Have Aliens Landed?

[Guest Duncan MacRae]

I'm just wondering where everyone is , and if there is a problem with the forum software, as only 4 people including myself have posted anything in the past 24 hours which is VERY unusual?

Duncan

[Ron Ecker]

I guess everyone is busy with the holidays

Bah, humbug!

[Thomas Graves]

I'm just wondering where everyone is , and if there is a problem with the forum software, as only 4 people including myself have posted anything in the past 24 hours which is VERY unusual?

Duncan

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Maybe it's just a conspiracy.

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Edited December 18, 2007 by Thomas Graves

[Bernice Moore]

"I'm just wondering where everyone is , and if there is a problem with the forum software, as only 4 people including myself have posted anything in the past 24 hours which is VERY unusual?

Duncan."

They have gone Dunc, one other place or playing elves.....??

B.......

[Evan Burton]

I guess everyone is busy with the holidays

Bah, humbug!

I agree with Ron: Bah! Humbug!

[Thomas Graves]

"I'm just wondering where everyone is , and if there is a problem with the forum software, as only 4 people including myself have posted anything in the past 24 hours which is VERY unusual?

Duncan."

They have gone Dunc, one other place or playing elves.....??

B.......

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Let's see if we can have them extradited from Ohio. Check that. Make it New Mexico.

Actually, everyone's probably just waiting for "Tosh" Plumlee to start communicating with us again. Personally, I'd like to hear from GPH again, too, someday. Regardless, Merry Christmas to both.

--Thomas

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Edited December 19, 2007 by Thomas Graves

[Mark Knight]

Amazing how quiet the forums become when they are Gratz-free.

Why, I'd venture to say you could even hear a SBT drop.

[John Simkin]

Tim Gratz has been placed on moderation. He can of course still post but he appears to be refusing to do that.

The other reason for such few posts is that I am only able to post first thing in the morning. My wife is in intensive care unit at the hospital at the moment and my days are spent with her. It is times like this you realise how good our National Health System is. She is currently getting one-to-one treatment for free. There was a brief discussion about whether the NHS could afford this kind of treatment for someone with terminal cancer. However, the doctors did not take too much convincing.

[Michael Hogan]

It is times like this you realise how good our National Health System is. She is currently getting one-to-one treatment for free. There was a brief discussion about whether the NHS could afford this kind of treatment for someone with terminal cancer. However, the doctors did not take too much convincing.

Cancer quicker to claim the uninsured

Study: Patients with no insurance twice as likely to die within 5 years

Associated Press, December 20, 2007

ATLANTA - Uninsured cancer patients are nearly twice as likely to die within five years as those with private coverage, according to the first national study of its kind and one that sheds light on troubling health care obstacles.

People without health insurance are less likely to get recommended cancer screening tests, the study also found, confirming earlier research. And when these patients finally do get diagnosed, their cancer is likely to have spread.

The research by scientists with the American Cancer Society offers important context for the national discussion about health care reform, experts say — even though the uninsured are believed to account for just a fraction of U.S. cancer deaths. An Associated Press analysis suggests it is around 4 percent....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22332573/

John, I'm glad to know your wife is getting the best care possible.

[Dawn Meredith]

Tim Gratz has been placed on moderation. He can of course still post but he appears to be refusing to do that.

The other reason for such few posts is that I am only able to post first thing in the morning. My wife is in intensive care unit at the hospital at the moment and my days are spent with her. It is times like this you realise how good our National Health System is. She is currently getting one-to-one treatment for free. There was a brief discussion about whether the NHS could afford this kind of treatment for someone with terminal cancer. However, the doctors did not take too much convincing.

John

My thoughts and paryers are with you and your family.

Dawn

[Jack White]

It has been six hours since anyone posted anything.

This is a test.

Jack

[Ron Ecker]

Having already quoted Scrooge in this thread, I thought I would pass along this heartwarming Christmas story from Lake City, Florida, courtesy of the national Checkers/Rally's fast-food chain.

http://www.lakecityreporter.com/articles/2...73670678347.txt

[Ron Ecker]

John,

I also wish to express my sympathy and best wishes for you and your wife.

Ron

[John Dolva]

Charles (from other topic) : "Religion is simply politics by other means. Ask Mike Huckabee; imagine getting caught in his One True Crossfire (how about that Christmas ad, replete with crucifix)!

I consider myself to be a spiritual man. I accept the reality of the Divine Presence. I attempt -- and almost always fail -- to emulate Gandhi, who said, "I am a Muslim and a Hindu and a Christian and a Jew and so are all of you."

Like the countless wars waged in its countless names, religion is a racket."

Charles. this set of sentences concicely and simply captures the essence of a truth.

Having thought along similar lines with far more verbose and with diversionsary tangents, my hat (if I had one) is off to you. You separate 'Religion' and 'the godhead' most eloquently.

(me) Verbose: A 'church' in its original form is 'a body of believers'.

Simon, a person, was the cornerstone of the 'building', which through a complex history has become a city state with rituals, chantings, hierarchies, corruption, politics, rules, secrets, gold et.c. et.c..

(A story comes to mind : A Farmer, a human (big brain), finds a flock of wild geese (animals with very small brains) that has missed the opportunity to head south for the winter and are trapped in a hostile environment. His barn, he knows, will provide the shelter they need. No attempts by him succeeds in getting the flock to safety until he hits on the idea of taking one of them into the barn, letting it experience the better environment and then lets it back into the flock and steps back. Soon the 'teacher' has led the whole flock in. Success.)

Similarly, a person that is so omni potent, omni present, omni scient, sets among humanity one of their own to show the way. The human cannot concieve fully of the concept of these 'omnis'. It's a terrifying thought. People would flee screaming. Hence, Jesus, a Jew.

Then imagine a truly all encompassing loving omni this, that and the other, person. What an unbelievable thought. Yet in believing this unbelievable one must submit, IOW place ones self, ones ego, BELOW this person. Another near impossible thing.

However, the process of doing so opens the mind in the way of a simple child, and all sorts of traumas can flow out of the mind body phenomena and a deep healing occurs. This has been shown by contemporary scientist teams under such as Dr A Janov, LeBoyer, and others, who have discovered it for them selves, (what Buddha would call 'the silent Buddhas', numbering, described by Guatama, as being as many as the sand particles lining the giant Indian river. IOW, many.) This body of persons IS the Church.

Religion is a man made construct to control this and in the process in the hands of fallible mortals and ultimately, inevitably corrupts the essence, for whatever reason.

Gandhi is an apt illustration. He essentially defeated the British by lining up believers with bowls, going to British controlled salt deposits and asking for salt. One after another was whacked on the head, carried away and tended to, and the next moved forward to take his her place to be whacked, after some time, conscience arose in the hitters, and this reverberated to the high seats of power, and India was handed to the Indians.

One of his followers once asked nim what he was doing while sitting still on the ground surrounded by his thousands of clamouring adherents, he said something along the line of 'listening inside, in my heart, to god'.

Father Antony in Poona (india), was asked what he would miss about where he had lived for decades when leaving, he replied 'nothing', he had lived every moment in the present, and would continue to do so.

A good friend of mine, a very wise woman, when I waxed lyrical one cosy day and asked her what she would do if she knew she was going to die in say six months, her answer, slowly digested in the intervening years, 'exactly what I'm doing now' makes perfect sense to me now.

Be Here Now, Ram Das. There is only the present. the past is gone, the future to come, yet very few spemd any time in the present. Rather it's an oscillation between the past and the future, memories and dreams. This disempowers homanity. "If only", "Next time", et.c. et.c.. Rather than living here and now according to the Wisdom of the Elders, summarised essentially in, 'you reap what you sow, 'karma', 'let evil fall on barren ground', 'considers the lilies of the field'. Isness is all that exists in the material world, everything else is 'reaction' to that which enters the mind body phenomena through filters imposed by 'false prophets', whether self or other. In seeing things as they are, here and now (which essentially the search for truth is), necessarily begs a fogiveness within and without, LOVE.

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In this spirit, all blessings to you, John and your beloved Wife, and all in such circumstances. May you find truth, whatever it is for you, and may you find peace and tranquility. And thank you for the continued generosity, and fighting for the truth, through this forum and other means. May it grow and prosper.

[John Simkin]

Very sorry to hear this is the situation for you John. Best to you and your wife! In the USA, of course, when one runs out of money for health care....one runs out of hope and care, as well, with very few exceptions. At least the UK hasn't yet followed us

into that insane aspect of the anti-social-welfare state. Take care. We care.

John

My thoughts and paryers are with you and your family.

Dawn

John,

I also wish to express my sympathy and best wishes for you and your wife.

Ron

Thank you all for your sympathy and best wishes. It means a great deal to me. She spent three days on the haemofiltration machine and we are now anxiously waiting to see if her kidneys start working again.

I have started a debate on the politics of health treatment here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=11897