Yes, of course! Where else would it be? And I went there over and over, but no - not a Log Out button.
But I finally figured out my problem. My entire page was too large. When I reduced its size, lo and behold: there big and bright appeared the Log Out button.
But I do not feel so bright myself. I made a fool of myself on this genius of a website.
How do I sign off or log out of this website? It seems I used to know how; I believe I have, many months ago, done it a whole number of times.
But now - though I have searched on every page here and opened every logo (and spent over an hour!) - I just can't find how to get the hell out of here.
I'm feeling very stupid! 
I'm sorry I've been absent so long from this the friendliest group I know on the Internet.
But how do I sign off or log out of this website? It seems I used to know how; I believe I have, many months ago, done it a whole number of times.
But now - though I have searched on every page here and opened every logo (and spent over an hour!) - I just can't find how to get the hell out of here.
I'm feeling very stupid!
Thank you very much, Kalosyni. Very kind of you to send me birthday greetings on my birthdate, October 9.
I am so proud to share that birthdate with John Lennon, Camille Saint-Saens, Alfred Dreyfus, Nikolai Bukharin, Aimee Semple McPherson, Bruce Catton, Alastair Sim, Lee Wiley, Steve McQueen, and many other people of note...
Some ignorant people claim that Giuseppe Verdi was born on October 10. But his mother told him it was the 9th. And Verdi, who lived a very long life (he lived 88 years), always celebrated his birthday on October 9th.
Here is an excellent book on the subject...
To all the members here I send apologies for my long absence. Working hard on the column I write for a newspaper, maintaining my blog, trying to sustain my health (not least my mental health: yeah, what’s going on now in the world and our country can make anyone sick)… - well all of this has put me to sleep on this site.
But the posts having to do with Shakespeare sure woke me up! Thanks a million, Twentier, Joshu and Cassius. In a private message I will send you my deep appreciation.
Wow! What a "chart" you created, Cassius. So many questions now that need answers, so many problems to solve.
But for the problem you produced for me I have a simple solution. I need only make the minutest change in my article: I'll merely add a question mark at the end of the title.
Seriously, I'm happy that so much mental stimulation was inspired by my article. It was, I remind you, originally a talk I gave fifteen years ago. It's purpose was to build up materialist thinking among a group of atheists. At that time I could not imagine that so many years later I would become so embroiled with such knowledgeable Epicureans.
I fear I'm out my depth now. As I say, I'm very new here. To read all the articles on this website would take more time than I have left. (At 84, I betcha I'm the oldest guy here.) But oh on what a intellectual/philosophical adventure you are taking me. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Cassius, for your kind words about my writing. If it reads well it's because it had to sound well. It was originally a talk I gave to fifty atheists. It was of necessity dramatic.
Spinoza an Epicurean? The question is much discussed on Google. If we search for “Spinoza, Epicurus,” we find many, many entries. Most are by and about Dimitris Vardoulakis, Greek philosopher and Associate Professor of philosophy in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University.
Spinoza the Epicurean and Spinoza Now are titles of his books and essays.
A quote from one of one above: “The kind of materialism that I ascribe to Spinoza is epicureanism. Like all materialisms, epicureanism in Spinoza includes the rejection of creation ex nihilo. Specifically, in Spinoza this takes the form of the affirmation of a substance outside of which nothing exists, or his so-called monism.”
Another: “The major source of Spinoza's materialism is the Epicurean tradition that re-emerges in modernity when manuscripts by Epicurus and Lucretius are rediscovered.”
We are told by one reviewer that “Vardoulakis offers a fascinating account of the dynamic interaction of Epicurean themes within Spinoza's thought.
Though I’ve been here a very short time, I’ve been welcomed so warmly by you all that I feel most comfortable. So much so that I’ve been emboldened enough to post four articles in four weeks. And shall I now post a fifth? Yes, because I believe it will give you great pleasure. It is one of the talks I delivered to the Rossmoor Atheist Club in the senior community in which I live.
SPINOZA THE MATERIALIST
A few months ago I spoke of a certain sage of ancient Greece, a truth-seeker named Democritus, a materialist philosopher. Today I would like to talk about Spinoza, also a materialist philosopher. I feel passionately that materialism – philosophical and scientific materialism – is the school of thought that we, as atheists and agnostics, must be familiar with. Materialism is a way of looking at the world that makes the most sense to me and I hope it will to you too. And so in the future I hope to discuss the materialism of such thinkers as Epicurus, Lucretius, Cyrano de Bergerac, the French Encyclopedists, Charles Darwin, T.H. Huxley, and others.
But for today to Spinoza: He was Jewish, born in Amsterdam in 1632, the very same year the Inquisition in Italy denounced Galileo. Spinoza’s parents also felt the sting of the heresy hunters, for they had to flee from the Inquisition in Portugal. His parents, Michael and Hanna, settled in the more liberal climate of Holland. Spinoza’s father did well in the importing business and was valued by the community. Tragically, Baruch’s mother died before the boy turned six.
Gifted intellectually, Baruch studied in the congregation’s Talmud Torah school. He was a star pupil and was groomed to be a rabbi. But at seventeen he left his rabbinical studies and worked in the family business.
Did Baruch lose interest in yeshiva studies? He was at an early age obsessed with nature, with science and with philosophy. Before he was twenty Spinoza was familiar with the rationalist and skeptic Rene Descartes. He also studied with Franciscus Van den Enden, an ex-Jesuit, a medical doctor familiar with all of science, and an ardent advocate of democracy. Van den Enden was also deeply irreligious.
Spinoza too grew more and more irreligious, and soon the rabbis who held him as their pet pupil now spoke of his “wrong opinions” and “horrible heresies.” The rabbis offered Spinoza 1,000 florins a year to keep quiet, but he refused.
And so the rabbis - from the Ark in the synagogue of Talmud Torah, the united congregation of the Portuguese Jews in Amsterdam - expelled Spinoza from the Jewish community and cursed him as follows:
“By decree of the angels and by the command of the holy men, we excommunicate, expel, curse and damn Baruch de Espinoza, with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and with the consent of the entire holy congregation. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down and cursed be he when he rises up. Cursed be he when he goes out and cursed be he when he comes in. Let God never forgive him his sins. Let the wrath and indignation of the Lord surround him and smoke forever on his head. Let all the curses contained in the book of the Law fall upon him. Let God blot him out of his book. Let God separate him to his own destruction from all the tribes of Israel, and give him for his lot all the curses contained in the Book of the Law...
“And we warn you, that none may speak with him by word of mouth nor by writing, nor show any favor to him, nor be under one roof with him, nor come within four cubits of him, nor read any paper composed by him.”
As he stood and heard this sentence pronounced, Spinoza was not yet twenty-four years old. Spinoza was an outcast, detested and despised. Even his father threw him out of the house.
Please pardon me but I must interject a personal note here, for Spinoza’s story moves me very much. I too was a yeshiva student. I too studied Talmud and Torah all day full-time for eight years at a Hebrew school. I too was the favorite of the rabbis. I was given a scholarship to the big yeshiva in New York City. And like Spinoza I too became an atheist! At thirteen I declared myself an atheist and refused to have a bar mitzvah. No, I was not quite a materialist yet, that had to wait until I met two remarkable teachers in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
But back to Spinoza in Amsterdam, Holland: he had to flee that city for fear he would be killed. He moved to a small village near Leyden where he polished lenses to make a living. Every moment of his spare time he devoted to writing philosophy. His diet for the most part was a bowl of gruel. And yes, even in the sheltered countryside, when he left the poor dwellings in which he managed to survive, he had to look over his shoulder in fear for his safety.
For though Holland was the most liberated nation in Europe at that time, and Article Three of the Union decreed a basic principle of religious toleration, the potent religious faction known as ‘strict’ Calvinists demanded an authorized Church in Holland.
In 1619 they succeeded: Calvinism was recognized as the official religion. But Spinoza did not distance himself from the struggle for freedom of speech and thought. He defended those principles in a 1670 book, the Treatise on Theology and Politics. This made him the bitter enemy of the ‘strict’ or ‘precise’ Calvinists. They declared his Treatise an “evil and blasphemous book,” a work “spawned in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil.” The Treatise was in fact banned, and for ever after until he actually died Spinoza was forced to lie low. His great masterpiece the Ethics never saw the light of day during his life, so fearful was Spinoza of the reaction of the Church. Only in 1677, just as Spinoza died, did it appear.
It is hard to appreciate what Spinoza was up against. Dutch officials continually reviled his work. The Synod of the Church called his Theological-Political Treatise “as vile and blasphemous a book as the world has ever seen.” For many years, Spinoza’s reputation was notorious. “A godless man,” he was called – “a wicked atheist!” A man who had the heinous impudence to deny human freedom, the divine gift from God to man - man made in God’s own image! For many years after his death one could not mention Spinoza’s name in proper social circles. As long as a century after his death, according to the German writer Lessing, people treated Spinoza “like a dead dog.”
So what was so terrible about his philosophy? What did he say that was so atrocious, so unspeakable?
First of all, Spinoza’s philosophy is monist. This is his fundamental concept – monism: all things are basically one. Spinoza departs from the dualism of Descartes. In Descartes’ philosophy two worlds exist – a world of nature which is entirely mechanistic, deterministic, and a spiritual world of thought, the mind, a soul, immortality and a benevolent god.
Spinoza maintains that there is only one reality, a single substance that is infinite and eternal, not created by a god as a prime mover outside of the universe. Substance is the cause of itself.
A person’s thought is a property of substance just as much as his/her body is. As opposed to Descartes with his scheme of a soul devoid of a body and a body wanting a soul, Spinoza fought for the idea that mind and body are two aspects of one and the same thing. Spinoza taught that nature consists of a system in which everything is determined by law. The entire infinite and eternal universe is Substance. There is no separate spirit world. If we must speak of a god, then it too is Substance.
Yes, God and Nature are one and the same. Spinoza maintained that God and Nature were two names for the same reality. And what is reality? It is a substance that underlies all things.
But what is the nature of this substance? Modern science tells us today that all the organic and inorganic matter we observe in all the universe comes down to molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, leptons, and so on... These elements underlie all things. Is this the substance Spinoza spoke of?
Yes! Spinoza was essentially a materialist. He was speaking – though he could not know the details – of the same stuff that science speaks of today, 300 years later.
We hear of Spinoza spoken of as a Pantheist. But he was not a pantheist who imagined a god as a mystical force animating the material universe. Spinoza’s pantheism is, if truth be told, actual materialism in a very thin disguise. Spinoza fooled nobody in his time and it is a wonder that some are fooled today, 300 years later.
The Substance which underlies the universe Spinoza gives the name ‘God.’ But in point of fact, to equate God with nature is to do away with God. If God is everywhere, then he is nowhere. This point was not lost on Spinoza’s enemies, and they immediately pointed a finger at him as an atheist.
Spinoza said nature is “its own cause” operating by means of its own inherent laws. Spinoza understood thought as a property of highly organized matter. Spinoza said thought is matter that thinks. Spinoza was a materialist and this was well understood by those who could comprehend what he was talking about. When the Jews of Amsterdam excommunicated Spinoza, they charged him with “contempt for the Torah and materialism.”
Now again we must defend the good word materialist. Was Spinoza a mean man – a greedy, acquisitive, avaricious person? Did he care only for hoarding money and possessions? Or only for pleasure? Was he that kind of materialist?
Why, Spinoza lived in poor places all his life. He did not even have a wife: he was celibate all his life. His diet for the most part was a bowl of gruel. He turned down a teaching position at the University of Heidelberg so that he might maintain his independence. He polished lenses to make a living and died from a lung disease caused by the glass grindings from his lens making. Baruch Spinoza was only forty-five when he died.
Yes, Spinoza was a materialist in philosophy, but an idealist in life. First of all he was a brave champion of truth - willing to defend his positions no matter what it would cost him. Bertrand Russell referred to Spinoza as the “noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers.” Spinoza is said to be the “first major European thinker in modern times to embrace democratic republicanism as the highest and most rational form of political organization” in which all men were equal.
Spinoza called for a government based on common consent, for freedom of thought and speech, and for the equality of women. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy sums up Spinoza as follows: “Baruch Spinoza is one of the most important philosophers - and certainly the most radical - of the early modern period. His extremely naturalistic views on God, the world, the human being and knowledge serve to ground a moral philosophy centered on the control of the passions leading to virtue and happiness. They also lay the foundations for a strongly democratic political thought and a deep critique of the pretensions of Scripture and sectarian religion. Of all the philosophers of the seventeenth-century, perhaps none have more relevance today than Spinoza.”
Yes, Spinoza was central to the Enlightenment – to the radical Enlightenment which cast off mysticism and religious revelation in favor of a mechanistic and deterministic philosophy. The radical enlightenment was a powerful weapon against the divine right of kings and all other kinds of privilege. It encouraged free thought, free speech; it encouraged the pursuit of happiness, sexual fulfillment, and freedom from fear of hell and punishment after death.
Spinoza’s ideas are the basis for our modern, secular life of today. Spinoza’s ideas affected not only intellectuals and academics but also so-called common people of his time and ours.
“It is worthy of note,” wrote Hegel, “that thought must begin by placing itself at the standpoint of Spinozism; to be a follower of Spinoza is the essential commencement of all Philosophy.” Not only Hegel, but Goethe, Schiller, Schelling, and Marx were much influenced by Spinoza.
The portrait of Baruch Spinoza, known both as the “Greatest Jew” and the “Greatest Atheist,” is featured on the 1000 Guilder banknote. The highest and most prestigious scientific prize in the Netherlands is named the Spinozapremie (Spinoza Award) honoring the great materialist philosopher.
In my next talk I would like to present a paper on one of greatest materialist philosophers of all time – Epicurus.
Thank you very much...
Yes, Cassius, apparently it is possible to convert my Cyrano presentation to a YouTube video. It looks complicated but I will work on it. Thanks for urging me on.
I feel I should start another thread. I need to relocate my Cyrano de Bergerac presentation. At present it is buried in an out-of-the-way thread and is so hard to unearth that even I can do so only with difficulty.
I don’t know where to find the number here who have seen the Cyrano de Bergerac presentation, but I believe it is only about fifty folks. In stark contrast, my offering of “What Would Epicurus Think of the Big Bang?” has received (unless I am crazy and am seeing things) over 1,400 views!
The Cyrano de Bergerac presentation, I forthrightly believe, deserves as many views (if not more!) as the Big Bang post. But one problem is that it is not in the form of a text. It is a visual presentation - what some call a “slide show.” One must click on a link to see it. Well, anyway, here it is…
Yes, many websites discuss Popper's book.
I am very happy, Onenski, that you enjoyed my Democritus post.
Okay, friends, I have read all your remarks induced by my Democritus post. I read them but I can’t say I can answer them. To do so I would need to carry with me the Reading Room of the British Museum. That along with The New York Public Library with its 50 million items, The Library of Congress (largest library in the world), and the ancient Library of Alexandria. You guys are too much for me.
But seriously, I would like to comment on the Plato/fascism matter. Better still, go to Google and enter “Was Plato a fascist?” There you will encounter many websites discussing the question. The New York Times article is entitled (in bold capital letters) PLATO, THE FASCIST.
And while we are reading on this subject, absolutely essential is The Trial of Socrates by I.F. Stone. It is one of the ten most important books of my life.
Again, Bryan, a lovely note from you. Thanks a million.
Greetings again, Epicurean friends. This post is a talk I gave 15 years ago to an Atheist/Agnostic Club. It mentions Epicurus only in passing, but features a soulmate of Epicurus, a fellow materialist.
Democritus the Materialist
Gene Gordon
Good afternoon friends in the Rossmoor Atheist/Agnostic Club! Let me ask you today to name two of the foremost philosophers. Which ones come immediately to mind? Please tell me: who are said to be the greatest philosophers in the world? What? Yes, Socrates and Plato! Isn’t that true? Are there any others even in contention for that honor?
Well, I could tell you of a dozen philosophers any one of whom is infinitely superior to Socrates and Plato combined. But I will confine myself today to one of the very greatest – Democritus.
Democritus was a supreme and sublime philosopher – a giant among the ancient Greeks! He was a leading thinker of his time and, as we shall see, of all time. But we know very little if anything about Democritus while we can never hear too much about Socrates and Plato, Plato and Socrates. Why should this be so?
Is it because philosophy is not just carefree chitchat or an airy exercise in an ivory tower? Is philosophy serious stuff - deadly serious? Yes, philosophy is literally about life and death! Philosophy is behind class struggles, civil wars, and revolutions. Philosophy takes sides. Philosophy is political and very partisan in its politics. No philosopher is above the battle and there is always a battle, isn’t there?
Plato hated Democritus and wanted all his books burned. That’s how fierce philosophy is! In fact, Plato would not be above burning the person of Democritus himself!
Plato, to establish his Republic, would have cast out of the city everyone over the age of ten. The ruler, he swore, must wipe the slate clean: the philosopher/king must perforce expel from society all over age ten so that he may begin with fresh young minds. Yes, he would do this forcefully, violently with the aid of hoodlums, goons - Plato’s ‘genteel’ young friends, the ‘well-bred’ and wealthy darlings of the time.
Did you know this about Plato? No, we are never told this about this ‘paragon’ of philosophy. But this is philosophy with a vengeance, is it not?
Plato and Democritus had fundamentally different outlooks on life - two diametrically opposed ways of understanding the world and the universe.
Plato was the epitome of philosophical idealism; Democritus the perfect example of philosophical materialism.
Ah, but straight away with these two terms we come to confusion. ‘Idealism’ has good connotations: it implies optimism, hopefulness, even the romantic. “So and so is an idealist; she is a great gal.” ‘Materialism,’ on the other hand, is taken today to mean something rather mean: greediness, acquisitiveness, even avarice. “So and so is a materialist; all he does is hoard money and possessions.”
But that is the common or even the vulgar usage. In philosophy ‘idealism’ and ‘materialism’ have no such implications. Idealism and materialism are technical terms in philosophy. In fact idealism and materialism are ultimate terms in philosophy in the sense that all schools of thought, all beliefs about the world and the universe tend toward idealism or materialism.
In philosophy idealism says that idea is primary: mind, the subjective, thought, spirit – this is where the idealist philosopher begins. Idea is fundamental: the world, the universe – all that exists – depends upon idea. Thus with Plato forms are the ultimate reality. Forms or perfect concepts are eternal and unchanging and are grasped, not by the senses, but by the reason. Forms are the only true reality and all else in the material world a mere imperfect and impermanent copy.
The materialist philosopher on the other hand holds matter to be primary: nature, the objective physical world is fundamental. All depends upon matter in motion. Thought is a property of matter. Thought is a consequence of highly organized matter. Thought cannot be separated from a brain that thinks.
Now if matter is primary then it was not created by a spirit or god or idea but always existed. Cause and effect, something always coming from something, matter in motion forever and ever or what science now calls the law of the conservation of matter: it cannot be created nor destroyed but simply changes its arrangement.
Thales, the first scientist and first philosopher – and a materialist - began the Western discussion on the true nature of matter; in the East – in India and China - there were materialist philosophers as well. 180 years after Thales this Greek discussion culminated in Leucippus and Democritus with their ingenious insight. Atoms! What an idea! A brilliant conception so long ago and yet so close to our modern understanding of chemistry... Leucippus and Democritus, materialist philosophers, positively deserve first prize for the best guess in antiquity.
Of course, their notion of atoms is rough and falls far, far short of today’s knowledge. We know now atoms are not indivisible and indestructible as Democritus thought. Protons, neutrons, electrons, leptons, gluons, mesons... - so many particles make up the atom we get dizzy listing them! Hadrons, nucleons, neutrinos... The muon, the tau, and the quark... There are six different kinds of quark: up, down, charmed, strange, top, and bottom. And each quark comes in three different colors: red, blue and green. Leptons have six different “flavors.” There seems to be no end to it. What’s more, corresponding to every particle there exists an anti-particle! Does the microcosm of the subatomic world go on and on into infinity as does the macrocosm of the galactic world with its supergalaxies and clusters of galaxies and great sheets and walls of galaxies? Perhaps. But it is certain that Leucippus and Democritus had not the faintest notion of the inexhaustibility of the atom.
“Nonetheless,” to quote a Web site, “Leucippus and Democritus came closer to the truth than anyone else in the following millennium. They developed a fully mechanistic view of nature in which every material phenomenon is seen a product of the atom collisions. Democritus’ theory had no place for the notion of purpose and the intervention of gods in the workings of the world. He even held that mind and soul is formed by the movement of atoms. In this regard, his attitude was genuinely materialistic.”
Sadly, Leucippus and Democritus were the last in the line of ancient materialist philosophers – and there were many - whose focus was the nature of the physical universe. After them philosophy took a major turn with Socrates and Plato to individual concerns and to mystical speculation.
But Democritus’ atomic theory shines forth despite the unfortunate fact that all that we know of it comes from critics of that theory, such writers as Aristotle and Theophrastus. For though Democritus lived, some say, to 109 years and devoted all of his time to science and philosophy, to study, to teaching and writing – he wrote 60 or as many as 90 works some say - only a few fragments of his voluminous writing remain and they deal with ethics.
Plato in his works never once mentioned Democritus. Plato disliked the ideas of Democritus so much that he resolved - since he could not burn his books - to kill the work of Democritus with disregard.
But the brilliance of Democritus can never be diminished. He was the first philosopher to realize that what we call the Milky Way is the light of stars – suns like ours - very far away. Other philosophers argued against this, even Aristotle. Democritus was among the first to propose that the universe contains many worlds, some of them inhabited.
Democritus traveled much - to Babylon, to Egypt, Ethiopia, and possibly to India. What kind of man was he? Let an anecdote told about him give us some idea: “Hermippus wrote that when Democritus was nearing his end, his sister was upset because his death could prevent her from worshipping at the three-day festival of Thesmophoria. Democritus told her not to worry, and kept himself alive by inhaling the fresh smell of baked loaves until the end of the festival, when he relinquished his life without pain.” Hipparchus wrote that Democritus was then in his 109th year.
Democritus, called “The Laughing Philosopher,” taught that the true end of life is happiness to be accomplished through self serenity. Cheerfulness was the highest good, achieved through moderation and - most essential - freedom from fear. There were no gods to be afraid of. This is what so distressed Plato – and, of course, the church and the state for two thousand years now.
Yes, for many centuries Socrates and Plato have been elevated while Democritus has been disregarded and disparaged. Democritus and Epicurus were the two greatest philosophers among the Greeks. But the moneyed rulers of society have very good reason for wanting us to revere Plato and Socrates and to be ignorant of Democritus and Epicurus. The two former philosophers would steer us down a very reactionary channel – in Plato’s case to actual fascism. The latter two would – as the name Democritus itself implies – guide us in the paths of freedom and equality.
Our new friend from Walnut Creek who attended our meeting a few weeks ago – I forgot his name, darn it – described himself as a “fundamentalist atheist.” By this he means that he goes back to fundamentals, to the Greeks, the materialists.
And I do too. The essential thing about Democritus is not his source for the idea of the atom. No doubt he got it from his teacher Leucippus. Where Leucippus got it from we don’t know. What’s important is that both Democritus and Leucippus taught that these atoms are material entities, that their number is infinite, and that they exist through all eternity. The fundamental fact is that Democritus was a philosophical materialist and that materialism - philosophical and scientific - is the only solid basis for atheism. Thank you...
I'm sorry, Cassius. I stupidly sent the message to you two or three times, because I could not find it under the 'Recent Activity' of my page. Then I realized it would not be there because I am sending a private message to you, not a post for the entire gang to read. I'm still learning my way around this very complex website. Sorry...
Thanks a lot, Kalsoyni.
How do I send you a private message?
Cassius asks me to relate the circumstances around my Big Bang paper. I wrote it 15 years ago as a member of the Rossmoor Atheist/Agnostic Group in the senior community in which I live. It was my purpose to champion materialism, the philosophy I have maintained for 60 years.
That stalwart devotion explains why I am so delighted to find your website. For you folks champion Epicurus, foremost of all the great Greek materialists.
Oh, there are other websites that host philosophical discussions: PhilPeople, Reddit >> AskPhilosophy, I Love Philosophy Forum, The Philosophy Discussion Forum, and more… I have not even begun to explore them, so happy am I here.
I have a few other papers I would like to share with you all, but I hesitate for fear they may not be appropriate. For example, I would like to post something on Democritus, a paper even more zealous in defense of materialism - more than the de Bergerac, the King Lear, and the Big Bang.
But it mentions Epicurus only in passing. Shall I clear it first? With you, Cassius?
Well, folks, I’m overwhelmed. I’ve been a member of this group only twelve days. In that short time I posted three items here. But I don’t know if I have much more to say.
My first post was the Cyrano de Bergerac presentation which was very well received; it created a bit off a stir here. My second post, about King Lear, was no less successful.
But now with this third, (the Big Bang), I’m afraid my mind is blown. Your responses are so many, so comprehensive and exhaustive, that - I’m sorry - but I doubt I can reply to all.
I am struck by the comments of thatchickinpa regarding the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall. It drove me to a little bit of research.
“The Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall is the largest known superstructure in the universe. The structure contradicts theories about the evolution of the universe. The structure is 10 billion light-years away, which means that we see the structure 10 billion years ago, when the universe is only 13.8 billion years old, and its light was just approaching us. The 3.8 billion year span of time is too short for a giant structure 10 billion light-years long to form. Even Istvan Horvath, the discoverer of the structure, says he has no idea how the structure has formed in that amount of time. For now, the existence of the structure is still a mystery for cosmologists.”
"The Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall is larger than the theoretical upper limit on how big universal structures can be," Dr. Jon Hakkila, an astrophysics professor at the College of Charleston in South Carolina and one of the astronomers who discovered the structure stated. "Thus, it is a conundrum: it shouldn't exist but apparently does."
“The idea of the Big Bang might be proven false as a result of this incredible cosmic structure.”
I’ll try to keep up with you guys but you are way ahead of me. I’m glad, however, that my post has engendered so much and so great a discussion.
