you die! Posted by Unknown at No comments: United Kingdom: National Successes and Social Failures I have redesigned my website on the UK; it still has the same-old pages on British trash culture ; religion, secularisation and religious minorities ; UK immigration , and summaries of why others in the world might dislike us British , and what the UK gets right as a country our down to Earth nature lets us avoid extreme politics and fundamentalism, for example.

Only very few single individuals attempt to live without it. Some have theorized that this radical behaviour formed a major factor in our rise to stardom.

Dr Wrangham investigated the effect it has on food, and finds that it hugely improves the efficiency of the energy gain from the food cycle. It breaks starch molecules into more digestible fragments.

It "denatures" protein molecules, so that their amino-acid chains unfold and digestive enzymes can attack them more easily. And heat physically softens food. That makes it easier to digest, so even though the stuff is no more calorific, the body uses fewer calories dealing with it. Although it is common sense that the popular press play up and exaggerate stories, it wasn't until I read the research of Martin Gardner that I realized just how much of a role imaginative newspaper editors had played in the creation of the UFO craze.

It started in , when Kenneth Arnold saw 9 small weather balloons that were strung together, 'flying' in formation in the sky. The papers came up with the idea of 'flying saucers' on their own, and henceforth, enthusiastically published hyped-up articles attributing all unidentified flying objects to mysterious advanced technology and aliens. It was a science-fiction decade, with a popular press to match.

The Power of Solidarity " by Vexen Crabtree : The benefits of EU consolidarity means that multinationalism should often trump national interests. This means that when the EU acts together as a whole, the advantage to all of its members is greater than if countries maintained their own unilaterial national policies.

If a nation combined its efforts in say ten endeavours within consolidated EU plans, it would benefit enormously even if in a few of those areas this means that the norm which emerges is not one that is beneficial. It is like any collection of humans: If you group together, the whole group has more capability, even though sometimes all individuals will feel that peer pressure has stopped them doing something they wanted.

Anyway, needless to say that at present the EU is only united on a few, mostly economic, points.