Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Professor Ehud Qimron, head of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Tel Aviv University
wrote the letter to the Israeli ministry of health. It applies to almost every government except Sweden.
The attempts to discredit him, the same patterns as used to silence the trio of epidemiologists from Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge, are already under way.
Well, Quimron is not on Twitter and does not give rats ass about dr Fauci grants.

His main point is pretty clear:
The raise and subsequent fall of the number of cases during COVID had nothing to do with government "actions", that what was happening in every known case of pandemic, and people advising governments knew that.
In case of Israel the even wrote those words into the pandemic reaction plan created after the first epidemic of SARS.
By saying that he is attacking the mother of all lies: that lockdowns, restrictions etc were ..saving lives. That has been accepted by most people without ever asking the questions. The reaction will be vicious.
And obviously the translation of this letter from Hebrew does not come from NYT or CNN so avoid reading it like a plague:
After this trigger warning, here is the Quimron's letter published by Swiss Policy Research:
https://swprs.org/professor-ehud-qimron-ministry-of-health-its-time-to-admit-failure/

 

I think that this assumes that greater self-awareness is the goal. My goal is rather peace. Equanimity. f'ing silence.

 

Who says they have not? Some of the humans who have attempted to forgo the aforementioned systems reported they found the self to be a symbolic construction and what they saw as themselves was ultimately an arbitrary division of an indivisible infinite. Again, I'm not arguing for one side or another. My advice to confused people is find a rock to push up a hill and if eventually you find it is better to stop then that's fine too. It's better to not want to push rocks.

Damn. You really chose the wrong forum.

 

Of course. This gets back to what I said about not wanting to push stones. While I think you're taking my point to the nth degree, that few are dedicated to finding total harmony with the absurdity of existence and seeing through the BS, I think quite a lot of people, even if they do not transcend their narratives, can still get some pieces of connection to reality, unassimilated those moments may be with the rest of their experience. The journey from child to adult naturally strips away fantasies for some people. Foolishness we persist in long enough sometimes reveals itself, and usually, the meaning that is learned is "you don't need to do anything." I forget which Athenian said he reveled in the loss of his sex drive in old age because it unchained him from a "mad master." But of course, nobody we know thinks like that.

So again, I think Camus' position is the most practical advice for most of us. A questionable but interesting guru said "sacrifice all for clarity," and unfortunately I'm too taken with my bad habits to do that. I think most of us are in that boat.

 

To be fair, no it doesn't. That's a Christian interpretation. There is no original sin in Genesis as-written. Expulsion from Eden was written to be interpreted as a momentary punishment, like being grounded. Later Christian theology added the concept of original sin.

That being said, I agree with you. You're basically saying what I said right before you. Humans have an innate drive for ritual. Ritual is the process by which human beings find peace. It might not always be religious, but it's definitely there.

i was editing a talk by an anthropologist a bit ago who was proposing this interesting interpretation where in/out group dynamics, tradition etc are all manifestations of the drive for ritual, which is the fundamental support by which human beings draw social energy, cohesiveness and meaning. all in/out group tensions result from rituals, rejection of rituals, incompatible rituals, etc. really interesting talk. you'd think the solution to these issues would be to reject all ritual, but the human psyche is built around it fundamentally. instead, one needs to take control of and accountability for their rituals, examine their origins, and find what is helpful

 

You might enjoy reading "The Power of Strangers" by Joe Keohane. He makes a similar point, in that shared rituals were developed to ease contact with those we didn't know and maintain comfortable relations with those we did.

 

You are incorrect. You might want to read Genesis 3 as it does not describe some kind of time out. Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden and they were made mortal.

 

Maybe "grounded" is a simplification, but being banished from the Garden of Eden and being made mortal ARE a mild punishment in the scheme of things. The overmoralization of this consequence (that is to say, original sin) is a Christian construction. They disobeyed their father and they got punished. Christian constructions of original sin interpret this very broadly and add a ton of consequences to it that are not textually supported.

 

You could argue that gaining the knowledge of good and evil is a good thing. But, there is no way you can argue that losing everything Adam and Eve lost in the process was "mild punishment". That is like saying being executed for committing murder is a mild punishment.

 

That's not really the core of my point, the core of my point is the original sin narrative that connects these events to later sin is textually unfounded. I meant a "momentary punishment" for all of humanity. That is to say, the idea that we are held responsible for Adam and Eve's actions or that humanity's ability to sin originated from their actions is not textually supported and is actually a fairly recent idea (only about 1500-1700 years old, which is not even a quarter of the time the modern version of Genesis has existed.)

It was just about cause and punishment originally, the comparatively grand narrative of original sin was invented basically in the modern era.

Edit:

In fact, the idea that Adam and Eve were ejected as punishment is rather recent too. As written, they were ejected purely for utilitarian reasons to restrict their access to the Tree of Life, not as part of their punishment. Their punishment is only Genesis 3, 16-19.

 

I heard they also lost wifi privileges

 

The concept of "Original Sin" does not say we are held responsible for Adam's and Eve's sin. The concept is that we inherit their condition and the knowledge of good and evil from them and therefore have a proclivity to commit sins. That's a HUGE difference. The Bible is very clear in stating the son does not bear the inequity of the father....

 

There is absolutely no textual basis for the entire idea that the knowledge of good and evil is hereditary. There isn't even a textual basis for the interpretation that knowledge of good and evil creates a proclivity to sin. All fairly recent ideas

 

Man was perfect before the Original Sin. Man's offspring are a copy of his condition after the Fall.....Man's offspring has a proclivity to sin because they are not perfect. The knowledge of good and evil comes along for the ride. I subscribe to the idea that the knowledge of good and evil is the basis for our morality.

 

Most of these are textually supported individually, but the act of drawing a line connecting those statements is recent. The predominant interpretation before about 1500 years ago was that humanity's propensity to sin was unrelated.

Of that list, the idea that Adam and Eve were created perfect is not really supported either. Even the idea that there was a "Fall" or the concept therein is recent and not really supported either.

I'm perfectly fine with traditions about these things, I think it's really respectable to believe that but it was the traditions you participate in that created the ideas, whether they come from God or elsewhere, not the authors of the text. I think it's important to separate the two to look at how they affect each other. I just don't like it when people say "so and so passage establishes these ideas," when it's just not true. Centuries of important theological debate established these ideas and deserve credit for them. I'm not saying that because there's no textual basis for these things they aren't true or important, they absolutely are for many people! The Bible is, fundamentally, a living document and I believe that if there is a God out there, the more we debate on it, the closer we get to understanding. It's precisely because these things are traditions that understanding and connecting with previous iterations of these ideas is important to the process of continuing them in the future.

 

Sure, but a christain concept was mentioned, and I didn't see a need to add discalaimers... Other religions are available, other religions may provide more, or less, guilt. Other religions have slaughtered others, blah blah blah.

Humans are born determined to piss, shit and vomit over everything, determined to prevent their parents having a decent night of sleep, determined to receive instant gratification for every desire... Arseholes!

Hmm, yes... perhaps you have a point

But no. Personal belief: every life is a clean sheet. I don't believe in the basic tit-for-tat idea of karma either (but I do believe in reincarnation). Sewing what we reap (biblical saying?) is elementary: but the guy who makes my life hard in the current day is not doing so because I did it to him in some other life.

But it is a fucked up world, and the sheet can't stay clean for long.

Results are mixed. Many seriously try, with or without such ideas as god, religion, spirituality, to be better people. Self-awareness may or may not be part of this.

The sign above the portal say, Know Thyself, right? So, is that optional? Yes, for ordinary life, although it helps. No, should one decide, in some way, to take the path of enquiry into truth: life, the universe and everything.

Interesting

What's that bit about the seventh generation? Or is it completely out of context. No, I haven't even opened a bible for decades.

Morality, ethics, whatever we want to call it. Wouldn't get off the ground without a basis of good and bad. Can't be a better person if we don't have some sort of of list of better/worse things.

NB: "belief," when I use the word, means stuff like, current working model, best explanation so far, etc etc etc. It remains so, even in the event of other-worldly experience --- because experience is one thing, interpretation is another.

The search for truth is impossible: how do you know when you find it? It is easier to recognise non-truth, though. Perhaps, when we have eliminated that, whatever we have left, however unlikely, might be the truth... The mystical journey, Sherlock-Holmes style!