Occupation of Independence

It is hard to believe that the world can get any crazier.  There is so much shameful, embarrassing,  and reckless talk about Biblical prophecies today because of the conflict between Israel and Gaza. We live in a world of nuclear energy, microelectronics, and 5G telecommunications.  And yet people invoke ancient superstitions to justify mass-slaughter.  When will the world say, "Enough!  These ancient superstitions are not needed in the world anymore."  I doubt that politicians in the US ever will say that.   What was it that Tocqueville said about America in the 1830s?: 'Religious insanity is everywhere prevalent in America,' or something like that.  By chance I watched an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation last night that fit in so perfectly with the situation today.  It was season 3, "Who Watches the Watchers?"    Some anthropologists were on a planet, covertly studying proto-Vulcans at a Bronze Age level.  But their technology used to disguise th

Autumn is over.  Wasn't it just a month ago that I happily announced that summer was over?  Winter seems to hit Utah in late October every year.  But it was a good autumn despite being too short, so I have no complaints. I was camped at the foot of the city of "Stratos" (recall the old Star Trek episode) where I camped last week and posted about.  While the Little Cute One and I mountain biked into canyon country, it was possible to look up at Stratos and remember it.  For some reason this had a surprisingly strong effect on me.   This year I skipped visiting the main canyon -- it has gotten too crowded and touristy.  So I followed the advice of an old RV friend (at wandrinlloyd.blogspot.com  .)  He was a Denver hiker and RVer who found a good way to work around the crowded hiking trails on Colorado "Fourteeners:"  he only went up mountains that were 13,950 feet high.  Doing so resulted in him having the mountain to himself. I have used his advice so many times,

 From time to time I reread Carl Becker's "The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth Century Philosophers."  It is a short and delightful book, written by a history professor of all things! It always brings a smile to my face to read, "They courageously discussed atheism, but not before the servants." That issue always came up when post-Christians ask whether God actually exists: "...but where would morality come from, if there was no God?" Keep that old trope in mind when you watch videos of Gazan children being pulled out of the rubble left by the Judeo-Christian tradition, acting through its military technology.  Great work, YHWH!  You were always such a charmer.   from historycollection.com

Central Utah.  Several times this summer I have camped at altitudes high enough to feel like I was in that episode in the third season of the original Star Trek ("The Cloud Minders"), about the city that levitated in the clouds.  The city was called Stratos, where people pursued purely intellectual and artistic pursuits.  Down on the surface of the planet the peasants dug away in the mines and did other things that provided the material basis of the civilization. It brings a smile to my face to think of that episode when I am camp at a place like this.  But maybe there is more than a laughable pretentiousness to this experience.  Call it transcendence.  People flying on airplanes might feel that, too.  I even used to feel it when I reroofed my house, once.  You can feel liberated from the grubby details, the infinite clutter of things, and the useless busy-ness of life near the ground. Actually, verticality is not the dominant quality here; 30 or 40 miles away is a continuous