h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have a question: how far do you go?

Of course, you should not kill. But where do you stop? Do you not brush your teeth or wash, because that would be killing millions of innocent bacteria. Do you not itch, because that would be killing thousands of your own skin cells. Taking a walk you may kill many different insects. And by eating plants you kill them too. Of course I realise all aforementioned things are better than killing many animals in the name of "because it tastes nice and I like it" but it's still killing.

What a fine question...one I battled with for ages before I became a vegetarian.

Why stop at animals and bacteria, why not include the plants. That's what I was doing, including the plants. That's why it was okay for me to eat animals, because the plants died in the process, too. The food chain is natural, right?

Okay, when I was in India, the Tibetans were very conscious of even the lives of insects. The daily prayers include praying for the lives of insects that might be taken while walking or otherwise living. If bugs were attracted to a light, and fell dying to the table below, they would not scurry off to get something to clean up the loathsome bugs, they went off to find a shade for the light so the bugs would not be attracted to their deaths.

However, His Holiness says that if an infestation is potentially harmful to people, it is understandable to kill the bugs. But he doesn't say it's fine, just understandable.

The Bible originally gave every plant to feed us. Then Noah got trapped on the boat, and when he disembarked, he was killing animals. The Bible also explains how to kill animals properly, and which are good for eating.

It's The Bible that is the real problem, see. If it's being translated to say it's okay to kill and eat animals, then lots of people will not pay attention to me.

So now I will refute the believed word of God.

First, I started studying The Bible in Hebrew because I read a book called 'On The Kabbalah and It's Symbolism' by Getshom Sholem. Pages 72-76 said that over 1000 years ago, radical Kabbalists started the rumor that 'in the last days the Torah will change. There will be different spaces between the letters and different vowel points added and the Torah will speak of completely different things'.

While traditionalists claim it is not true, I wanted to know how this could even be in question. What 'different spaces' and what 'different vowel points'?

Well, come to find out, the Torah (the first 5 books of The Bible, ascribed to Moses from God) was written as one long word. There were no spaces between the letters, and no vowels. They say that Hebrew has no vowels, only semi-vowels. Hundreds of years after Moses wrote it, the guys who composed The Chronicles added the vowel points thus establishing the words. They also say that Ancient Hebrew didn't have a well defined system of tensation. They supposedly didn't have past, present and future. Only perfect and imperfect.

But there is a funny thing about Hebrew verbs. The meaning changes depending on which vowels you insert. But the Torah didn't have any vowels.

In the word Bethlehem, 'beth' means house. The three letter verb triplet 'LHM' can mean 'to eat bread' or 'to make war', depending on which vowels you insert. So Bethlehem can either be House of Bread or House of War depending ONLY on the vowels.

We trust The Chroniclers. But those radical Kabbalists didn't. They began the rumor over 1000 years ago and it reached me.

So I didn't like the smell of this one. I wrote to a Rabbi, and he said there were no mistakes. They know which vowels automatically.

When I asked if it was possible that a few mistakes slipped through, he said nothing important could be in question.

However, if you read a Bible with good footnotes, you will occasionally see 'the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain' concerning a given passage.

It was all very confusing. Then I remembered Moses went to school in Egypt. So I studied Ancient Egyptian. Guess what? They didn't have any vowels in their regular writing either. I thought that was very odd. To this day, scholars believe that they can never know the pronunciation of Ancient Egyptians, because they didn't include the vowels. They also didn't have a well defined system of tensation. No past, present and future, only perfect and imperfect. Oddly, they do have vowels, but they used them in the Cartouch writings of the names of Kings, to establish the pronunciation.

Well, I noticed that the Egyptians used different directions when they wrote. The textbooks say they wrote in different directions because they liked symmetry, but I wondered if the directions had meaning. What if left = past tense, vertical = present tense and right = future tense?

One clue resides in the fact that before Cadmus brought vowels to Greek, they wrote in different directions. Then after he added the vowels they only wrote to the right.

Oddly, the vowels were IEHOVA. There was no J. Remember Indiana Jones?

Anyway, if the direction of the text had meaning in the Torah then we have a situation on our hands. What if a copier translated the Torah after Moses died and made directional errors? Then it could be possible that new spaces could be added and new vowels and it could read of completely different things, if you read the letters in another direction.

Since the Ten Commandments say 'Thou shalt not kill' and the Hebrews of the time killed everyone and everything in their path, we can't be sure from their actions what God might have wanted. But there is all that technical stuff about not 'eating anything with THE blood in it'. In a good translation of the scriptures, you will find the word 'THE' in italics. They say it is implied.

Without that italicized 'THE' it reads 'don't eat anything with blood in it'.

That sounded like a rule to me. That might be the truth.

So my final answer is I don't think we should be eating anything with blood in it, and also probably anything that tries to run away when we try and eat it. I'm also wondering about the way we treat trees. That might be important.

And I'll never forget in the movie Merlin how he gave the snail 'right of way' on the road.

I'm not really interested in drawing my own line, I want to know where God REALLY wanted the line drawn. I intend to ask the Dalai Lama one day.

Take care,

Still, Pika

Giving a snail right of way tickles me.

I learnt Ancient Greek for a bit. Letters were dropped, and it changes from Attic to Doric to Ionian: each region of Greece (which perhaps you know, was not unified) had different style language, like they had different style pillars. So translation errors can creep in easily, in the same way that "sensible" in French means "sensitive", as opposed to its meaning in English. And yet more errors come in when Ancient Greek goes to Latin. Languages interest me.

Have you ever visited beleifnet? There's a link on Existential Elevator's front page if you're interested and haven't.

Oh, and another question: what about pet food? We keep a dog and is it still right to buy her dogmeat when this is causing the death of animals? How do you explian to a dog?

Is it still wrong. Sorry in that last post it should be "is it still wrong to buy her dogmeat"

Another question I've thought about and looked into. Vegetartian magazines offer vegetarian petfoods that apparently meet the needs of our pets.

So when we bring a pet into our homes, maybe it should be one that can adapt to our food. I like snakes but feel bad about raising captive live food for them. In the wild, the rat has a chance to escape. However, if we can truly meet the needs of cats and dogs without killing other animals, then we have enabled them to live without harming their brothers and sisters, at least for this lifetime.

I feel calmer now that I don't eat meat.

I want to know what a vegetarian diet does to hardcore criminals and 'crazy' people. I think meat might poison the body and the soul.

But I'm still feeding my cats the inexpensive catfood with meat, because at least it is part of their 'normal' diet, and I don't look down on sleeping people who eat meat. You eat what your mom feeds you, as did she. Nobody to blame there.

We need to wake up as a world and pay attention. We need to ask questions like 'how did the world get so bad' and 'why do so many people hate each other' and 'should we really be eating this'. But more important 'why are we here' and 'are we supposed to be doing anything specific'.

We are the hands and eyes of the Universe, after all. We are living in a place where Heavenly Laws are askewed. 'For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction' and 'if an object is moving, it keeps on moving until it crashes'. That last one was a paraphrased.

Our galaxy is going to hit Andromeda Galaxy in 100 million years. There's not a thing they can do about it.

But gravity changes our habitat. We can pick up a cup, move it, and place it on the table and it stays there. Plus, we have hands and eyes and machanical brains that interface with Angels. Humans can be wonderful creatures, when we are awake and aware.

But look at Star Trek. The Original Series shows how barbaric we were, alway shooting things.

By the Next Generation, we appear so much more advanced. Yet we still eat living creatures on that show. From the purely evolutionary standpoint, if evolution is correct, we are eating a possible link to a future being.

However, when you consider that each being might be housing a young and growing soul, it becomes criminal. We could be breaking God's Laws. That troubles me a great deal.

So I've aimed for the top and I've not given up. I hope to reach the Dalai Lama and perhaps we can wake everybody up. That's possible now, with TV and satellites and all. I'm praying for a happy ending to our present era.

Take care,

Still, Pika

Right. Sorry I've sounded very questioning these last few posts it's just that you write a lot of stuff- and I can see that it's morally right- but there are some things I'm not sure about.

And here's another one:

Biologists have, by taking a single cell from say, a fish, managed to create part of the fish. It lives in oxygenated sugar- rich water, and when one wants to eat it one simply takes it out and cooks it. The original fish is left alive and unhurt. Is there anything morally wrong with this?

Hi everyone

Pika, you have posted some amazing thoughts and insights, thank you.

One thing that popped into my head though, what exactly will you say to the Dalai Lama? If your vision is indeed possible within 70 years, then how come the Dalai Lama has not "woken up" already?


with
LSF

I expect it's because he's bombarded with emails, letters and phone calls every day. Partially.

The Dalai Lama is human. He has human teachers. They were taught by their teachers.

The truth is hidden. His teachers didn't know the truth, so they couldn't tell him.

His form of 'sleep' comes from not knowing the truth.

I believe his Buddha Nature, or his spirit, talks to me. His spirit is much bigger than the human Dalai Lama. He asked me to wake him up. I said I would try.

When I got to India, I was able to talk to some of his associates and unfortunately, they are not as educated as the Dalai Lama. I believe if I talk to him, I might be able to get through.

After all, he is claiming to be a 'simple Buddhist monk', yet he found it necessary to go outside the Dharma of Lord Buddha to be educated for the needs of the day.

That is fulfilling a Buddhist prophecy. Who am I to go against a Buddhist Prophet?

And the same prophet said Maitreyah will be here 40,000 years after Lord Buddha. He just forgot to tell everyone that the numeral is in Base 5.

I'll keep trying.

Thanks for your input. It's very helpful to find people who care.

Still, Pika

Yes, that is true, however I went to India. I chatted with his religious translator and his English speaking secretaries. I should have been granted a 15 minute audience, and I was not. They simply aren't educated men.

It's not their fault, and they are much better educated in the Dharma of Lord Buddha than I am, and yet I found the ancient Buddhist counting system. So I think they should pay attention.

And they do not.

So I'll keep trying.

Take care, Roadkill!

Still, Pika

Here are two interesting things: First of all beleifnet, on Existential Elevator's home page. Maybe you already know of it. Second, do you want to hear an Ancient Greek author's explaination of ? Aristophanes, I think it was.

Yes, I really enjoy Greek philosophy and stuff. Wasn't Aristophanes a comedian?

Anyway, tell me more.

Oh, and I've been to beliefnet but most people there are into beliefs. See the word 'lie' right there in the middle of belief. It is justified. We can believe a lie. And if we believe it, it rises to 'relative truth'.

I think that's why we have to say non-fiction when we are talking about the 'truth'. You can't say 'faction', which should indicate fact. 'Faction' now refers to a specific set of beliefs set apart from other similar beliefs. So because we can't all agree on the truth, we are stuck with non-fiction and fiction instead of faction and fiction. Fiction seems to indicate fact, in that it is not fantasy. Fiction is a good lie.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you.

Still, Pika

Ah. I like your use of words. I usually take the beliefnet test about once a week. It always comes up different.

Yes, Aristophanes was a comedian. But it's still a nice story. It goes like this:

When Zeus created the world and men, he made men spherical, with four arms and four legs. Humanity was big, and very powerful. They could move very fast by rolling over and over- due to their spherical shape. They decided to mount an atttack on the Gods' citadel and be complete masters of the world. The Gods knew about this beforehand and called a council to decide what to do. Eventually Zeus came up with the idea to split each man in two, so they'd have to walk. If that didn't work, he'd split them in two again, so they'd have to hop. He did this and humanity subsided. Now, when men were made, they had four arms, four legs, and two heads, but only one soul. So now that they were split up they each spent the rest of time looking for their other half- and try to join up again, two half- souls trying to meet up and become one.

This explaination was proffered at a dinner party, and was not taken with any degree of seriousness. But I like the story.

Remember, I believe that Angels (higher spiritual powers, whatever you call them) can communicate with us. Their mode of communication is plucking our brains and causing us to think specific thoughts.

If the pathways don't exist in your brain, they cannot be plucked.

Your story has added important brain pathways.

Remember also, I believe that everyone has or had a Heavenly Body. Asteroids can lose their Heavenly Body upon impact with a planet's atmosphere. When this happens, they are in 'the land of the dead', from the persective of the Heavenly Bodies still in existance. Especially the Big Bodies, like moons, planets, stars and galaxies, which I believe are indepentant entities which reside nestled inside The Universe and each other.

The Land of the Dead is Human existance.

Now take your story, and let it be from the perspective of The Universe. Let it be directed at the Big Heavenly Bodies called Stars. They are spherical. The four arms and legs are a puzzle, but the two halfs might be interpreted as Body and Soul.

Now, the way to tame a feisty Star soul is to cast it into the land of the dead - the asteroid/human zone - the crib.

When I hear stories like that I just know that guys like Aristophanes were giving us clues.

Remember, The Republic advocated burning books with the truth in them and lying to the children so they would grow up believing they didn't have quarrels with other nations. If the leaders of the past actually accomplished that, and the burning of the Library at Alexandria is circumstantial evidence of this, then we have not been offered the truth. Anything that survived the book burning was cleverly written.

Plato and Aristotle, and now Aristophanes are not alway relating what they believe to be the truth. In fact, in Plato's 7th or 8th letter, he said he never wrote the truth as he believes it. Strong words!

So what were they doing? They were asking the necessary questions. They were asking questions, and often offering the wrong answers. So now, experts on the Classics will make comments about Plato's works as if Plato actually meant that. They don't look for the hidden meaning.

Anyway, thank you so much for the story. I believe every star soul who is trapped on Earth should be looking to return to its Heavenly Body, which still burns brightly in the sky, waiting for its soul to return. As soon as they clean up the mess they made, I wish them all the best on their return, and I hope to welcome them back for visits from time to time.

Take care.

Still, Pika

If you like Plato, you should definately look at Socrates. He was a philosopher who just walked and talked. Plato was his pupil. And he (Socrates) annoyed a lot of people. But I'm studying him at the moment, sort of. One of the most famous things he said was:

"An unexamined life is not worth living"

I don't necessarily believe that Socrates was a person. He might have been a literary device. In The Republic didn't he say something about telling a lie that is so believable that people of the future would surely believe it to be true?

Well, I look at the letters in the word SoCRaTeS. It's the same vowels as in the word SeCReTS. If 'O' means 'perfect' and 'A' means past, this might be 'the perfect and past secrets' of Plato.

Next, and most important, their is the death of Socrates. I don't think so. I've asked everyone I know if they would miss the hemlock ceremony of their favorite teacher, and they all agree - NOPE!

So, there is one very good explanation. Clark Kent could not be at Superman's funeral either.

Aristophanes wrote comedy concerning Socrates, correct? I recall that it 'felt' encoded when I read over it, but I have so little time. What do you think? Do you ever get the feeling that something is wrong with the progression of thoughts in one of the Socratic dialogues? Almost as if Plato is shocking you awake by stating an untrue fact. But worse, he might have been shocking us with past truths. Truths that were ultimately erased from our history.

For instance, if the children were all in common, and nobody knows who is sibled with whom, then they must either have a person keeping track, but what if they die. The entire generation would have to seek husbands and wives from completely different towns. This might better explain the myths and historic reports of men stealing wives. It's actually advocated in the Bible, the Old Testament of course.

I love to speculate on what was different before the Greeks and Romans civilized the world. I say that half jokingly, but if things were really bad, with cannibals and human sacrifices and things like that, then the Roman Legions brought correct action to the barbarians.

I believe that the Mayans and Aztecs better represent what the Middle East was like before the Legions took over. The Mayans and Aztecs really might have ties to the Old World and it's lost/buried customs.

Anyway, sorry to ramble.

I do love Socrates, as far as that goes. I don't believe he was a seperate person from Plato, but he was and is a powerful Mandala Image, worthy of wonder and speculation. The words attributed to him bring up the key points to meditate on.

Take care.

Still, Pika

Plato was there, wasn't he? Or was it Herodotus who wrote the account of Socrates' death.

I believe it's called The Phadon or Phadeo maybe. This is where it gets funny. Plato seems to be the writer, yet, he is said not to have been there.

I just couldn't believe it and I now refuse to believe it.

Also, Socrates never wrote anything. I believe that I read somewhere that there is lost poetry attributable to Socrates, but in many other locations, it is said he didn't write anything. That's easy to believe, if he isn't a person.

I told this to someone once, and they replied that I must be wrong, because there is a statue of Socrates. I rested my case. Get me some clay and I'll sculpt Jesus coming back so it can be real, okay!

Obviously Plato was right when he said it would be easy to lie to us.

I'm going to have to get some of Aristophanes' stuff.

Keep on questioning - questing!

Take care!

Still, Pika

Have you ever read Descartes' Meditations? They're very acessible. ONly 60 pages.