< Back XFL and Lent David Cowles Mar 30, 2023 “The XFL is just what a patient in withdrawal needs to ease the transition.” Riddle : How is Super Bowl Sunday like Fat Tuesday? Well, both usually fall in the month of February, but I’m guessing you’re looking for a deeper connection than that. How about this? Each is a final ‘blowout’ before an ‘implosion’: a celebration before a deprivation! Mardi Gras is Biblical: seven ‘fat’ hours before seven ‘thin’ weeks. The streets are barely clear of revelers when the first rays of sun tell us that it’s Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent and its 40 days of penance (i.e., fasting), starting with a major hangover on Day One. Ugh! Who doesn’t hate the month of March? It’s supposed to be spring, but it isn’t. In New England, March 21 st is keenly anticipated, not as the vernal equinox but as the anniversary of mega-blizzards past. And to top it off, you’re starving! This is bad, but not nearly as bad as when the referee blows the final whistle, ending the final play of the Super Bowl. Normally, when you’re watching a game, you turn the TV off the minute the game is over; not tonight. On Super Sunday, you remain in front of the TV for hours, hypnotized by the final broadcast of yet another spectacular season of College and Professional football. The winning coach has been doused in Gatorade, the final touchdown has been replayed for the two-dozenth time, the trophy has been awarded, the darn credits have even started to roll. You still can’t quite bring yourself to push the Power button to off . How come? Because this is day one of the winter of your discontent…and the spring, and the summer. Now begins the endless hiatus between Super Bowl and Training Camp. 5 horrible months – the butt-end of the calendar. Millennia ago, Celtic Druids anticipated today’s NFL calendar. Instead of the 4 calendar quarters we’re used to, they divided the year into 8 periods – one beginning 2/2 (Groundhog Day), another beginning c. 8/1 (Lamb Day) – one marking the end of one season, the other celebrating the beginning of the next. Our society is finally starting to pay long-overdue attention to mental health; and the NFL is determined to do its part. Traditionally, after the Super Bowl, 100,000,000 fans were forced to manage their addiction ‘cold turkey’: no maintenance doses, no Methadone, no counselling, no support groups! The consequences are well documented…and not pretty! Enter the XFL – the NFL’s answer to the crisis of withdrawal. 8 teams, 4 games per week for 10 weeks, followed by play-offs. By the time the XFL season ends (mid-May), the opening of NFL training camps is at least in sight. And the quality? Top-notch! These are not a bunch of NFL rejects. Many were drafted by NFL teams, and many have played on NFL teams, some for years. Some of these players are hoping to ‘get a second look’, some are undrafted ‘walk-ons’ who never got a full try-out, some are in the process of rehabbing prior to an expected return to the NFL. Others, like All-Pro receiver, Josh Gordon, are just looking for a ‘second chance’. Finally, there are a few skilled veterans, Tom Brady types, hoping to extend their playing lives by a season or two. All this and A-list coaches (Wade Phillips) as well. The XFL is just what a patient in withdrawal needs to ease the transition. But as any lifestyle coach will tell you, sobriety is not just about giving up (Lent); it’s also about rebuilding (Easter). Again, the XFL plays a role. Like a Broadway-bound play opening in Boston, the XFL season is an opportunity for Professional Football to showcase rules changes that might someday make their way into the NFL’s regular season. For example, this season we’re getting familiar with… A running clock that speeds up play. A super abbreviated half-time. New rules re kick-offs and punts, designed to foster more runbacks. College rules (one foot in) for pass receivers. The right of each coach to challenge any one play. By far the biggest change, however, is regarding the Point After Touchdown (PAT). Traditionally, teams have had an opportunity to add another point to their score by converting a chip shot kick. It’s almost automatic. The XFL rules eliminate the option to kick for a PAT. Instead, teams have a chance to add one, two or three points to a 6 point touchdown…but they must run or pass to get it. Score from the 2-yard line, get one point; score from the 5-yard line, 2 points; from the 10-yard line, 3 points. Now, a touchdown can be worth as much as 9 points; but the likelihood of having to settle for just 6 points is greatly increased. So, how are teams dealing with this extended palette? Poorly in my estimation. The new rules should have created a fascinating web of strategic considerations. In fact, some teams just routinely go for 2 points, almost regardless of the circumstances. It would be like playing Rock-Paper-Scissors and always throwing Rock. Others mix it up, but not always according to any transparent logic. Looking back at history from my vantage, we’d likely all agree that “something’s lost, but something’s gained.” Put XFL on the “gain” side of the cosmic ledger. Want more football content from Aletheia Today ? Just click here . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Prologue David Cowles Nov 1, 2021 It takes roughly 100 years for the bleeding edge discoveries of science to be fully integrated into the popular psyche. For example, Newton’s 17th century discoveries did not become common knowledge until the 18th century. And this is great news! 20th century science produced three absolutely revolutionary discoveries: relativity, quantum mechanics, and non-locality (Bell’s Theorem). Today, a “what you see is what you get” view of the world is entirely untenable. But don’t tell that to your neighbor: popular culture is still firmly rooted in 19th century mechanics. But if past is prologue, the 21st century will see these insights integrated into public consciousness. Science, which plunged us into the so-called Enlightenment, will provide a tunnel out of that Dark Age into something brand new…and unpredictable. Exciting times! It takes roughly 100 years for the bleeding edge discoveries of science to be fully integrated into the popular psyche. For example, Newton’s 17th century discoveries did not become common knowledge until the 18th century. And this is great news! 20th century science produced three absolutely revolutionary discoveries: relativity, quantum mechanics, and non-locality (Bell’s Theorem). Today, a “what you see is what you get” view of the world is entirely untenable. But don’t tell that to your neighbor: popular culture is still firmly rooted in 19th century mechanics. But if past is prologue, the 21st century will see these insights integrated into public consciousness. Science, which plunged us into the so-called Enlightenment, will provide a tunnel out of that Dark Age into something brand new…and unpredictable. Exciting times! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back COVID-19 David Cowles Feb 15, 2024 “[COVID-19] was the first virus to figure out in a major way how to escape immunity…” Thoughts While Shaving does not normally get involved in anything so mundane as a ‘current event’ but a recent article by Carl Zimmer in the New York Times (11/21/23), which I quote liberally below, just raised so many flags, both red and checkered, that... The COVID-19 virus that departed Wuhan late in 2019 is now virtually extinct - but hold the bubbly: before exiting stage right, ‘Virus Zero’ mutated…and mutated…and mutated. These ‘better adapted variants’, more than our lockdowns and vaccines, put Virus Zero out of business. Unfortunately, this mutation process has continued in a way that should alarm us all: “[COVID-19] was the first virus to figure out in a major way how to escape immunity,” said Dr. Jacob Lemieux, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Frightening as this is, it puts a spotlight on something that applies to process in general…so ‘general’ that it’s rarely noticed: “Dr. Lemieux and many other Omicron experts suspect that the variant gained its new mutations while infecting a single person with a weak immune system.” Apparently, the virus released from Wuhan found a single immune-compromised host and mutated: “Now it has become Omicron, destroyer of world”. It’s straight out of the Bhagavad Gita …or Marvel Comics . In fact, it goes beyond even Stan Lee…it goes straight to the structure of Universe itself. In theology, this is called the Scandal of Particularity : assuming God is incarnate, why just once, and if just once, why in the person of a first-century carpenter from the Galilee? Of course, the answer is just as simple and as obvious as it is unsatisfying: “Why not?” We fantasize that things move in a straight line, but of course, we know they don’t. So we imagine they radiate outward according to some stable function: f(x) = x², for example. But things are much, much crazier than we imagine. To bastardize the language of calculus, the first derivative of any event is 1 (identity): it is identical with itself; it is its own slope, its own rate of change. Paraphrasing Nietzsche, there is nothing outside the event that can determine or even measure the event itself. But the second derivative is undefined: call it 0 or ∞ or ø. Our event occupies a range (t₁ - t₂) with a defined trajectory; beyond that range, we have no information. We are forced to treat our event as a quantum whole; we know nothing of the event beyond the event itself. Yet our event is objectively immortal. It is no longer subject to modification, but it projects itself forward into the multiplicity (M) from which novel events emerge. But there is no function that can connect our event with the events that follow it. A virus infected a person, and a planet was brought to a standstill; a butterfly flapped its wings, and a tornado ravaged Chicago. This is the world we live in. Mr. Zimmer: “In the two years since its emergence, Omicron has proved to be not only staggeringly infectious, but an evolutionary marvel, challenging many assumptions virologists had before the pandemic. It has given rise to an impressive number of descendants, which have become far more adept at evading immunity and finding new victims.” We know that viruses can ‘learn’, but are they now ‘learning to learn’? Is Omicron ‘AI’… in a dot? As Omicron continues to mutate, sometimes two Omicron viruses wind up in the same cell. Just as kids used to swap baseball cards (back in the Pleistocene), viruses now swap genes. The result: new hybrid viruses with converging genetic histories. One of these hybrids is called XBB. It easily infects people, even those who had already been infected with Alpha, Delta, or Omicron. As a result, XBB became dominant in the United States in early 2023. But now even XBB is ebbing as a menagerie of even more evasive variants has evolved. Marc Johnson, a virologist at the University of Missouri, summed up the situation perfectly: “Right now we’re in a period of chaos.” But take a memo to Marc: “The ‘period of chaos’ you reference is actually the lifespan of the universe.” Hello, JN1 - this mutated form has become the most resistant version of coronavirus yet. It appears to be growing quickly in France and may soon spread to other countries. Where are we headed? Are there any limits to the ingenuity of this virus? Is it just stumbling on favorable adaptations…or is it really ‘learning to learn’? Even if we ultimately find a way to defeat this pathogen, do we need to be concerned that new viruses will emerge with similar ‘immunity evading intelligence’? That may depend on your choice of an origin story . If the COVID-19 pandemic is the result of a one-off species crossover, then the risk of a repetition anytime soon is probably small, but if it was the by-product of bioengineering, we should all be afraid, very, very afraid. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back 500 Year-Long Nap David Cowles Feb 24, 2022 It’s 1000 A.D. and Pope Sylvester II is the undisputed leader of the Christian Church in Europe. He is also generally regarded as the continent’s most accomplished scientist. Faith was strong at that time, but it did not interfere in any way with the exploration of nature. The relationship between Science and Religion was symbiotic…and synergistic. It was widely accepted that God revealed himself through the structures & processes of the universe as well as in Scripture & Tradition. It’s 1000 A.D. and Pope Sylvester II is the undisputed leader of the Christian Church in Europe. He is also generally regarded as the continent’s most accomplished scientist. Faith was strong at that time, but it did not interfere in any way with the exploration of nature. The relationship between Science and Religion was symbiotic…and synergistic. It was widely accepted that God revealed himself through the structures & processes of the universe as well as in Scripture & Tradition. So, no apparent contradiction could be real! If ever a contradiction does arise, rerun the experiments, review the data, reread the scriptures, and pray for inspiration! (Hmm, this might not be a bad practice for all of us, every day.) A major tenet of that faith was that no such contradiction could remain unresolved for long. Why? Because ‘faith was strong at that time’! Fast forward 500 years: now this same church is persecuting Galileo Galilei for his groundbreaking astronomical discoveries. What happened? Fear happened! The Inquisition was never a manifestation of faith; it was always a symptom of the lack of faith – bishops asking, “What if we’re wrong? Do we have a Plan B?” Unfortunately, that Plan B plunged the Atlantic community into a true dark age that lasted half a millennium. But now fast forward another 500 years! Two Jesuit astronomers from the Vatican Observatory played key roles in two recent discoveries: One found a new member of our solar system (2021 XD7) in orbit beyond Neptune; the other found evidence for a long-lost galaxy, Pontus, apparently “eaten” by our Milky Way. It’s not easy to wake up from a 500 year long nap, but we’re trying! Since the middle of the 20th century, there has been growing evidence of a tenuous rapprochement between the scientific community and its theological counterpart. It can’t happen soon enough! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Who am I? I’m Jean Valjean… David Cowles Dec 5, 2024 “…a Quantum of Being.” In England, I’m Claire Sinclair; in Russia, I’m Ivan Ivanov; in Sicily, Nemo; in France, Jean Valjean. In other words I am a Quantum of Being (QB) …wherever and whenever. As such I am simple, I am inert, the same at the hour of my death as at the moment of my conception, the same at 80 as at 8. I cannot be divided into parts, displayed as aspects, or reduced to qualia ; I am the Aletheia behind all that crazy Doxa . Everything about me changes: my environment, my personality, my behavior, my appearance; even the cells that make up my body recycle every 7 years or so. “I seem to be a verb” (R. B. Fuller), but through all this, I never change . There’s nothing to change! ( Not that I’m perfect, mind you.) There’s nothing to change because there’s nothing that is subject to change, nothing changeable. Assuming that you are real, and my ontological equal, there’s no reason to doubt that you too are a Quantum of Being. We saw (above) that a QB has no hair! (Hawking? Kojak?), no qualia , nothing to distinguish one QB from another. My QB constitutes an identity: QB 8 = QB 80; not just an equivalence, an identity! Same goes for you, I’m sure, but let’s go further. My QB 80 is my QB 8 and vice versa. There is only one UB Me. Same for you, right? Then why shouldn’t my QB 8 and your QB 8 also constitute an identity? “R U Mad? I is me and you is you, end of! You are not me; in philosophy you are known quite simply as ‘the other’ (reminds me of an episode from Lost ).” Imagine yourself as a singularity…wait, you are a singularity. What you ‘are’ sits on your ‘event horizon’. Believe me, I’m looking at it and it’s one hairy mess! Don’t they have barbers, excuse me ‘scalp sculptors’, where you come from? But that’s outside of you. You are the undifferentiated, hairless ‘black hole’ beneath that horizon. Beyond our respective horizons, we have not a mote of dust in common; inside those horizons we are indistinguishable and what is indistinguishable is identical (i.e. constitutes an identity). My ontological equals are all singularities with unique mops of hair covering a single featureless interior (Quantum of Being). So, your QB and my QB are one and the same QB. In fact, there is only one QB though it is shared by innumerable entities. “Ridiculous! You were born in the castle, a prince of the realm; I was born a slave in your fields. You were raised on quail eggs and poached salmon; I was raised on a root broth and some gruel.” But none of this has anything to do with us, with what or who we are! Let’s play Prince & Pauper (not really playing) except that we change places every night. Who is the real prince, who is the real slave? After a certain period of time, they become two roles played by a single person. One of the many errors of the Enlightenment was the idea that we are what we experience. Hence, genetics, nutrition, psychology, even travel. A whole generation was raised on the meme, “You are what you eat!” – it’s in the running for MLP honors (‘Most Ludicrous Proposition’). You are not your circumstances. You are not the accidental things that happen to you throughout your life. You are not what you eat! On the contrary, you sh*t what you eat; what you eat is precisely what you are not . To eat is to incorporate the ‘other’ into yourself, and at the other end of the line, you graciously return the ‘other’, albeit modified, to its natural habitat. Jesus said it best, didn’t he? (He usually does.) “It is not what goes into a person’s mouth (food) that defiles them, but what comes out (speech).” (Matt. 15: 11) We’ve got everything backwards, don’t we? (We usually do.) Nothing you experience is you. If you were what you experienced, you would not be there to experience it. ‘Experience’ requires differánce (Derrida). A quantum of difference. Identity is the complete absence of differánce . So your QB and my QB are one and the same QB. What about your pet monkey and my pig? Do they have Quanta of Being? Do they have identity? Do they experience ? Of course they do! And now for the question we’ve been avoiding, and you’ve been anticipating, drum roll please: “If your QB and my QB are the same and if pigs and monkeys also have Quanta of Being, do they share a common QB and, if so, is that the same QB that you and I share?” Nothing’s more fun than London on election night. At 10PM sharp, the neon signs in Piccadilly Circus go dark…and immediately relight with a single number flashing over and over again (red or blue) on a screen. It’s the number of seats the winning party will have in the new Parliament. This is like that! Do you share QB in common with my pig? YES! YES! YES! I mean what else could the answer be. A QB has no hair so there’s nothing that allows us to distinguish one QB from another. There can only be one QB because every possible QB must be identical to every other QB. So, “QB or not QB, that is the question.” (Come on, be honest, you knew that was coming, didn’t you?) So you and I have a complex relationship. On the level of pour soi , you and I share a common QB – we are identical. On the level of en soi , we have nothing whatsoever in common. We share nothing; we are pathologically distinct, strangers in the night. It is the intersection of identity and difference that gives rise to what we call society and taxonomy and it is what constitutes solidarity! Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to contact us on any matter. How did you like the post? How could we do better in the future? Suggestions welcome. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

Explore the intersection of philosophy, theology, and science in Aletheia Today's Fall 2024 issue. Discover thought-provoking articles on consciousness, identity, and spirituality, including discussions on Christology as a Theory of Everything, the true meaning of miracles, and the relationship between Genesis and quantum mechanics. Dive deep into the mysteries of existence and the complexities of cessation and continuation of the Holy Spirit's gifts. Inside Fall 2024 Philosophy Why R U, U? “Hamlet was right: you either are…or you are not. There is no disembodied ‘being’ walking abroad, seeking an ‘identity’. King Hamlet’s ghost is not real!” Don’t Teach Your Kid to Count! “Our own number system is based on a highly specialized, and not necessarily privileged, concept of quantity.” Theology Mark’s Diary – Notes for a Screenplay “And so they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were filled with awe, while those who followed behind were afraid.” The Mustard Seed “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds find shelter in its branches.” (Matthew 13: 31 – 32) Is Christology a TOE? “Cosmologists cannot rely on science any more than astronomers can rely on religion. There can be no successful TOE (‘Theory of Everything’) without both...” Show Us a Sign “We have been shown our sign…and it’s a simple one. The sign is that there are signs!” Culture & The Arts Fifth Grade Slump, Eighth Grade Cliff “We must surrender the notion that adolescence is a dress rehearsal for adulthood. It’s not; it’s real life! Genesis and Quantum Computing “Quantum Mechanics is the secret code that unlocks Genesis and when it does, we are surprised to discover that Genesis may be ‘literally true’ after all.” Spirituality Cessation and Continuation: Have the Miracles Ceased or Are We Just Cynics? "Perhaps it is not that God has ceased His miraculous works, prophetic messengers, and tongues that can cross language barriers, but that our understanding of miracles has changed because the flesh is as fleshy and conflicting with the Spirit as ever." The Effects of EGO on Your Success "The funny thing about ego is that it can make people believe they are more important than they are." Readers React What's the buzz about? Our readers' reactions to Aletheia Today... Additional Reading Can't get enough of Aletheia Today's content? Check out the books that inspire our magazine.

< Back Ovid & Identity David Cowles Feb 14, 2026 “The self is the absence of all forms, the negation of ‘form’ per se. Alternatively, self is what all forms have in common.” When Jesus of Nazareth was still a boy, the Roman poet Ovid was putting the finishing touches on his “book of changes”, Metamorphoses. Long after Homer and Hesiod, but just one generation after Virgil, Ovid contributed the 4th and ‘final’ epic in the series of Greco-Roman origin stories…final that is until Joyce revived the genre (Ulysses) a century ago. Ovid consciously strings together mythical material from multiple sources to produce a coherent narrative. His esteemed predecessors used mythology to tell their stories, Ovid uses those stories to tell the uber-story of mythology itself. Admit it: the first 10 times you read Homer’s epics, you asked, “What did these people really think was going on in these stories?" Ovid sketches an answer. His artful retelling of the ancient myths reveals an ontological thread that gives consistency and significance to these myriad fables. Ultimately, he wrestles with the same questions we do, 2000 years later: “Who am I? What makes me, me ? How is it that I am me and not you ? (Am I me and not you ? Or am I both? Or neither?) What about me is essential and what accidental? How is it that I retain my identity irrespective of my form, and when (if ever) are accumulated changes of form sufficient to destroy that identity and/or to constitute a new one?” In another essay on this site, we talked about Ovid’s ontology using an onion as our model. We are required to systematically remove layer upon layer of ‘form’ to reach the ‘core’, the onion’s Identity. But an onion is not an apple (Vidalia’s ad campaigns notwithstanding); an onion has no tangible core. When all the layers of identity are peeled away, we’re left, appropriately, with nothing (Sartre’s Neant ). The self is not just ‘another form’; the self is the absence of all forms, the negation of ‘form’ per se ; the self is what is left when all forms have “dissolved into thin air” ( The Tempest ). Or the self is what all its forms have in common, the form of forms . When it comes to modeling our identity, apples and onions are apples and oranges . Let’s start with the easy stuff, the outermost layer: I am not what I seem. I am agnostic as to form. I can be male or maid, vegetable or beast, a tree, a grove, a waterfall, a heifer or a crow. In all these guises, I am ever and forever only me! This is Ovid’s bedrock insight. Ovid is no phenomenologist, much less a nihilist. He does not abandon the notion of identity. But for Ovid, identity lies below the superficial dichotomies of form: blond or brunette, animal or plant, animate or inorganic. Ovid throws down his marker early. His version of Genesis 3, the creation of human beings, makes his project crystal clear: “By the ‘great mother’, the earth is meant, and ‘bones’ I think mean stones…and they throw the stones behind them as they go, and yes…the stones began to lose their hardness; they softened slowly and in softening changed form…one could see the dim beginning of human forms…quite soon the stones the man had thrown were changed to men and those the woman cast took women’s forms.” (1: 18) Perhaps surprisingly, Norse mythology contains a similar version of human evolution: “Ymir lived on four rivers of milk that came from a cow who fed herself by licking the salty lime stones found in Ginnungagap . As she licked the stones, sculptor-like, she began to uncover a human form latent in the rime-stones…(soon) there was a complete man.” ( Prose Edda ) A generation after Ovid, Matthew the evangelist quotes Jesus: “Out of these stones, God can raise up children of Abraham.” (3: 9) Outside of the academy, there is a persistent anti-Platonic tradition: Identity > Form. The scope of Ovid’s metamorphoses is clear: Great Mother, Earth, bones, stones, men and women – all ‘just’ forms. As I transition among various Platonic forms, what if anything, survives? What are our essential qualities, if any? What constitutes my Identity? A subjective Sense of Self (Recursion) An objective, inherited, and shared Past (Memory - Freud, Facticity - Sartre) Qualities & Values (Free Will) These are what constitute Identity ( per Ovid), not forms, be they frozen or forever flowing! Understand Ovid is as the ‘anti-Plato’ . Philosophy’s 4 th BCE GOAT gave pride of place in his ontology to forms, i.e. species . Ovid regards form as the equivalent of costume . Finally…and ironically, Ovid’s full throated exposition of Greco-Roman polytheism may have ploughed intellectual furrows into which the seeds of a new Weltanschauung - I mean of course, Christianity - could fall, germinate, take root, and grow. By rejecting the arid rationalism of Plato and Aristotle (geniuses though they were), Ovid restored mutuality and personality to ontology and cosmology. The grandfather of Western philosophy, Anaximander (6th century BCE), grounded identity in dynamic mutuality; Plato grounds it in static form. Ovid grounds cosmology in naked identity. For Ovid, Identity is the universal substructure! For example, Ovid’s pantheon reserves a prominent place for Bacchus, a controversial, late breaking deity. Bacchus falls in the tradition of man-gods, mixing divine and human parentage. The ‘status’ of such demi-gods is a controversial topic in both the hearth and the forum. Like the coming Jesus, Bacchus is more humanly relatable than Jove or YHWH. The evolving notion of deity, from tyrant to fellow-traveler, is simultaneously evident on both sides of the Bosporus and in both Hellenic and Semitic cultures. Ovid merges these two great traditions. His gods are consequential; but at the same time, they are wholly relatable. If Jesus kicked off the Age of Pisces, then John the Baptist was his Semitic prophet and Ovid was John’s Greco-Roman avatar. *** Image: Stepping In by De Es Schwertberger depicts a humanoid figure whose body appears carved from fractured stone, emerging with quiet awareness and deliberate motion. The cracked, geological surface of the figure suggests that consciousness itself has arisen from the earth, as if the planet has formed a living being through time and pressure. The painting symbolizes awakening and transition—representing the moment when inert matter becomes aware, crossing the threshold from lifeless stone into conscious existence. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back How is Government Like Soft Serve Ice Cream? David Cowles Jul 5, 2022 Democracy, Oligarchy, Monarchy, Tyranny, even Anarchy, are means of government, not government itself. How is government like soft serve ice cream? – that’s easy! Government comes is just two flavors: Theocracy & Plutocracy. Democracy, Oligarchy, Monarchy, Tyranny, even Anarchy, are means of government, not government itself. God rules…or $$$ rules, period. “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon (money).” (Mt. 6: 24) The story goes that Benjamin Franklin, upon leaving the Constitutional Convention, was asked by a by-stander, “What kind of government have you given us, sir?” Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” I imagine God having a similar conversation with Moses: “Lord, what kind of government are you giving us?” – “A Theocracy, Moses, if you can keep it.” ( Spoiler Alert : Moses did keep it and passed it on to Joshua and the Judges who followed; but in the end Israel did not keep it!) “I will be your God and you will be my people.” (Gen. 17: 7 et al.) This same covenant formula is reiterated over and over again in the Old Testament. It is Israel’s political constitution …and therefore ours as well. God’s intentions are clear. He wants to rule Israel (his people, us) directly but through the agency of the people themselves: “Government of the people, by the people…” (Lincoln) According to this view, the purpose of ‘government’ is to execute the will of God, period. There is no ‘legislative branch’ because there is no legislative function . All law has already been written for all time (Torah); from here on, it is ‘simply’ a matter of interpretation. Yahweh’s lament : “I created heaven-and-earth and endowed it with freedom. Out of Egypt, I husbanded you across Sinai into Canaan, the Promised Land. I gave you 613 statutes (Torah) guaranteed to bring you strength, health, long life, fertility, and prosperity. Knowing you’re not always the best students, I created some study aids for you, and I encouraged you to use them, even though some would call that cheating. (It is your life’s work to reopen the gates of Eden…so do it by any means necessary!) I wrote the answers on the blackboard…and on the cuffs of your shirt: I emblazoned my will across the cosmos (Nature) and I planted it in your hearts (Conscience), and yet…” In the Saini, God’s rule was mediated by Moses and Aaron and later by Joshua. After the death of Joshua, Theocracy evolved into Anarchy – but that’s not a bad thing! In fact, it was a necessary step toward rule by God through his people collectively . Without the leadership of God’s hand-picked patriarchs, a new social structure took root. To “provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare and secure the blessings of liberty,” Judges rose from the ranks. Frequently, a Judge emerged to confront a specific crisis. The Judge’s mandate to govern came from three sources: (1) the Judge’s oath to uphold God’s law (Torah) and (2) the people’s consent to be ‘judged’ and (3) the urgency of the crisis itself. This style of Theocracy worked well (for the most part) for approximately 250 years (1250 to 1000 B.C). Plutocracy, on the other hand, is defined as the rule of wealth . Wealth and power have a symbiotic relationship. Money is fungible. Wealth can be traded for power, and power can be used to amass great wealth. This is the paradigm of a ‘vicious circle.' Look around you! So, to riff on Lincoln: “ All government is government of the people, some government is government by the people, but only Theocracy is government for the people.” Theocracy is not a respecter of persons. Only from God’s vantage can we see that people are not only created equal, but are equal and will always be equal. From God’s perspective, whatever appears to us to be a ‘difference’ is “Vanity!” (Eccl. 1: 2) “Do you know who I am?” – yes, I do; you're dust and ashes. Next… We are all ‘babes,' born of the self-same womb, but in the eyes pf the world, that begins to change almost immediately. Disparities of genetic programming and social circumstances lead to differentiated levels of wealth & power; but in God’s eyes, nothing changes, ever. ‘Equality’ is eternal! Therefore, God and only God is qualified to rule. Only God can rule for the people , all the people because it is only before God that we are truly equal. To paraphrase Deuteronomy, “I set before you Theocracy and Plutocracy; therefore, choose Theocracy.” Few do! Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine ( ATM) . To never miss another Thought, choose the subscribe option below. Also, follow us on any one of our social media channels for the latest news from ATM. Thanks for reading! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

Editor’s note: It’s that time of year when many readers attend ‘summer theater.’ If Shakespeare is on the bill, you may find this essay relevant. Don’t leave home for the theater without reading this first! < Back Shakespearean Nihilism David Cowles Jul 13, 2022 Editor’s note: It’s that time of year when many readers attend ‘summer theater.’ If Shakespeare is on the bill, you may find this essay relevant. Don’t leave home for the theater without reading this first! Machiavelli, Nietzsche, Duchamp, Camus, Ionesco, Beckett – these are names that come to mind when we think about nihilism…not Shakespeare! Not the poet who wrote, “But thy eternal summer shall not fade nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, when in eternal lines to time thou growest, so long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee .” Yet, according to renowned Shakespearean actor Anthony Sher, the ‘Tomorrow Soliloquy’ in Macbeth is “the most nihilistic speech imaginable.” But let’s not start there; let’s start with The Tempest, where Prospero shares this conclusion with the audience: “Our revels now are ended. These, our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air; and—like the baseless fabric of this vision— the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on…” Now back to Macbeth . On the nihilist spectrum, can anyone possibly top Prospero? Macbeth, like Prospero, seems to step out of the play itself and address the audience directly. But “the most nihilist imaginable” (above)? Let’s see if it lives up to its billing: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle. Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Oh, yeah, it lives up to its billing…and then some! Macbeth’s ‘ Tomorrow Soliloquy’ stands in radical contrast to Virgil’s famous line (reflected in Shakespeare’s sonnets), “No day shall erase you from the memory of time .” The contrast pivots, of course, on the concept of ‘time.’ For Virgil, time, aided perhaps by art, is universal and perpetual memory. This well fits the ‘Shakespeare of the Sonnets.’ For ‘Shakespeare of the Play,’ however, time is not our friend. It is not perpetual memory; it is perpetual loss. Time erases everything that ever was and everything that might yet be. Two views could scarcely be more dissimilar. For Virgil, time is memory; what is, is, and always will be. Time makes events immortal (immortal, not eternal; for more on this distinction, check out Eternity vs. Immortality in Issue #1 of ATM). For ‘Shakespeare of the Plays,’ however, time does not just limit the scope of events (mortality); it erases those events (a-mortality)! To paraphrase a current meme: ‘No lives matter’ to time. “For now I (time) have become death, the destroyer of worlds.” – The Bhagavad Gita While Virgil offers ‘always will be,’ Shakespeare offers ‘never was, is not now, never will be.’ Quite a contrast! What ever happened to ‘here today, gone tomorrow?’ So, are events immortal, mortal, or a-mortal ( nihil est )? Can we settle this dispute? Can we determine who’s right, Virgil or Shakespeare? Surprisingly, it seems that we can! And if we can and to the extent that we can, the winner is…Shakespeare! (Sorry, Virgil.) In Virgil’s day, many believed that the universe had always existed and would always exist (Aristotle), that it was now more or less the same as it always had been and always would be. Against this philosophical background, it is easy to see how someone could believe in “the persistence of memory” (Dali). Shakespeare knew little more than Virgil about the real workings of the universe. His conclusions regarding time and the meaning of life can only be attributed to his personal experiences and reflections. (The reader will recall the tragic death of his beloved son, Hamnet, at age 11.) We have an advantage over both Virgil and Shakespeare. We know, or think we know, that disorder (entropy) is constantly increasing in our world. Memory (indeed mind itself) is a species of order and, therefore, must disappear over the course of time. Consider the aging process. Memories fade and eventually vanish. Well, phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny! My death prefigures the heat death of the cosmos. We also know, or think we know, that the universe did not always exist and will not always exist. In fact, time itself, to the extent that it is even real, apparently comes to be and ceases to be at a singularity. Therefore, it would be difficult for a person today to entrust life to time with the expectation of eternity, or even immortality. Or would it? Folks often say things like, “I lived my life; now it’s ending, but no one can take that life I’ve lived away from me.” Oh really? Turns out they can take it, they will take it, and they have taken it! So, is this Shakespeare, whom we thought we knew and genuinely loved, really a nihilist? Nihilism is rooted in the notion that there are no objective values. That was Nietzsche’s great insight in Twilight of the Gods . But in Shakespeare’s plays (unlike Beckett’s, for example), there is not an absolute absence of objective values. Even in Macbeth , the villains at various times question their actions…and even regret them. In the play’s final scene, for example, Macbeth encounters Macduff, whose wife and children he has put to death. From the depths of his depravity, Macbeth blurts out: “But get thee back. My soul is too much charged with blood of thine already…I’ll not fight with thee.” But of course, he does fight with Macduff: “Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him who first cries, ‘Hold, enough!'” So, values do exist in ‘Shakespeare World,’ but their influence on events is never quite strong enough to influence actual behavior. Does this sound at all familiar by any chance? Far from being ultimately real, in Shakespeare, values flicker in and out of consciousness but exert no real influence on the course of the world’s events. Like Kant, Shakespeare believes that a world like ours ought to have transcendent, objective, and operative values; he bitterly laments that it does not. 20th century nihilists, on the other hand, seem to relish the absence of objective values; it fits in with the agenda to ‘God-proof’ the world. Not so, Shakespeare! If Nietzsche was a nihilist out of conviction (‘it cannot be’), Shakespeare is a nihilist out of disappointment (‘it should have been’). In Shakespeare, the values we associate with justice and kindness compete on a level playing field with ‘anti-values’ associated with greed, lust, and power. Shakespeare is a dualist. Compare his views with the views of monastic philosophers from Augustine to Whitehead. In their models, the only values are positive values, values associated with beauty, truth, justice, and kindness. Anything else is simply an absence of values. Such objective values (‘eternal objects’ per Whitehead) become operative in the world through the agency of God, the primordial ‘actual entity.’ Now, values do not just influence the unfolding of events, they ultimately determine the import of those events. The story of the world is the story of the realization of objective values in actual events; everything else, whatever its dramatic potential, is just noise. I am reminded of a line from a medieval Irish hymn traditionally attributed to St. Dallan: “Naught is all else to me, save that Thou art!” Compare Macbeth with the Old Testament Book of Job. Both focus on pervasive injustice; but while Macbeth ultimately surrenders to that injustice, Job comes to a completely different conclusion: “I know that my vindicator lives and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust.” Inaugurating the tradition that runs through Augustine to Whitehead, Job celebrates the reality of objective values, values that are even incumbent on God. (Check out The Riddle of Job in Issue #1 of AT Magazine. ) In the end, we are like a jury, passing judgment on the cosmos. Like jurors, we must ultimately choose between two possible verdicts. We all listen to the same testimony, but (like Macbeth and Job), we may draw different conclusions. Why? Why do different people draw different conclusions from the same data? We write essays (like this one), or give lectures (podcasts), trying to convince our fellow jurors that our own interpretation of the evidence is correct. “…Singing songs and carrying signs, mostly saying ‘Hooray for our side.’” – Buffalo Springfield. Ultimately, however, it comes down to one juror, one vote. Einstein once said that the single most important question is whether the universe is benign. I would reword that slightly. For me, the single most important question is whether or not there are objective, transcendent values operating in our world. If your answer is yes, your catalog of values cannot differ much from the traditional Judeo-Christian catalog found in Psalms and in the teachings of Jesus. Plus, your explanation for how transcendent values came to exert immanent influence in our world must include something akin to the agency of God and, perhaps, even something akin to the Incarnation itself. Of course, you need not use the language of Judeo-Christian theology to describe your model, but in the end, it will pretty much have to perform the same functions. On the other hand, if you deny the immanent influence of objective, transcendent values, it is hard to see how you can avoid some version of nihilism. At one point in our lives, we believed that there was a virtually limitless number of potential world views, self-consistent models that account reasonably well for the experiences of everyday life. As time goes by, however, we see that most of these models contain logical fallacies or lack heuristic power. Those that remain all say much the same thing, just using different words. In the end, like jurors, we have a choice to make. In the words of Deuteronomy : “I set before you, Life (objective values) and Death (nihilism); therefore, choose life.” (30: 19) Image: The Chandos portrait (held by the National Portrait Gallery , London David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. 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< Back The Mass Shooting Epidemic David Cowles Jun 14, 2022 People who perpetrate mass shootings are searching for answers, for meaning in life… June 12th’s edition of Face the Nation included an interview with Dr. Jillian Peterson and Dr. James Densley: “Yeah, I think a lot of people are searching for a profile of a mass shooter…Who are these perpetrators? So, we built a database that includes 180 perpetrators, who killed four or more people in a public space, going back about 50 years. And we coded each of them on over 200 pieces of life, history, information to try to look for patterns in the data…And we, instead, saw a pathway to a mass shooting, and we outlined that pathway in our book called The Violence Project … Mass shooters are in crisis. These are individuals who are not living their best selves, they are questioning their place in the world…people who perpetrate mass shootings are searching for answers, [for] meaning in life… ” Sometimes we make light of folks who say, “I don’t know who I am. I’m trying to find myself,” but we do so at our peril. According to Peterson and Densley, the people most likely to engage in mass shootings are people who feel a lack of personal identity, purpose, and meaning in their lives. In Man’s Search for Meaning (1946), Victor Frankl drew on his personal experience in Nazi concentration camps to argue that ‘purpose and meaning’ are essential elements in a healthy human psyche; they provide the spiritual foundation we need if we are to survive life’s disappointments, minor and major – from being ghosted by a BFF to being unlawfully and unjustly imprisoned. In days gone by, the culture provided folks with a sense of personal identity, purpose and meaning, but to our post-Enlightenment ears, these values sound “churchy,” and we can’t have that! (I had a good friend who would not listen to any classical music for just this reason.) At the end of the first millennium A.D., belief in God (theism) was at the foundation of all intellectual activity; by the end of the second millennium, atheism (or at least agnosticism) had replaced theism as the price of admission to the academy. Truth be known, over the past 400 years, we have been involved in a collective effort to ‘God-proof’ our world. Intellectual activity, once aimed at ‘proving God,’ is now dedicated to ‘God proofing.’ Of course, I am not suggesting that folks who do not believe in God are destined to become mass murderers; I am saying that the ‘God Hypothesis’ entails three corollaries relevant to this discussion: identity, purpose, and meaning. And what of culture? Well, it’s been pretty well ‘God proofed’ too. From Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to Wittgenstein and Ayer, to Camus and Derrida, modern philosophy has been dedicated to ‘de-mystifying’ existence. We are all ‘ontological democrats’ now. We don’t need to think about ‘bigger issues.’ Any thoughts we might have on those issues have been pre-labeled, “meaningless, childish, old fashioned, anti-scientific, etc.” But suppressing humanity’s innate thirst for meaning comes at a price. Langstone Hughes (1951): “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore – and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over like – like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it sags like a heavy load… Or does it explode?” ( Harlem ) Thoughts While Shaving is the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine and is published every Tuesday and Thursday. Subscribe today in the option below and never miss a single Thought. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Fractal David Cowles Sep 7, 2021 Mythology exists in the space between cosmology and psychology. It is consistent with the modern notion of Being as a fractal: it reveals the same patterns on every scale. Ancient Norse cosmology begins with Yggdrasil, the ‘Tree of Life’. It is the center of the cosmos and all else exists around it. It includes the Nine Worlds, each one inhabited by a unique ‘ontic entity’, for example, gods, elves, wolves, humans, etc. Mythology exists in the space between cosmology and psychology. It is consistent with the modern notion of Being as a fractal: it reveals the same patterns on every scale. Ancient Norse cosmology begins with Yggdrasil, the ‘Tree of Life’. It is the center of the cosmos and all else exists around it. It includes the Nine Worlds, each one inhabited by a unique ‘ontic entity’, for example, gods, elves, wolves, humans, etc. Two of those worlds are Niflheim, a region of intense cold, and Muspelheim, a region of intense heat. They are separated by Ginnungagap, the primal void and the locus of creation itself. It is from Ginnungagap that we get ‘objects’, ‘things’, etc. In that sense it is analogous with the Jewish notion of Sophia and the Greco-Christian notion of Logos. I’ve recently discovered that my own life includes a personal Ginnungagap. I find myself now on the southern rim of the ‘Gap’. Looking across the abyss, I see myself clearly on the northern rim. What I don’t see so clearly are the contents of the abyss itself. This suggests to me a 3 stage model of human life: (1) Preparation (0 – 25?), (2) Procreation (aka Production) (25 – 65?), and (3) Reflection. During the first and third stages we are focused on ourselves (microcosm); during the second stage we are focused on the other (macrocosm). Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Does Consciousness Precede Life Itself? David Cowles Apr 17, 2025 “If confirmed, it…would literally overturn most of the last 500 years of science and philosophy.” As part of my work at Aletheia Today , I scour the latest newsletters, searching for the latest ideas in science, technology, culture, theology and philosophy for you, our dedicated readers. Today, I came upon a post with mind bending implications. Let me share excerpts ( SL ) with you along with my observations ( AT ). The author is Susan Lahey and the publication, Popular Mechanics (4/7/2025). SL: Every six years, an asteroid by the name of Bennu passes by Earth.  Bennu …formed nearly 4.6 billion years ago. Recently, scientists accomplished an unprecedented feat, sending a spacecraft billions of miles to the asteroid and back to collect 121.6 grams of material from Bennu for study at an Arizona State University lab…for clues to the nature and origins of life. Tantalizing evidence in the Bennu sample suggests that the asteroid contains constituents of the “primordial soup” that scientists believe likely led to life emerging on Earth. But that’s not all. It could also contain particular molecules that could have formed crystalline formations that some scientists believe are key to  consciousness . These formations may have been present among organic molecules (molecules containing carbon atoms) for a hundred million years before genes (much less DNA) existed, enabling the earliest forms of decision-making and self-organization into life . AT: On its face, this is an astonishing suggestion. If you assume DNA, or something very much like it, is necessary for life, then the Bennu sample suggests that consciousness precedes life itself. SL: The prevailing theory of  consciousness  is that humans manufacture it inside the brain—that it boils down to a computation. Yet, Dr. Hameroff and his collaborator, Nobel Laureate and physicist Roger Penrose (just to drop a name) have argued for decades that consciousness made the world and not the other way around. AT: In my opinion, Roger Penrose may be the smartest human being alive today. I won’t compare him to Davinci, Shakespeare, Bach, Einstein, Joyce, or Picasso…but if I did, Roger would not come off badly. A long time colleague of Stephen Hawking, Penrose is a true polymath. He has turned his attention to numerous topics in science and philosophy and, beginning in middle school, he’s revolutionized every field he’s explored. Just pray he doesn’t come calling at your place of employment any time soon. SL: They (Penrose & Co.) believe that it (consciousness) is not manufactured in the brain but only processed there, via an external quantum wave function sweeping through the universe that interacts with tiny protein tubes. AT: Whaaaat! If confirmed, it is hard to imagine a scientific development more earth shattering than this. It would literally overturn most of the last 500 years of science and philosophy. Karl Marx is said to have stood Hegel on his head; this thesis, if substantiated, would turn us all upside down. SL: These microtubules form the cytoskeleton of living cells and are especially plentiful in brain cells… Quantum activity in the brain could take place in these microtubules… AT: Experiments have confirmed that quantum effects can occur in these micro-structures. SL: Here’s where Bennu comes in. The asteroid is made up of carbons — the molecules that form the basis of all life. Researchers found that the samples include 14 of the 20 amino acids that life on Earth uses to make proteins. The bits of rock also contain all five nucleobases used to store and transmit genetic instructions in more complex biomolecules, such as DNA and RNA… But what about signs of consciousness? Bennu also could contain the structures that allow the kind of quantum resonance…needed for  consciousness . These are organic ring molecules whose extra electrons form electron clouds that exchange photons, as in fluorescence. Organic rings…become quantum oscillators that are able to support consciousness… AT: So, the molecular precursors of life and the structures of consciousness existed in tact before the Earth as we know it was even born. If so, consciousness precedes life itself! SL: It’s these quantum oscillators in our microtubules that give us our conscious experiences. Neurons are incredibly complex. Each neuronal cell comprises billions of microtubules that are oscillating, or passing electrons back and forth, at the astonishing speed of 10^15 times per second . AT: The clear implication is that the universe was somehow conscious of itself before anything was ‘alive’. Note : Even if it turns out that life emerged in the universe before it emerged on Earth, that wouldn’t change the fact that the ‘population’ of Bennu included the structure of consciousness but not of life itself. SL: …Japan’s National Institute of Material Sciences  found  that there are, in fact, three bands of frequencies that conduct electricity at the neuron level; three bands of higher frequencies at the microtubule level; and three bands of even higher frequencies at the level of tubulin—the material microtubules are made of. Within each frequency another three bands of frequencies operate: a triplet of triplets . AT: If the idea that consciousness preceded life itself is not mind-bending enough for you, this corollary (above) should be. Cutting edge cosmology views the Universe as a giant fractal in which the same ordered patterns recur at scale across 60 orders of magnitude (the ratio of the observable universe to the Planck metric). The new ‘Penrose Theory’ of consciousness incidentally confirms that supposition. Triplets within triplets. To paraphrase Stephen Hawking, “It’s triplets all the way down.” To paraphrase the Nicene Creed, “Three persons, one God.” SL: They believe this ‘triplet of triplets’ pattern of resonance is a fundamental pattern of the universe… These polyaromatic ring molecules might have organized themselves to increase opportunities for conscious quantum experiences. AT: In other words, life itself could be a by-product of consciousness, a series of molecular structures evolving to protect, preserve, and intensify conscious experience. Consciousness then would be its own reward and the driving force behind the evolution of all living organisms, behind the emergence of life itself. Cosmology then would be the process by which the universe wakes itself up! *** Image: "The Creation of the Birds" (La creación de las aves) is a 1957 oil painting on masonite by Spanish-Mexican surrealist artist Remedios Varo . This work is housed in the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.