Monday, August 29, 2011

LOST MY MIND
I have never considered myself an intellectual (I can’t even spell it!) and never gave concepts much thought even when I was ripping out great designs for hillside homes in Laguna Beach, until my first house was being published, the editor wanted to know what my philosophy of architecture was. I was greatly surprised to recommence I didn’t have one, I just worked on a gut level, solving the current problems as they came up. Of course I had a modus operandi, collecting all the relevant data on a project, utilizing the cantilevers in order to gain area economically, exposing structure whenever I could, using materials in a natural state and to have a low maintenance finished job. So I did sit down and invented my philosophy of design which seemed to satisfy the guy.
Since I had already solved the philosophy problem then, I currently am reviewing the likes of Socrates, Plato, Epictitus (Where’d he come from?). I’m finding that those thinkers are easier to read than the ones from the Middle Ages. A good example is Thomas Hobbes (1651), who some writer recommended I read. So I picked up his “Leviathan” , (It even sounds like Heavy reading) and tried to get into a couple of chapters, but to no avail. It didn’t take long before I was wallowing on a shipwreck of literature and had to take to the lifeboats in a short time. I retreated back to a couple of murder mysteries to salve my overburdened brain.

I DIDN’T MEAN TO DO IT!
I was just wondering the other day how many of the major religions began because the leader wanted to start one, or was it merely accidental? So I began looking at some of them.
HINDUISM - I guess you have to start here as it began about 1700 BC.
Is it even a religion? Anybody know who started it? Bob Hindi?
JEWS - Moses is blamed for it , or was it really Aaron? About 1400 BC. Of course, all the myths, stories of the Old Testament have been proved to be written several hundred years after the purported incident by many different scribes, priests, etc.
In other words, we don’t know who started it or if he wanted to be the Culprit.
BUDDHISM - Prince Siddhartha Gautama could have been an actual person, but people who experience enlightenment while sitting under a tree tend to be kind of non-organizers. (I am speaking from my own experience, here).

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS (Excerpt from my “History of Inventions” by J. Lamont Langworthy)

- 5000? Jain Lord Rishabha India
- 5000? Brahmanism ? India
- 1750 Zorasterism Zoroaster (Ahura Mazda) Persia
- 1500 Hindu ? India
- 1200 Jews (Maybe one God) Moses (Yeah, right) Israel
- 900 Greeks Lots of Gods! Greece
- 500 Confucianism Kong Fuzi China
- 500 Buddhist Prince Siddhartha Gautama India
- 200? Mayan, Aztec, Inca ? Mexico & Chile
- 150 Taoism Lau-Tzu China

Now up to this point, there were lots of Gods to blame every thing on. From here on, there was only one God. But this one God was totally different from the one God you were worshiping.

+ 300 Roman Catholic Jesus blamed for it Israel
+ 600 Islam Mohammed Saudi Arabia
+ 1000 Orthodox Catholic Jesus Constantinople
+ 1517 Lutheran Martin Luther Germany
+ 1534 Church of England King Henry VIII England
+ 1560 Presbyterian John Calvin Scotland
+ 1500? Unitarian ? Europe
+ 1600 Congregationalist from Puritanism England
+ 1650 Quakers George Fox England
+ 1607 Baptist John Smyth Amsterdam
+ 1744 Methodist Charles Wesley England
+ 1789 Episcopalian Samuel Seabury American Colonies
+ 1780 Unitarian ? England
+ 1800 Bahai Faith Bahaullah ?
+ 1830 Mormon (Latter-Day Saints) Joe Smith Palmyra, US
+ 1865 Salvation Army William Booth London
+ 1879 Christian Scientist Mary Baker Eddy Los Angeles
+ 1870 Jehovah’s Witness Charles Taze Russell Pennsylvania
+ 1901 Pentecostal ? (United States) United States
+ 1930 Foursquare Gospel Aimee Simple McPherson Los Angeles
+ 1953 Scientology L. Ron Hubbard United States

You’‘ note that I left out all the current hucksters like Graham, Falwell, etc.,

And then there are the:
Agnostics Profess uncertainty or skepticism about existence of God or Higher Being.
(Fence sitters!)
Atheists Do not believe in the existence of God or any other higher power.
Wait a minute! Not even The Laws of the Universe?

Seems the Christian Crusaders are still fighting the Muslims (Iraq and Afganistan).
We’ll teach the bastards, not to believe in our God, Oil !