Have you ever wondered why things happen just when you need them most? We were taught to value material things since infancy. We were taught about money and buying and selling material objects. We were taught math and physics on the behavior of material things. We were taught the composition of material things. Then we were left to think on the Universe. When we think on the beginning of humans, we are left with a debate of whether we evolved from other material animals or did God create us. The problem with the premise of this debate is that there are two premises. The first premise is that material is the basis of everything and the other is that consciousness is the basis of all things, taken that God is consciousness. As an empath I have to side with the latter. Materialism is not the nature of the Universe, consciousness is what is underlines all that we see.
I recently viewed a video called TheQuantum Activist that featured Amit Goswami Ph D. In it Goswami states that if you take the premise that consciousness is the basis of the universe then some paradoxes go away. In other words, a model on reality becomes much more logical if consciousness was the foundation. I tend to agree.
In religion, what we see is described as temporary, as a realm that exists on the shoulders of another realm. Often the name given to the base realm is the spiritual realm. The creation story goes that God spoke and the universe came to be. In this fashion the Bible shows that the spiritual realm was first before the physical realm.
Materialism has historically lead to some of the biggest blood baths in history. The Holocaust, the Soviet Cultural Revolution and the Chinese Cultural Revolution left many dead. These were driven by ideals which had their basis in materialism. You may say that materialism has brought us technology, and you would be correct. There are many things we have benefited by being materialistic in our thinking. In spite of the benefits the loss of life and the suffering of humans and animals should be considered.
Consciousness allows and promotes feeling, emotions and empathy. The Human experience is riddled with emotion and empathy. How many times have we been taken by a story where the child comes to a point of understanding and grows up? Who can watch the movie Bambi by Walt Disney and not feel strong sorrow when the mother dies? How many times can we read Julius Ceasar by Shakespeare before we stop agonizing over the words "Et tu, Brute?" How many generations have and will take to heart the words of the song "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" These responses we have are emotion, empathy, love, hope and belief. They are not things of atoms and molecules. You may call them energy but I have a grave suspicion that they are even more than energy. They are part of the consciousness that has created the universe.
Some scientists today seem to be material minded. They may seem to only want to heed with what the can detect with their instruments. Science is like that. Science is observation and it looks for concrete consistency. It recognizes that nothing can be known a hundred percent. For that you have to conduct an experiment a hundred percent of the intervals of time that there has been and was and will be. No, science is not a hundred percent. To get their claims, scientists make generalities and assumptions. In spite of the nature of materialistic science we have upheld it as the way to know everything. The question of the Soul eludes science. Science fails to explain how Life comes about. As Sting said in his song "Love Is The Seventh Wave", there is a deeper wave than this swelling in the world. We can be so much better if we embrace the value of consciousness.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Careless Devastation
I hate violence. In Spain there was a separatist terrorist group known as Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA). They fought for freedom for three provinces in the north of the country. I read an article in a newspaper one day that said a couple of guys from this group threw a grenade at a 9 year old girl, killing her. The report sickened me to my very core. What kind of thinking would lead to such an act? Violence is a useless and sickening tactic used by diseased minds.
The Cold War years brought about a unique situation in Europe. You see on one side there was the United States. On the other side was the Soviet Union. They both had the capability of blowing the World to kingdom come. Smack dab in the middle of them was Europe, and it was split between the west and the east. As depicted in many spy stories, including those by Ian Fleming, Europe was a playground for spies. This also lead to covert operations and violence behind closed doors. Two movies depicted this era that also showed the callous violence and apathy of human life. The first movie was a 1986 film called Born American. This film depicted some western college students that wandered over the border to Russia, and got captured and tortured. There was a diplomatic envoy to negotiate their freedom. In a twisted scene the envoy participated in the rape female prisoners after a dinner with his Soviet counter part. The message was the students were on their own. Only one of them made it out by sheer determination. The other movie was a 2006 film called The Good Shepherd. This film depicted the covert operations of the early CIA through the life of Edward Wilson. Wilson headed the operations. In the process he betrayed his love, his friends, his wife, and his son in the name of king and country. He covered up violence, he ordered violence, he cause violence. For example he had the fiance of his son thrown out of a plane in mid flight because of suspicions. He also had a man tortured to the point of suicide. In the end he is left a very lonely pathetic man, with a life of betrayal and violence. Both of these movies were based on real stories. As fictionalized as they were, they did depict the heartless violence that went on during the Cold War. A violence not unlike the systematic humiliation and killing of people in the gas chambers of the Third Reich. What kind of person are you if you commits such atrocities?
In the Americas, there is a history of violent acts for power and money. During the civil war in El Salvador I heard of terrible atrocities. One was of a young woman who was kidnapped. She reportedly was tortured and raped multiple times. Then they dismembered her arms and legs, bolted a board to her back an left her at her mother's doorstep barely alive. How brutal can you be? How inhumane, and how inhuman. More recently the murders in the northern Mexico city of Juarez the murder toll for 2010 reached 3000. That is a lot of souls. That is also a lot of families suffering. Taking that many lives can cause people to become callous about any living being and resort to a mindset not suited for society. In the Time Magazine article by Jeffery Kluger titled Inside a Mass Murderer's Mind it asks the question what makes a killer. This 2007 article came about as a result of the Virginia Tech murders. One of the answers the article give is that of narcissism, that is the complete opposite of empathy. By committing brutal acts we can become so callous to the lives of others that we don't stop. It can become like a high, something we crave. This is what is called bloodlust. The reason there are capital punishment laws is for people who go this route, and societies inability to cope with them.
What does violence do to the person who commits it? Violence takes away from that person all that is sacred, all that is human and makes him into a machine, a killing machine. It is said that to hate is to commit murder (1 John 3:15). An apathetic killer is one who cares not. They don't care for anyone. They do care about their short term purpose. In the end they hate themselves, because they bring about their own demise. Its a destructive path to go the violent route. I'd rather go the empathy route and build up people, give them relief and shelter. We all have the daily choice of being constructive or destructive. I hope you choose wisely.
The Cold War years brought about a unique situation in Europe. You see on one side there was the United States. On the other side was the Soviet Union. They both had the capability of blowing the World to kingdom come. Smack dab in the middle of them was Europe, and it was split between the west and the east. As depicted in many spy stories, including those by Ian Fleming, Europe was a playground for spies. This also lead to covert operations and violence behind closed doors. Two movies depicted this era that also showed the callous violence and apathy of human life. The first movie was a 1986 film called Born American. This film depicted some western college students that wandered over the border to Russia, and got captured and tortured. There was a diplomatic envoy to negotiate their freedom. In a twisted scene the envoy participated in the rape female prisoners after a dinner with his Soviet counter part. The message was the students were on their own. Only one of them made it out by sheer determination. The other movie was a 2006 film called The Good Shepherd. This film depicted the covert operations of the early CIA through the life of Edward Wilson. Wilson headed the operations. In the process he betrayed his love, his friends, his wife, and his son in the name of king and country. He covered up violence, he ordered violence, he cause violence. For example he had the fiance of his son thrown out of a plane in mid flight because of suspicions. He also had a man tortured to the point of suicide. In the end he is left a very lonely pathetic man, with a life of betrayal and violence. Both of these movies were based on real stories. As fictionalized as they were, they did depict the heartless violence that went on during the Cold War. A violence not unlike the systematic humiliation and killing of people in the gas chambers of the Third Reich. What kind of person are you if you commits such atrocities?
In the Americas, there is a history of violent acts for power and money. During the civil war in El Salvador I heard of terrible atrocities. One was of a young woman who was kidnapped. She reportedly was tortured and raped multiple times. Then they dismembered her arms and legs, bolted a board to her back an left her at her mother's doorstep barely alive. How brutal can you be? How inhumane, and how inhuman. More recently the murders in the northern Mexico city of Juarez the murder toll for 2010 reached 3000. That is a lot of souls. That is also a lot of families suffering. Taking that many lives can cause people to become callous about any living being and resort to a mindset not suited for society. In the Time Magazine article by Jeffery Kluger titled Inside a Mass Murderer's Mind it asks the question what makes a killer. This 2007 article came about as a result of the Virginia Tech murders. One of the answers the article give is that of narcissism, that is the complete opposite of empathy. By committing brutal acts we can become so callous to the lives of others that we don't stop. It can become like a high, something we crave. This is what is called bloodlust. The reason there are capital punishment laws is for people who go this route, and societies inability to cope with them.
What does violence do to the person who commits it? Violence takes away from that person all that is sacred, all that is human and makes him into a machine, a killing machine. It is said that to hate is to commit murder (1 John 3:15). An apathetic killer is one who cares not. They don't care for anyone. They do care about their short term purpose. In the end they hate themselves, because they bring about their own demise. Its a destructive path to go the violent route. I'd rather go the empathy route and build up people, give them relief and shelter. We all have the daily choice of being constructive or destructive. I hope you choose wisely.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Next Novel - Bill It's Me
I wrote Viewing Creation Encounter as a Sci-Fi space action novel. It was my first attempt at such a task, and I learned a lot about characters through the process. I also wrote it with the knowledge I gained from different web sites about astronomy and space programs as well as my personal knowledge about people from different cultures. Religion was also a subject in the novel. In my next novel I diverge from most of that and concentrate on characters and knowledge about Empaths.
I'm a Natural Empath. Some may ask what does that mean. We have heard of them in Sci-Fi stories but are they real? Yes they are real. But reality does not mimic fiction in this case. There are a variety of Empaths but they most all have a particular quality. That quality is that they are sensitive to emotions and pain of others. Thus Empaths suffer to one degree or another. Empaths also can train themselves to change their disability into an ability. That is a much preferable state than just suffering because for the Empath there is no real escape, just techniques to ease the suffering. In my next novel I embellish the abilities of the Empath and give him a Psychopath as a villain. Yes, its kind of like Superhero stuff.
The story is divided into two parts. These parts are seemingly two realities of similar time frame. With the writing, I differentiated the tow parts using two different grammatical persons. It seemed to fit the storyline and give it some credence. I have not come across any work that has done that. There are stories that will change the narrator, and in a sense that's what I'm doing.
The novel will be called Bill It's Me and I will put it out on Scribd.com for free just like Viewing Creation. I hope you can enjoy it and tell me if it works. Thanks for reading.
I'm a Natural Empath. Some may ask what does that mean. We have heard of them in Sci-Fi stories but are they real? Yes they are real. But reality does not mimic fiction in this case. There are a variety of Empaths but they most all have a particular quality. That quality is that they are sensitive to emotions and pain of others. Thus Empaths suffer to one degree or another. Empaths also can train themselves to change their disability into an ability. That is a much preferable state than just suffering because for the Empath there is no real escape, just techniques to ease the suffering. In my next novel I embellish the abilities of the Empath and give him a Psychopath as a villain. Yes, its kind of like Superhero stuff.
The story is divided into two parts. These parts are seemingly two realities of similar time frame. With the writing, I differentiated the tow parts using two different grammatical persons. It seemed to fit the storyline and give it some credence. I have not come across any work that has done that. There are stories that will change the narrator, and in a sense that's what I'm doing.
The novel will be called Bill It's Me and I will put it out on Scribd.com for free just like Viewing Creation. I hope you can enjoy it and tell me if it works. Thanks for reading.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Are We Ready To End Discrimination Yet?
I'm reading a pretty good book about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth right after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln called Manhunt by James L. Swanson. It mentions that Emancipation had been in place a short two years, and this was 1865, just after the Civil War. It's now 2011, so that makes it.....(let's see 2011-1865=146), 146 years. It's unfortunate that in all that time living without slavery, we still have not done away with racial discrimination. Discrimination happens in many forms not just racial. We should be ready to end it. Ending discrimination is hard but I believe it's doable.
We should all know what discrimination is. Many of us have been its victims and many of us have used it. If there is one root that discrimination has that would be its ties to social status and social acceptability. People don't usually discriminate based on personal feelings, but rather based on social status feelings. There was a young white boy who loved to play with his friend who was African American. One day the boy told his mother that he did not like black people. He said this because he heard it on the radio. His mother told him that his friend was black. The boy responded with surprise, "He is?" So this issue is really socially based. That is people discriminate in order to fit in to their society. This means that the problem will not go away even if you convince people to love everybody on a personal level. It's one thing to change the mind of one person but totally another to change the behavior of a generation. That is why I think that one of the best ways to end discrimination is to do it with a generational change. What I mean by that is that the next generation ought to adopt a policy of no discrimination, as the old generation dies off. This requires parents and educators to teach that discrimination of any kind is not acceptable. It also requires the new generation to hold to it and actively fight against discrimination comments and acts of even the older generation. I want to say I do believe there are those who are racist on a personal level. These individuals hate for personal reasons, but I do believe they are a small minority compared to those who are racist for social reason.
Racial discrimination has been historically held up by culture. It used to be so acceptable that the racial marriage between like Germans and Italians was considered unacceptable is some societies. This was true even in the early half of the 20th Century. As an example I will point to a fellow blogger and her talk with her father about race in her 38-ways and Kingsley Plantation, where her father and mother were regarded as an interracial couple even though they were both white. Today were mostly concern with racial concerns between whites, blacks, hispanics, middle-eastern, or asian. Perhaps this means we made some progress with the efforts in the 1960's and thereafter. Yet it took generations to make that progress. I feel and hear that today many young folk deem racial discrimination as anathema. I feel that is is also a good sign of progress. To further my point, I dare you to talk to any baby boomer at length and you will find some form of racial discrimination still in their social thinking. Incidentally, the Tea Party Movement that is rocking the politics in the United States is made up of people of about 45 and older (see link). This means that they are baby boomers and some older gen-X-ers. They are going to have some form of racial discrimination as a social movement. It will be interesting to see the clash of the Tea Party Movement and the younger generations as they grow older on the subject of race and discrimination. President Obama did not argue against the notion that the Tea Party Movement had some racial underlining motivations in the US News article titled Obama Says Race a Key Component in Tea Party Protests. The social racial attitudes persist in any given generation.
Bullying is discrimination. How can I say that when bullying is just child's play? I dare you to think about it. Why does a child bully? More often than not it's to gain social status among his/her friends. Who do they bully? The bully anyone who is believably different. That includes different race, hair color, interests, handicap, ...etc..etc. You name it, it's probably a difference that is bullied. Well these are the same reasons why people discriminate. Schools are doing a poor job of stopping bullying. These days I have witnessed schools that only stop racial bullying but laugh at other forms of bullying. Everyone who has gone through a public school in the United States can understand how much bullying and discrimination goes on in High School. I remember deciding to be a part of the "nerds" of the chess club. These happen to be the brainiacs and socially free students in my High School. They had no faculty support, unlike the preppy and polished cheerleaders and football players. In the 80's "nerds" were discriminated against. Today we see people being called "dorks". Whatever name calling is used you can rest assure that there is bullying that will lead to discrimination. The only difference between bullying and discrimination is the fact that bullying is not a legal offense while in only some cases discrimination is a legal offense.
The World is growing up. Global economics is taking hold. Europe is united. Middle East citizens seek democracy. These are a few signs that the World is becoming more organized and united. There is also a world culture growing. With that world culture, discrimination must be abolished. Now is the time to start shaping it. Some fear a united world, but if you look at history you see that it's inevitable. The real issue is what kind of world culture to you want? I for one would like to see a united world that repudiates discrimination of all types. In my lifetime I have been discriminated against because of my hair color, my religious beliefs, my medical needs, my learning disability, my vocal accent, my nationality, and for thinking differently. Some incidents were on the job, some in education, but most were comments and jokes. Does this surprise you coming from a white guy? It shouldn't. More people are victimized by discrimination than we care to think about. It's a disease that permeates society. How can we change it? To change something legally you get a politician to make a law. To get the politician to make a law there has to be popular support. To get popular support there has to be many people supporting the issue. To get many people to support the issue it takes talking about, opening up conversations, fight for it. To do all that it first takes one step. The one step is to believe in it, to adopt it in your personal life. I made a conscious effort many years ago to abhor discrimination. I did this when I found out how the social fabric of a particular country resulted in the systematic homicide of a people, and that my family came from that guilty society. There is a sense of shame in that, and there is an intent of repentance. So I determined to counter the discrimination. I did so to the behest of my family elders. What am I getting at? Own an anti-discrimination attitude, fight for it. Fight yourself for it, fight your family for it, fight your friends for it. Then you can make open dialogue. Then you can create a ground swell of support. Then a politician can grasp your vision, and a law can be created. It all takes that first step.
I ask again, are we ready to end discrimination yet? Only you can answer it. I for one think it's possible. It's possible one person at a time. Then it takes social effort, then a law, then and educational effort to end it. You may ask what is the opposite of discrimination? The direct opposite of discrimination is empathy. That is to relate and respect another person's situation and emotion.
We should all know what discrimination is. Many of us have been its victims and many of us have used it. If there is one root that discrimination has that would be its ties to social status and social acceptability. People don't usually discriminate based on personal feelings, but rather based on social status feelings. There was a young white boy who loved to play with his friend who was African American. One day the boy told his mother that he did not like black people. He said this because he heard it on the radio. His mother told him that his friend was black. The boy responded with surprise, "He is?" So this issue is really socially based. That is people discriminate in order to fit in to their society. This means that the problem will not go away even if you convince people to love everybody on a personal level. It's one thing to change the mind of one person but totally another to change the behavior of a generation. That is why I think that one of the best ways to end discrimination is to do it with a generational change. What I mean by that is that the next generation ought to adopt a policy of no discrimination, as the old generation dies off. This requires parents and educators to teach that discrimination of any kind is not acceptable. It also requires the new generation to hold to it and actively fight against discrimination comments and acts of even the older generation. I want to say I do believe there are those who are racist on a personal level. These individuals hate for personal reasons, but I do believe they are a small minority compared to those who are racist for social reason.
Racial discrimination has been historically held up by culture. It used to be so acceptable that the racial marriage between like Germans and Italians was considered unacceptable is some societies. This was true even in the early half of the 20th Century. As an example I will point to a fellow blogger and her talk with her father about race in her 38-ways and Kingsley Plantation, where her father and mother were regarded as an interracial couple even though they were both white. Today were mostly concern with racial concerns between whites, blacks, hispanics, middle-eastern, or asian. Perhaps this means we made some progress with the efforts in the 1960's and thereafter. Yet it took generations to make that progress. I feel and hear that today many young folk deem racial discrimination as anathema. I feel that is is also a good sign of progress. To further my point, I dare you to talk to any baby boomer at length and you will find some form of racial discrimination still in their social thinking. Incidentally, the Tea Party Movement that is rocking the politics in the United States is made up of people of about 45 and older (see link). This means that they are baby boomers and some older gen-X-ers. They are going to have some form of racial discrimination as a social movement. It will be interesting to see the clash of the Tea Party Movement and the younger generations as they grow older on the subject of race and discrimination. President Obama did not argue against the notion that the Tea Party Movement had some racial underlining motivations in the US News article titled Obama Says Race a Key Component in Tea Party Protests. The social racial attitudes persist in any given generation.
Bullying is discrimination. How can I say that when bullying is just child's play? I dare you to think about it. Why does a child bully? More often than not it's to gain social status among his/her friends. Who do they bully? The bully anyone who is believably different. That includes different race, hair color, interests, handicap, ...etc..etc. You name it, it's probably a difference that is bullied. Well these are the same reasons why people discriminate. Schools are doing a poor job of stopping bullying. These days I have witnessed schools that only stop racial bullying but laugh at other forms of bullying. Everyone who has gone through a public school in the United States can understand how much bullying and discrimination goes on in High School. I remember deciding to be a part of the "nerds" of the chess club. These happen to be the brainiacs and socially free students in my High School. They had no faculty support, unlike the preppy and polished cheerleaders and football players. In the 80's "nerds" were discriminated against. Today we see people being called "dorks". Whatever name calling is used you can rest assure that there is bullying that will lead to discrimination. The only difference between bullying and discrimination is the fact that bullying is not a legal offense while in only some cases discrimination is a legal offense.
The World is growing up. Global economics is taking hold. Europe is united. Middle East citizens seek democracy. These are a few signs that the World is becoming more organized and united. There is also a world culture growing. With that world culture, discrimination must be abolished. Now is the time to start shaping it. Some fear a united world, but if you look at history you see that it's inevitable. The real issue is what kind of world culture to you want? I for one would like to see a united world that repudiates discrimination of all types. In my lifetime I have been discriminated against because of my hair color, my religious beliefs, my medical needs, my learning disability, my vocal accent, my nationality, and for thinking differently. Some incidents were on the job, some in education, but most were comments and jokes. Does this surprise you coming from a white guy? It shouldn't. More people are victimized by discrimination than we care to think about. It's a disease that permeates society. How can we change it? To change something legally you get a politician to make a law. To get the politician to make a law there has to be popular support. To get popular support there has to be many people supporting the issue. To get many people to support the issue it takes talking about, opening up conversations, fight for it. To do all that it first takes one step. The one step is to believe in it, to adopt it in your personal life. I made a conscious effort many years ago to abhor discrimination. I did this when I found out how the social fabric of a particular country resulted in the systematic homicide of a people, and that my family came from that guilty society. There is a sense of shame in that, and there is an intent of repentance. So I determined to counter the discrimination. I did so to the behest of my family elders. What am I getting at? Own an anti-discrimination attitude, fight for it. Fight yourself for it, fight your family for it, fight your friends for it. Then you can make open dialogue. Then you can create a ground swell of support. Then a politician can grasp your vision, and a law can be created. It all takes that first step.
I ask again, are we ready to end discrimination yet? Only you can answer it. I for one think it's possible. It's possible one person at a time. Then it takes social effort, then a law, then and educational effort to end it. You may ask what is the opposite of discrimination? The direct opposite of discrimination is empathy. That is to relate and respect another person's situation and emotion.
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