Archive
Tag "religion"
Business Automation
Issue: Dec, 1961
Posted in: Computers, Origins
Tags:
Posted: 05/17/2008
3 Comments
Faith, Hope and Computer (Dec, 1961)

Why does it not surprise me that modern customized direct mail fund raising was invented by the Catholic church?

Faith, Hope and Computer

By Donald Young

Aided by the most sophisticated use of ultramodern electronic data processing equipment, the world’s most efficient, most effective direct mail operation is used to raise funds for the charitable activities sponsored by the Society of the Divine Savior, an order of the Catholic Church dating back to 1881. These charities include the support of seven American seminaries, numerous foreign missions, three Southern Negro missions and five American Indian missions.

.
Life
Issue: Nov, 1968
Posted in: Scary
Tags:
Posted: 04/15/2008
18 Comments
Scientology: A growing cult reaches dangerously into the mind (Nov, 1968)

I think that this was one of the first really critical articles about Scientology.

Scientology: A growing cult reaches dangerously into the mind

The lights in the hall go dim, leaving the bronzed bust of the Founder (spotlighted) at center stage. From the loudspeakers comes L. Ron Hubbard’s voice, deep and professorial. It is a tape called “Some Aspects of Help, Part I,” a basic lecture in Scientology that Hubbard recorded nearly 10 years ago.

No one in the intensely respectful Los Angeles audience of 500—some of whom paid as much as $16 to get in—thought it odd to be sitting there listening to the disembodied voice. Among believers, Scientology and its Founder are beyond frivolous question: Scientology is the Truth, it is the path to “a civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war . . .” and “for the first time in all ages there is something that . . . delivers the answers to the eternal questions and delivers immortality as well.”

.
Popular Mechanics
Issue: Nov, 1936
Posted in: Architecture
Tags:
Posted: 03/30/2008
9 Comments
Giant Figure of Christ in Odd Church Design (Nov, 1936)

Giant Figure of Christ in Odd Church Design

Patents have been issued for an odd architectural design for churches. The plan calls for a giant figure of Christ, to be constructed of burnished copper, which would dominate the church building made of cement in natural stone color. The design has Christ seated on a rock at Gethsemane, with the church entrance in the rock, beneath the flowing robes of the figure. A halo for the figure and illumination for the entire structure would be provided by a system of floodlights.

.
Modern Mechanix
Issue: Nov, 1928
Posted in: Crime and Police
Tags: ,
Posted: 03/28/2008
5 Comments
BIBLE HIDES DRUGS (Nov, 1928)

BIBLE HIDES DRUGS
Mechanical ingenuity of narcotic smugglers is constantly being tested in devising new methods of bringing their contraband goods safely into the country. The picture shows a Bible which has been hollowed out in the center to provide a hiding place for thousands of dollars worth of morphine and other opiates. The book was confiscated by Internal Revenue inspectors.

.
Popular Mechanics
Issue: Mar, 1924
Posted in: Just Weird
Tags: ,
Posted: 03/01/2008
2 Comments
AIRPLANE IN CHURCH PAINTING HAS SAINT AS PATRON (Mar, 1924)

AIRPLANE IN CHURCH PAINTING HAS SAINT AS PATRON

Adapting the airplane, locomotive, and automobile to motifs for religious frescoes, a French artist has achieved unique results in the decorations on the walls of the new church of St. Christopher, the patron saint of those engaged in hazardous occupations, recently completed in Paris. The figure of the saint is seen protecting a falling aviator, an engineer, and a speeding auto-ist. The machines, shown in detail, form the chief note in the designs and the imminence of danger is effectively suggested. The building has become known as the “sportsmen’s church,” and the novel decorations have caused wide comment.

.
Mechanix Illustrated
Issue: Apr, 1950
Posted in: Advertisements, Just Weird
Tags: ,
Posted: 06/05/2007
No Comments
Rosicrucians Ad: Will Man Create Life? (Apr, 1950)

I’ve read this ad three times now and I still have no idea what they are saying. Though I must say that the “good” future they present sounds a lot like what post-singularity transhumans are supposed to be like:

“Will the future know a superior, Godlike race of humans—each a genius and each the masterful creation of an unerring formula”

If the formula is unerring, wouldn’t everyone be identical? How is this different from the second option? Also, how can everyone be a genius? That’s sort of like saying everyone will be above average.

And why does the creation of life always require giant tesla coils?

Will Man Create Life?

DOES THE SECRET of life belong to Divinity alone?

Will Nature’s last frontier give way to man’s inquiring mind? Can man become a creator, peopling the world with creatures of his own fancy? Was the ancient sage right, who said: “To the Gods the Soul belongs, but to man will belong the power of Life”? Will the future know a superior, Godlike race of humans—each a genius and each the masterful creation of an unerring formula—or will Soulless beings, shorn of the feelings which have bound mortals together in understanding, dominate the earth?

.
Popular Science
Issue: Jul, 1939
Posted in: Automotive
Tags: ,
Posted: 05/10/2007
1 Comment
Trailer Chapel Has Speaker System (Jul, 1939)

Trailer Chapel Has Speaker System

Built into a trailer, a chapel on wheels brings church services to isolated mountain sections of Virginia and West Virginia. Its rear wall unfolds to form a platform before the altar, and a canopy containing two loudspeakers for a public-address system, which carries the preacher’s voice to the congregation. A gasoline-driven generator mounted in the back of the sedan that draws the trailer supplies electric power for the public-address system and for cooking and lighting. Supplemented by a storage battery, the generator unit automatically starts when a light or appliance is turned on, and stops when all are switched off.

.
Mechanix Illustrated
Issue: Jan, 1946
Posted in: Advertisements
Tags: ,
Posted: 04/14/2007
1 Comment
THIS WISDOM MUST DIE! (Jan, 1946)

“THIS WISDOM MUST DIE!”

Truths That Have Been Denied Struggling Humanity

FOR every word that has left the lips of bishops or statesmen to enlighten man, a thousand have been withheld. For every book publicly exposed to the inquiring mind, one hundred more have been suppressed—damned to oblivion. Each year of progress has been wilfully delayed centuries. Wisdom has had to filter through biased, secret sessions or ecclesiastical council meetings, where high dignitaries of state and church alone proclaimed what man should know.

.
Popular Science
Issue: Mar, 1945
Posted in: Advertisements
Tags: ,
Posted: 03/19/2007
No Comments
Rosicrucians Ad: Psychic Phenomena and The War (Mar, 1945)

Psychic Phenomena and The War

On the Threshold of Danger — Strange Things Happen!

Have you ever sensed the imminent danger of a loved one-even though he is across sea or continent? Have you been suddenly awakened by the call of your name—then realize that the one who spoke it was thousands of miles distant? If you ever had these experiences — as millions now have — learn the truth about them.

.
Popular Science
Issue: Dec, 1951
Posted in: History
Tags:
Posted: 02/12/2007
1 Comment
Atomic Clock Verifies Oldest Bible Manuscript (Dec, 1951)

Atomic Clock Verifies Oldest Bible Manuscript

By James T. Howard

They shall heat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

—Isaiah II, 4.

WHEN the atom bomb first mushroomed its message or death and destruction into the sky six years ago, there were many who speculated on the future uses of atomic knowledge. But few if any put Bible study on their list.

Now, as Christmas of 1951 nears, we find the seeming miracle has come to pass. Science is revealed as the handmaid of religion; radioactive carbon-14 and the Geiger counter are instruments for casting new light on the accuracy of our modem Bible. Cosmic rays that bombarded the earth when Christ was born have left behind a coded message for nuclear physicists to decipher.

.

Sponsors:

Categories:

Archives

Subscribe


RSS Feed RSS - Posts

RSS Feed RSS - Comments

Recent Comments

  • Toronto: PS: Grampa died in 1972, by the way. So he puffed his way to 78 or so. Granny made it to 96: drinking and smoking... ` – May 17, 6:49 PM
  • Toronto: I think one of my grandfathers was 73 in 1967, and he smoked like crazy (he was a locomotive engineer, so probably inhaled a lot... ` – May 17, 6:43 PM
  • Toronto: @Stephen - I've had several of those inflatables. They used to be a popular "swag" at trade shows. The south pacific ocean apparently has a... ` – May 15, 6:29 PM
  • experiment 626: I thought The US stopped production of rubber consumer goods such as this by the time this was printed I thought. ` – May 15, 10:18 AM
  • GeorgeT: Does it have an Any Key? ` – May 15, 6:35 AM