Ritural

Recoil by casting a circle, if your tradition requires it.

Preceding to starting the arrogance, place three sheaves of bump or wheat right to be heard the ritual space. You'll as well hankering a statue or other image of the God and of the God at the foundation of your altar. Regarding the statues, place five candles -- red and black to shabby the dark aspect of the God, green and creep to personify the healthy God, and white for the counterfeit and home.

Position a salver of dark currency, abundance for each separate put on, put up the shutters the foundation of the altar, tabled with a cup of wine or cider. Loop the altar. The youngest separate put on soul act as the Handmaiden, and the oldest as the Condescending Nun (HP) or Condescending Priestess (HPs). If you're acting out this rite as a solitary, in a minute sketch on apiece parts. The HPs lights the red and black candles, and says:

A duet of candles is lit

in acclaim of the God.

She is Maiden and Close relative surrounding the engagement

and tonight we acclaim her as Crone.

Be with, the HPs lights the creep and green candles, saying:

A duet of candles is lit

in acclaim of the God.

He is healthy and vivid and animal

and tonight we acclaim him as the Horned God.

The Handmaiden takes the currency and walks the circle with the salver, allowing each separate to come apart off a bar. As they do so, she says:

MAY THE BLESSINGS OF THE God BE UPON YOU.

The cup of wine or cider is passed right to be heard, and each separate takes a sip. As they do, the Handmaiden essential say:

MAY THE BLESSINGS OF THE GOD BE UPON YOU.

The Handmaiden then lights the fifth candle, for the counterfeit, saying:

This candle is lit

in acclaim of counterfeit and home.

The mother and depart, the God and God,

discrimination another time us tonight as we acclaim them.

The HPs then takes another time, saying:

We light these five candles

for the powerful God

and her able horned haunt, the God,

and for the charge of home and counterfeit.

On this, the night of Samhain,

past the God is a intellectual Crone,

and the God is a healthy stag,

we acclaim them apiece.

The Handmaiden says:

This is a time surrounded by the worlds,

a time of life and a time of death.

This is a night something else any other night.

Silvery ones, we ask your blessing.

God, substantial Crone, mother of all life,

we thank you for your wisdom.

Horned God, master of the healthy look for, custodian of the forest,

we thank you for all that you endow.

AT THIS Period, THE Exceed OF THE Faction MAY As well SAY Belief. IF YOU Look-in TO Guide AN Concession TO THE GOD AND God, NOW IS THE Period TO Position IT UPON THE ALTAR.

Like all aid organization have been prepared, and style limitation, sketch a indicate to ponder on the new youth of Samhain. Believe the gifts that the gods have limitation you another time the out of engagement, and understand about how you right produce a result them your recognition in the coming twelve months.

As the old engagement dies, make room in the new engagement for new items in your life. You may not know yet what's coming, but you can assured imagine, dream and vision. Tonight, this night surrounded by the worlds, is the cautionary time to imagine what items may come.

End the ritual in the way called for by your tradition.

Tips:

Trimming your altar with symbols of the God -- antlers, acorns, brood cones, phallic symbols -- and representations of the God, such as red plants, figurines, pomegranates, etc.

If your tradition honors a set duet of male and female deities, see to free to the stage their names in this ritual everyplace it says God or God.

Equally You Need:

Five candles, in red, black, creep, green and white.

A dawdle of dark currency

A cup of cider or wine

Source: wiccalessons.blogspot.com

Sources Of Ancient Gnostic Information

Until righteous, clearly a few pieces of Gnostic literature were recognizable to stay. These included Conduct of Men, Asclepius, Codex Askewianus, Codex Brucianus, Gospel of Mary, Crucial Gospel of John, Odes of Solomon and the Funeral hymn of the Treasure. Thought about this make progress had been conditional first and foremost from finished attacks that were made on Gnosticism by Christian heresiologists (writers adjacent to heresy) of the instant and immature third century. These included Irenaeus (130? - 200? CE), Clement of Alexandria (145? - 213?), Tertullian (160? - 225?) and Hippolytus (170? - 236). Disastrously, the heresy hunters were not completely proper or standalone in their interpretation of GnosticismIn 1945, Mohammed Ali es Samman, a fawn driver from El Qasr in Egypt, went with his brother to a cliff intimate Nag Hummadi, a cooperation in Northern Egypt. They were digging for nitrate-rich earth that they could use for compost. They came crossways a spacious sand jar recessed in the sports ground. They were tentative whether to open it. They feared that it might regard an evil spirit; but they likewise suspected that it might regard gold or other stow of strapping effectiveness. It turns out that their instant postulation was rather to the truth: the jar local a library of Gnostic stow of unmeasurable effectiveness. 13 volumes breathing, comprising 51 clear works on 1153 pages. 6 were copies of works that were ahead of known; 6 others were duplicated within the library, and 41 were new, a long time ago everyday works. Included were The Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Correctness, Dissertation on the Revival, Gospel of Philip, Wisdom of Jesus Christ, Shock of James, Notification of Peter to Philip, On the Root of the Globe and other writings. Of these, the Gospel of Thomas is designed the utmost minder. It was a align of the sayings of Jesus which were recorded very immature in the Christian era. A in the manner of Gnostic scriptwriter reduced the Gospel. A number of unregulated theologians blow up it constant in catch your eye to the 4 Gospels of the Christian Scriptures.The works had for yourself been on paper in Greek inwards the instant and third centuries CE. The Nag Hummadi copies had been translated inwards the Coptic terms inwards the immature 4th century CE, and discernibly recessed circa 365 CE. A number of Gnostic texts were non-Christian; others were for yourself non-Christian but had Christian elements added; others were completely Christian documents. A number of hand-me-down paper was hand-me-down to reinforce the pelt bindings of the books. They were found to regard revealed communication and commerce documents from the midpoint of the 4th century. The books may continue been enigmatic for save-keeping inwards a sanctimonious escape.The texts agreed unswerving the hands of a section of incomprehensible middlemen, and utterly were consolidated and stored in the Coptic Museum of Cairo. Supply was slowed down by the Suez Urgent situation, the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, and child debates in the midst of scholars. The utmost minder book, the Gospel of Thomas, was utterly translated inwards English inwards the slow 1960's; the earn books were translated inwards the following ten time. In frequent ways, this find reveals exceptional about the immature history of Christianity than do the Later than usual Sea Scrolls.

The Insidiousness Of Cointreau And Sin

At random added too significantly Cointreau to the colourful bulge of overkill congratulatory alcohol. Dash agreed out on the meeting room carpet and in view of the fact that others snored, draped on upsetting bits of put. As I surveyed the killing awkwardly between the settling doghair, I wondered how momentously I took the sin of what self-centredly unloving to my Christian stock.

A inheritance of my Catholic natural world is the eternal come up with that a churchy set involves infinite shepherd's pies and lasagne, chunks of baguette to mop up the devil curry, to excess of spaghetti bolognese, all washed down with atrocious amounts of tongue-loosening thud, smiling and discussion in air thick and overpowering with perfume and perfume blended by mad dancing with pints and cigarettes in hand. Budding in my evangelical life, another group of innocents got sloshed on my catalog with what I impact was a really accomplished incorporate of Absolut to a blank thud, earning the ire of a having a baby beast (woe is he who dares incense a preggie. And woe is the preggie who keeps her pregnancy a secret). Detectably this imitate of that beyond poverty of impact not compulsory to me my lack of other-person-centredness. Hint.

The trade of nonstop get-together these few weeks has been the insidiousness of sin in the problem Christian life. Like of our living thing wickedness, even the good abilities and gifts God gave us for the use of studio up the church physique we pride yourself on tarnished and sullied:

* if we are crafty at understanding and teaching God's word, we become elated, think we are "sorted", grow down on individuals who are not as theologically-sound or who do not come to the incredibly conclusions that we do, forgetting that it is basically by God's tailor and hand that we are sharp to haul the Scriptures;

* if we are crafty with charm and powerful and people follow us keenly, think us godly models and chuck on to our every word, considerably of pushing them to the side, moving them to the truth and pointing them to the One who deserves such feeling, we consumption the worship ourselves.

* if we pride yourself on a artistic ability for simple ministries (be attracted to the podium and music ministries) to teach and advance corporately and publicly, we consumption the compliment of the government, and are quick to dismiss any indication that we are on cheating province in hauteur issues;

* if we pride yourself on good harmony happening the workings of the possible, we are loath to use our artistic ability to guidance and advance people in the cartel, but individual in our power to weight others (we say it's all for their piety of course);

* if we are endowed with infinite culinary, decorating or friendliness skills, we are avid for our products and houses to be showpieces of our artistic ability (this time we say it's our love for our DG or the wider church of course)...*

(I've never actually come on both sides of a trustworthy or LCD projector special who had to asphyxiate his motives for serving in this way, chiefly seeing that of all the gross looks people itemize you each time the microphone screeches or the grumble help comes on from beginning to end the service. But with the insidiousness of sin, one can never be be bounded by.)

It would give the impression of being that the opportunities for self-centredness in these ways are advanced vice- between in ARPC-ians, utmost of whom are professionals, award holders, high-fliers, rainmakers, academy graduates, having fused gifts and stupid ambitions.

Hesitation 1:

In contemplating the existence of fallen man and what rancid about identifying and weeding out sin in our lives, is give such a thing as engrossed pessimism? Or would an conviction of self-centredness be a sea acknowledgement of the sincerity that the bible points us to?

Hesitation 2:

How do we help each other not fall happening Satan's mesh in these ways? Do we doubt and query each other's motives all the time? Can we contention each other basically in regulate relationships?

"*BS reasonable reminded me that another craze mishandle of abilities is that if time-management and rein in is our potency, we means of transport in our brusqueness in conference up with people and the guess of studies we do each week, contemplative that this shows our love for people, each time in fact it shows our love for ourselves. A bit be attracted to Bree Van De Kamp, that goodie-two-shoes-Martha-Stewart-on-steriods in Extreme Housewives.

This do of people as "fuss"s, boxes-to-tick, diary-fillers and superfluities to our Christian CVs has had extremely harmful possessions on the subjects of these projects. I know a few people (but a few is far too several) who pride yourself on missing their DGs, later ARPC, later the cartel completely seeing that of this freezing calculative do.



Source: about-world-religions.blogspot.com

Glossary

Word list OF Conditions Recurrently Used IN WICCACopyright 1992 by Rowan Moonstone and Durwydd MacTaraAKASHA- the spiritual ether (or Aether); the supreme fifth occult element which embraces the other four- earth, air, fire, and water; and from which they deal out. This is the realm of "possibility" or causality, from which the realm the traditionally bother of "five end manifests. Certified define it is the "other" of the "two worlds" that the witch or magician walks surrounded by.ARADIA- Daughter of the Divine being Diana, and a name for the Divine being used by Italian Witches or Strega, commonly used in oodles Wiccan traditions today.ASPECTING- Any advanced magickal activity in which a practitioner manifests a careful aspect of the Divine being or God, in bother, mind-set, behavior, create, etc.; Often as a direct conclusion of a "Skill Depressed". Often a little variety of this phenomena occurs with the suggestion of a "Magical Trade name", of Skill Trade name.ASPECTS- Forms, facets, or personas of Deity: for configuration, Brighid, Iseult, Eos, and Kore are all aspects of the Maiden, and the Maiden is an aspect of the Divine being.ATHAME- black handled, stick up for edged cook's knife. Above all used to cast and recede the circle, for which purposes it is interchangeable with the magic sword. A tool of the "Star" of Put an end to in the Georgian Follow and some others.BELTANE- May Eve feast. One of the Overcast Celtic "Put an end to Festivals." on this night, the pigs were pressed surrounded by two bonfires to protect them from blight. Couples wishing for strength would " step the fires" on Beltane night. More to the point the traditional Sabbath wherever the capability of the "Rise of the See" is returned to the Divine being. This Silver jubilee as well letters the transition point of the threefold Divine being energies from family of Maiden to Blood relation.Endure OF SHADOWS- Normally hand clich book of rituals, recipes, training techniques, procedure, and other equipment deemed huge to a Witch or a coven. One and all tradition has it's own standard drawn from a keg of the Endure and each Witch's book guts be odd as he or she adds to it with time from oodles odd sources. Unaccompanied up-to-the-minute Witch can see your book of shadows. More to the point, commonly, it may never reach your hands or pay for until death, on one occasion it requirement be destroyed, or (in some traditions) returned to the coven to be prompt of.Stop TIMES- a flavor used by some Witches for the group of students of aggravation in the Concentrate Ages and concluding. It is in fact a misnomer in some seats, as Witches were on its own burned in Scotland, and on the continent of Europe. In England and the U.S., they were hanged.CANDLEMAS- Silver jubilee held on Feb. 1. One of the 4 Celtic "Put an end to Festivals. Commemorates the troubled of the Divine being from the Crone to the Maiden. Celebrates the pinnacle signs of Greatly. More to the point called "Imbolc" (the old Celtic name). This is the drifter reworking wherever the pinnacle signs of properly and the return of the sun are noted, i.e. the pinnacle nascent of vegetation, the nascent of the Crocus plant life etc. In other words, it is the feast commemorating the well-off brief of winter and the beginning of the rural day. This Silver jubilee as well letters the transition point of the threefold Divine being energies from family of Crone to Maiden.CARDINAL POINTS- North, South, East, and West, noticeable in the Georgian Follow by candles of green, red, tawny, and brilliant, respectively. The Errand is gray to fasten together these four points. CHALICE- one of the tools of the Witch. Located on the altar to stalemate the element of Pond. Expenditure OF THE GODDESS- The Norm words of the Divine being to her allies, or "underground children". In general declaimed by the HPS at every coven Errand. CIRCLE- the range in which the magickal worship and spells takes place. Can as well be used to engender a feeling of a careful group of Witches or Pagans such as "Snow-white Acorn Errand". Channel OF POWER- power raised in the circle by the Witches assembled, and sent out all the rage the world to work magick, is generally visualized as the same as retained and built in the form of a "direct" past to film. COVEN- an conventional group of Witches, led by a Haughty priestess and/or a Haughty Holy man who look at regularly for worship and fellowship. The traditional relationship is 13, but in fact greatest covens symbol fountain less. 3 is the token in the Georgian Follow. In Concentrate English, "Covin" a group of confederates; In Old French "Covine" a band or group with a personal purpose; Latin "Com"-together, "Venire"-to come or move. COVENSTEAD- even gather together place for a coven. Universally the home of the Haughty Priestess or Haughty Holy man. COWAN- a non-Witch. Go backward used in a very judicious technique. Fixed used in Masonic Examine to gesture the non word of honor and/or liar to "real craft". Not normally used today among greatest Witches. COYOTE ENERGY- swindler energies. Named for the American Indian Trickster, Coyote, who tricks man all the rage learning what he needs to learn. Applies to one who constantly jokes and clowns. More to the point applies to the suggestion of "Holy Fool" in oodles traditions. Infuriated Sector DAYS- The modern name for the Celtic Put an end to Festivals of Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lammas. DEOSIL- clockwise, or sunwise. Norm restraint for working "mansion" magick. Skill Depressed THE MOON- Examine summons of the spirit of the Divine being all the rage the scaffold of the Haughty Priestess by the Haughty Holy man. DIVINATION- magical mode of exploration or look at carefully all the rage a work via such methods as Tarot cards, runestones, I-Ching, etc. ELEMENTS- Earth, air, fire, and water, beginning spirit, which includes them all. These are regarded as realms or categories of person (apiece material and non-material) and are not to be darned with the physicists table of elements, which the modern witch, of course, accepts. ESBAT- term paper or biweekly gather together of a coven. Normally held either on the full moon or the new moon. FAMILIARS- Either a Witch's pet animal which has been certified to be a magickal comrade, or an insincerely created "elemental" which performs the awfully functions as the animal friend. FIVEFOLD KISS, FIVEFOLD SALUTE- The Witches' ritual salute, with kisses; (1) on each settle up, (2) on each segment, (3) luxury the pubic hair, (4) on each breast, and (5) on the lips- really 8 kisses in all. It is on its own used within the Errand, but the words that go with it are the origin of "Blessed Be." GARDNERIANS- Follow of Witchcraft descended from the teachings of Gerald Gardner. GNOMES- an "constituent" or "elemental" that dwells in the at the same height of Earth or is connected with the Earth Star. Commanding RITE- The rite which is the prime article of the third scrap initiation, and which is as well laid down for certain festivals. It is sexual in person, but may be `actual' (and not public to the couples awake) or abstract, as the participants wish. HALLOWS- name used by some traditions for Samhain, or Halloween.HANDFASTING- Wiccan peer of a wedding. It can be made official if the Priestess and/or Holy man are registered as clergy with the precise business, or it may on its own be calculated binding within the coven. Haughty PRIEST/ESS- Duly language, a Witch who has usual the 3rd scrap initiation. Better-quality generally, the male and female leaders of a coven. IMBOLC- Celtic name for Candlemas. INVOCATION- The ritual "calling-in" of an constituent (or energies) vanguard than possible, either for e-mail with the caller together with a medium or by definite turn of phrase or moreover to significant all the rage a possible scaffold as in the Skill Depressed the Moon. In some traditions, a Prayer. LAMMAS- Pompous 1st. Witch Silver jubilee. The Old Celtic name for this feast is Lughnassadh. It is the Silver jubilee of the Prime minister Fruits, and is the pinnacle of the 3 harvests. This feast as well letters the reworking of the Threefold Divine being energies from that of Blood relation to Crone. MAIDEN- An blind date held by one of the women of the coven. She is virtually the partner in crime Haughty Priestess. This flavor is as well the symbolic flavor used to imagine the pinnacle of the aspects of the Threefold Divine being Energies (Maiden, Blood relation, and Crone). It is commonly connected with the Waxing Moon, and the group of students from Imbolc (Candlemas) to Beltane (May eve) wherever the energies are family of initiating, beginning, and employment. OLD RELIGION- up-to-the-minute name for the Skill. PAGANING- Presentation of an teenager to the Errand and to the Gods. PENTACLE- a EP twisted talisman; in careful, the metal EP, which represents the earth element among the witch's working tools. PENTAGRAM- The five-pointed star. Between a personal point peak, it represents the possible the same as. Wrong way up, with two points peak, it can imprison Satanist associations; but not certainly. Certified traditions of Wicca use the inverted pentagram to signify an word of honor of the painstaking scrap. QUARTERS- The North, East, South, and West parts of a magickal circle or other ritual range. (See as well "Watchtowers") REDE- Direction or law. SABBAT- one of the Eight festivals or high holy days of Wicca. SALAMANDER- An constituent that dwells in the realm of Put an end to. SAMHAIN- The feast of nominal for the dead, held on the eve of Nov. 1st. It is the live to tell the tale of the three harvests. This feast as well letters the transition of rulership of the "Rise of the See from that of the Divine being to that of the God. SCRYING- Divination, generally using such methods as crystal gazing, or insight via incense glow, or water as incompatible to tarot or other shrewd explanation. SPELL- A prayer, or verbal restraint of magickal energies on the road to the affect of some edge. SUMMONER- The male officer of the coven who corresponds to the Maiden. He is the partner in crime Haughty Holy man. SYLPH- An "constituent" or "elemental" that dwells in the at the same height of Air or is connected with the AIR Star. TRADITIONS- Any of the numerous "sects" of Wicca such as Gardnerian, Alexandrian, Georgian, Seax, etc. UNDINE- An "constituent" or "elemental" that dwells in the at the same height of Pond or is connected with the Pond Star. WAND- A rod or staff that is set so that it may be used for magickal or psychic purposes, generally to object some form of power. WARLOCK- A flavor coined in the Stop Time. It was used to feature a traitor to the Skill, or one who had betrayed the allies of the Old Mysticism. Its origin is Scottish. What of the hurtful connotations, it is not used by greatest Wiccans today. Stare TOWERS- Strangely from the Enochian detach of Confusion Magick, now integrated all the rage oodles "Habits" of Wicca, these are the four elemental "advice" or "accommodation" (congruous to the right and proper points on the compass) called to protect the Errand concerning its big business. One and all of them imprison a comparable surrounded by the compass point, an element, and (altering amongst odd traditions) color connected with them. WICCA- the name greatest modern day Witches use for the Skill. It comes from the Anglo-Saxon word Wicce, meaning to bend or to aim. This is the stand word from which we get basket weave. WIDDERSHINS- Fulfil age learned. Used for "tearing down" OR BANISHING magick. White HANDLED KNIFE- The working pang of a Witch. It is used to score candles, and for fashioning the other tools. Normally, it can on its own be used in a Errand. Copyright 1991 by Rowan Moonstone and Durwydd MacTara.Set down to reprint for enlightening purposes at no price is hereby contracted to all and discrete, provided the ape is not altered in any way.

Rune Wizard And Quantum Physics

By Ellis Peterson

To become an efficient and powerful 21st Century Rune Wizard, you must have a working understanding of the Laws of Quantum Physics.

As a Rune Wizard, of the 21st Century, heading into battle, you would be foolish only to be armed with a sword, and shield onto the battle field. The battlefield fields of modern day Rune Wizards is the 'Mind,' the mental level.

The Laws of Quantum Physics tell us that thoughts are things, that the mind creates. And that there exists an infinite ocean of intelligent thinking energy called the Quantum Ocean. In reality, it is the Mind of God, the creator God, who place everything that ever was, is or will be into the Quantum Ocean for you as a Wizard to use.

There is no time, no past, no present nor future in the Quantum Ocean, there is only the NOW.

The runes exist as keys to the Universal Creative Energies of which you will use. All the Norse and Germanic Gods and Goddess's are there. All the Shamans, Sorcerers, and Wizards exist there. Every one down through the centuries, and you and I exist there and her because we have chosen to 'blink out' of the Quantum Ocean and do something to elevate, raise our level of consciousness and strive to become more God-like. We, when we finish the tasks in front of us, we 'blink back' into the Quantum Ocean until our next incarnation.

You hav chosen to become either a Shaman, a Sorcerer or a Wizard. Why else would you be reading these pages? There are no coincidences and nothing happens by accident.

As one of them you will use the tools of all the Norse Wizards that went before you. All these tools, Spells, Charms and Rhymes are also contained in the Quantum Ocean, in a self contained storage unit similar to a software program of many software programs in a giant computer.

You can tap into this Wizard Software Program contained in the Quantum Ocean, Mind of God. You can use what is there and add to what is there. But you cannot change what is there.

A powerful evil Spell practiced by a wizard 1000 years ago is still there. You cannot change it. All you can do is not to use it and not touch it with your mind and bring it into manifestation or have it 'blink out' into the physical world now. Leave it alone and let it fade into oblivion in tha infinite ocean.

What you must do is take out of the Quantum Ocean, Mind of God, runes, spells, chants, and rhymes which you can update into the 21st Century. You want runes and spells which have no evil or negative mental energies attched to them by evil wizards of the past.

As a wizard, you must understand the workings of the Quantum Ocean and discriminate as to what energies you will use in your rituals and allow to 'blink out' into the world.

Too many foolish people out there are practicing all kinds of magic, rituals, and spells that they are reading out of books. They are doing Magic that they do not understand and should not do. Their ignorance is releasing negative and dangerous energies into our physical world.

You are not going to be one of those 'wanna-be' wizards. Take your time, there is no hurry. You have all the time, in eternity to 'blink in' and 'blink out' of the Quantum Ocean to perfect your Rune Wizard skills. Build your Mental Rune Wizard tool box before you cast your fist spell or ritual. KNOW what you are DOING. Then ACT.

Ellis Peterson AKA Ragnar Storyteller is a retired math professor and electronics engineer. He has been studying astrology, runes, metaphysics and alternate healing treatments for over 30 years. He is 70+, in very good health and lives in the boonies of the Pocono mountains with his wife Lory. His writings are unique and refreshing.

To see more of his writings visit his websites.

http://www.olevikingshop.com/ and http://www.runes-for-health-wealth-love-now.com/

Or go to goggle and type in his pen name RAGNAR STORYTELLER for his listings. He is also a ghost writer and will write and article for you. Email Ragnar for his FREE 10 PART MINI-COURSE, "How-To use Quantum Physics in Your Every Day Life to Attract More Wealth, Health and Love, Now."

You can contact him at: ragnarstoryteller2@gmail.com

Visit my Blogs:http://ragnar-storyteller.blogspot.com/

God And Philosophers Ii The Design Argument

Here is the second part of the Boston Review article that focuses on the philosophical arguments for the existence of God (see the post about Ontological Argument here). Alex Byrne provides another excellent summary of the Design argument and objections associated with it. In particular, he does a great job of exposing problems with Intelligent Design and also the fine-tuning arguments (though there are subtle differences between the two and he points those out). Here is the full analysis of the Design argument:

Although the design argument can be traced to the ancient Greeks, it received one of its most careful and elaborate formulations from William Paley, an eighteenth-century English clergyman and philosopher, in his "Natural Theology; or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity". That book was published in 1802, a few years before Paley's death and more than half a century before the publication of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species".

Paley begins by contrasting the discovery of two objects while "crossing a heath": a stone and a watch. The presence of the stone requires no explanation in terms of a designer-indeed, Paley supposes that the hypothesis that "it had lain there forever" might well be correct. The presence of the watch is another matter entirely, for on examination "we perceive-what we could not discover in the stone-that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e.g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day." And the inference from these observed facts, Paley thinks, "is inevitable; that the watch must have had a maker." Importantly, that is not because we know that watches are, in fact, usually the product of design: the conclusion, Paley says, would not be weakened if "we had never known an artist capable of making one."

All that seems reasonable enough. The design argument that Paley then proceeds to give replaces the watch with terrestrial flora and fauna and their intricate parts. Paley-evidently a keen amateur naturalist-gives many examples, from the diverse mechanisms of seed dispersion to the tongue of the woodpecker, but his example of the eye is the one typically quoted. How could such a "complicated mechanism" have arisen, Paley asks, if not by the action of a designer? "In the human body, for instance, chance, i.e., the operation of causes without design, may produce a wen, a wart, a mole, a pimple, but never an eye." In the case of the watch, the reasonable conclusion is that a designer produced it. And similarly, Paley thinks, in the case of the eye and other biological structures. Admittedly, we have no idea "how" the designer managed to construct the eye, and we have "never known an artist capable of making one." As Paley says, however, these points of disanalogy do not seem to ruin the argument.

Unlike the ontological argument, the design argument is not supposed to "prove" God's existence. Rather, it is an "inference to the best explanation," like the inference that there are mice in the kitchen because this hypothesis best explains the missing cheese. The hypothesis of a designer is one of many possible "scientific explanations" of Paley's watch on the heath, and similarly of the eye. The frequent complaint that intelligent design is "not science" (as opposed to "bad science") only succeeds in muddying the waters.

An inference to the best explanation can be overturned by more evidence. Perhaps, on further investigation, it turns out that another hypothesis-say, that the au pair has been snacking in the early hours-is the best explanation of the missing cheese. And that is the standard reply to Paley: we now know that the best explanation of the apparent design of the eye is not "the hand of an artificer," but Darwinian evolution. To borrow from the title of an earlier book by Dawkins, a "blind watchmaker"-the impersonal forces of natural selection-made the eye.

This reply crucially hinges on the assumption that modern biology can explain "all" instances of apparent design, and it is here that sophisticated proponents of intelligent design, most notoriously the biochemist Michael Behe, have seen an opportunity to dust off and burnish Paley's argument.

In his first book, "Darwin's Black Box", Behe argues that while evolution by natural selection "might explain many things," it cannot explain what he calls "irreducible complexity." The notion is straight out of Paley, who writes of the watch that "if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, or placed after any other manner or in any other order than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it." A watch is "irreducibly complex" in the sense that many of its main parts are essential to its proper functioning-remove the balance wheel, or the escapement, and all you have left is a paperweight. Irreducible complexity is everywhere in nature: Behe's poster children are the blood-clotting system and the bacterial flagellum, but he also quotes Paley's observation that "The heart, constituted as it is, can no more work without valves than a pump can." According to Behe, a process of small step-by-step alterations of the sort found in natural selection is wildly unlikely to produce irreducibly complex systems.

Obviously it is a matter of great importance whether Behe's criticism of the cornerstone of modern biology is correct. (For a clear explanation of why it isn't, see H. Allen Orr's review of Behe's book in "Boston Review", December 1996/January 1997.) But here the debate took a crucial turn too hastily: focusing attention on whether evolution by natural selection can explain the origin of the bacteriological flagellum is to obscure the fact that the design argument fails even if Behe is right.

David Hume's "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" (published posthumously in 1779) presented the key objections, more than twenty years before "Natural Theology". Two of Hume's objections are especially acute. First, if the argument works at all, its conclusion is much weaker than might have been hoped. The argument does not indicate anything about what the designer is like: whether it is benevolent or a suitable object of worship. Even the intelligence of the designer is up for grabs-terrestrial biology might be the product of long trial and error, with the designer's many previous attempts "botched and bungled." Or perhaps the designer is "a stupid mechanic," who imitated other much cleverer designers who practiced their art in far-off galaxies. Further, the designer could have died long ago-the eye and such might have been "the production of old age and dotage in some superannuated deity." And finally, since the design of something complicated is usually a collective endeavor-"A great number of men join in... framing a commonwealth," for example-we can hardly presume that there was exactly one designer. At best, the design argument shows that some designer or designers, whose motives, talents, and present whereabouts are all unknown, existed at some time. The proponent of the argument is at liberty afterwards "to fix every point of his theology, by the utmost license of fancy and hypothesis." Perhaps life on Earth was designed over millions of years by successive committees of incompetent and thoroughly despicable space aliens, who are now fortunately all dead.

Paley had read Hume, and he tries to reply to this objection. Paley concedes that if the design argument simply concerns individual biological structures like the eye, then the proper conclusion is indeed weak: "there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers." However, he thinks a more careful study of the biological world as a whole reveals that there is exactly one designer (or at any rate one "chief" architect), who possesses the usual divine attributes. But Paley's arguments on this score are feeble. He notes the general similarities in the body-plans of animals, and concludes that this "bespeaks the same creation and the same Creator," forgetting Hume's point that multiple designers can act in concert, or that one designer can pick up where another left off. And in support of the goodness of the deity, Paley declares, "It is a happy world after all." Rural England is, anyway: "A "bee" amongst the flowers in spring is one of the cheerfullest objects that can be looked upon." A more plausible theological conjecture is the remark attributed to the biologist J. B. S. Haldane, that the creator had "an inordinate fondness for beetles."

Hume's first objection is that the design argument can only establish the existence of at least one designer. His second objection is that the argument does not establish even this much. Paley claims that the evidence points to the conclusion that, by means entirely unknown, the biological world is the product of design. But why favor this over the hypothesis that, also by means entirely unknown, flora and fauna were produced by, as Paley puts it, "the operation of causes without design"?

As Paley himself emphasizes, his initial watch analogy is far from perfect: watches, unlike organisms, do not reproduce. The eye has not been found lying on its own on the heath, but in the bodies of countless creatures and their ancestors. And offspring differ in various ways from their parents. So one possibility is that the operation of causes without design, operating over "a hundred millions of years," somehow allows, after numerous generations, a "round ball" to "acquire "wings"," eyes, and so forth. Paley's strategy for dismissing no-design alternatives wholesale is to object to the specific evolutionary theories of his day (for instance that of Erasmus Darwin, Charles's grandfather). But this is rather like saying that because this apple and that pear are rotten, vegetables are better than fruit. What Paley needs is an argument for choosing the general hypothesis of an unknown designer or designers operating by unknown means over the general hypothesis of an unknown blind process operating by unknown means, and he signally fails to supply one.

An example that briefly appears in "Darwin's Black Box" nicely illustrates the point. In "2001: A Space Odyssey", a magnetic anomaly in one of the moon's craters leads to the discovery of a perfectly regular slab buried under lunar soil. The characters have no idea how the slab was constructed, or what it is for, and have never known an artist capable of making one; nevertheless they reasonably conclude that it was designed. But that is precisely because the characters are "not" in Paley's position. They know enough about lunar geology, astronomy, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life to discredit the rival hypothesis that the monolith is a natural object (a big crystal, say) that formed on the moon or collided with it. Paley, on the other hand, had no reason, other than the failure of his imagination, to dismiss the hypothesis of "causes without design."

"Darwin's Black Box" exactly recapitulates Paley's mistake. "Might there," Behe asks after he has disposed of Darwin's theory, "be an as-yet-undiscovered natural process that would explain biochemical complexity?" Assuming for the sake of the argument that Darwinism is false, Behe is surely right that "if there is such a process, no one has a clue how it would work." But of course that is quite different from saying that there is no such process. Moreover, intelligent design is in the very same boat: if there is such a process, no one has a clue how it would work either. Why is one mysterious unknown process to be favored over another? After all, as Behe clearly brings out, biochemistry is fantastically baroque, with many unanswered questions and unsolved problems.

. I will include the fine-tuning arguments in the next post.

The Season Of Morning Glories

Current is everything bewitching about the last summer because the mornings are cool and the air is gangster with dew and mugginess. The garden is altering from the floral stream of summer to the ordinary of autumn. The full-size garden phlox is worsening, the coneflowers are leave-taking to seed- greatly to the entertain of the goldfinches, and the brown-eyed Susan's are making pink pale clumps in the perennial beds. The beauty grasses are lush, and the mums and sedum are plumping up, and attainment arranged to flower head in a month or so. This sunrise as I on the brink to primary out for my 2 mile sunrise walk I cut straight the rim area to bring that my sunrise glories were thriving.

Morning Glory Pentacle and sunrise glories in Ellen's garden

I admit to having a thing for sunrise glories. On the whole the large heirloom varieties to hand 'Grandpa Otts'. That precious purplish-blue brew with its five markings on the blossoms totally makes me beam. Morning glories are likewise the daylight flower head for those descendants who are, to hand me, uneducated in the month of September. My hospitality for these magickal vegetation is the reason that one of the "Plot Witch Pentacles" I premeditated photo sunrise glories. Morning glories are suspicious as is the five-pointed discharge star in the sensitivity of the pentacle. Combining these symbols together strengthens the power of the magickal tool.

In the native tongue of vegetation sunrise glories call to mind you to "pleasant the new day". Which I organize is somewhat polite. Magickally, sunrise glories are more often than not magnetism. The vegetation and shrubbery may be worked wearing any type of suspicious spell. The vines may be used for bindings and banishings. Otherwise of using stick or cast to bind a imagery, you disguise it up in sunrise glory vines. The sunrise glory has the astrological set of contacts of Saturn making it version for protection magick.

Grandpa Ott's Morning Glory

Currently I ship out the primary delivery of the "Plot Witch Pentacles" that I began small business online erstwhile week. At the follow up I am in discussion with two stores for them to photo these pentacles in their shops. I never imagined I would claim wholesale instructions for these but hey, why not?

If you are experienced in purchasing a hand made pentacle for your very own, hop a cut above to my website www.ellendugan.com and clap on the "Plot Witch Pentacle" tab at the top of the page. Tag your design and order in another place. Current are four designs to choose from. The payment is made straight Paypal. It is bind, quick and simple. Respectively of these are made of 1 inch stern chunky languish. Pout itself is a forest associated with the earth element- as is this magickal tool. The pentacles are cut by hand, sanded, forest overdone, by my husband- and thus I hand embellish, scratch, assurance and sign each one. It's a band campaign. Brie the calico cat oversees the talent of each pentacle. (My stir is to keep up her from sinking her paws in the water I use to clean out the embellish brushes.) Participating in are the four designs totally in.

Plot Witch Pentacles! 5 Elements, Autumn Plants, Red Rose, Morning Glories

I imminent you all lay claim to the rest of the summer. Respectively night the sun sets a willowy put a bet on, and location gets arranged to put on her alive blockade for the color. Entertain each new day with a willowy magick and lay claim to the summer despite the fact that it lasts! Fantastic be, Ellen