BEING HOPEFUL
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“The soft overcomes the hard
the gentle overcomes the rigid
Nothing in the world is as soft
or yielding or as powerful as water”
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Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching”
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(as translated by Stephen Mitchell)
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“He who brings peace to the High Places, (may he) bring peace to us, to all of Israel and to all who dwell on earth, and let us say, amen.”
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(updated ancient Hebrew prayer)
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In the 12/18/13 edition of “Logical Science” there is an article entitled “Q4P (Quest for Potential) What Is it? Why Do We Care?” In it we find the following:
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“Let us look at a selection of core metaphysics questions and see how (David) Birnbaum’s Theory of Potential–and then the entrenched establishment’s Theory of Randomness—come down on each of these issues:
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1) Is there an eternal dynamic?
Birnbaum: Yes, Quest for Potential (QP4)
Establishment: No, none
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2) What ignited the Big Bang?
Birnbaum: QP4
Establishment: Random accident playing out across infinite universes
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3) What drives the cosmic order?
Birnbaum: Q4P
Establishment: Random chance
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4) If there is a God what is the essence of God?
Birnbaum: Potential
Establishment: No God or any transcendent force
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5) What was the catalyst for life?
Birnbaum: Q4P
Establishment: Random accident
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6) What sustains life?
Birnbaum: Q4P
Establishment: no answer
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7) What drives evolution?
Birnbaum: Q4P (which includes genetic survival)
Establishment: genetic survival alone and random chance
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8) What was the catalyst for consciousness?
Birnbaum: Q4P
Establishment: Random chance
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9) Does Man(kind) have a purpose?
Birnbaum: To quest for his/her (its) optimal potential
Establishment: No/none
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10) Is there a purpose to the Universe?
Birnbaum: The universe seeks its fullest potential
Establishment: no purpose
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Thus, the battle lines are clear-cut. Birnbaum layers one single elegant concept across then entire spectrum of issues–and across the timeless cosmic continuum. Aside from the one issue of Evolution, the Establishment does not even purport to provide one single answer.”
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______________________________
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In the world of science and open inquiry…he/she who come up with the best answer, which by definition is almost always the most elegant and simple explanation, wins.
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In this case, as we have seen above, the establishment view that Randomness rules supreme when it comes to basic questions of cosmology pales and is defeated by Birnbaum’s theory of Quest for Potential.
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So the question is as follows:
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How did the Scientific/Philosophical/
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The Establishment answers as outlined above are cold, hard, heavy, stagnant, negative, lacking in movement, lightness, comfort or hope.
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How did this happen?
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When one considers the reality of human history..whereby so many individuals and groups in all corners of the world for the entire existence of human civilization have used the twin concept of “God” and the “Religious belief that one’s group and one’s group ALONE has been blessed by God” to enslave, control, manipulate, exploit, rob, rape, and when necessary kill part of or all members of a group(s) who are not so blessed…then one can begin to understand how and why the liberal establishment has come to the corner it is now trapped in.
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To make major progress to build a fair and just society for all of its citizens….as demonstrated by America over the last 50 years….the very concept that one group of people (in the case of America we are talking about well to do and well educated individuals who could check off the boxes of being “White, Christian, Straight, Males”) having advantages and opportunities that were (not totally) but routinely denied to (almost) all other individuals had to be fought and overcome.
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Those on the outside were the demographic majority and were made up of those who fit into the categories of Black, Asian, Hispanic, Hindu, Moslem Jew, Gay, Female, Undereducated, Poor, Immigrant, or any wayward member of the ruling elite who in any way attempted to upset the elite desire to maintain the status quo of power authority, privilege and wealth.
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And as the ruling elite tended to explain and justify their superiority and the privileges that sprung from them by their being part of the inner group blessed by God, those outside this magic circle of privilege had to fight back and fight back they did.
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And the genius of America is that when Black Americans began to demand civil rights…the children of white veterans of World War 2, including many children of the Elite joined the movement for increased freedom for ALL Americans.
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And to build a fortress around these new found rights, liberals adopted the strategy that never again would they let any group use “religion” or “God” or “Choosiness” to justify the denial of rights and opportunities to anyone at anytime for any reason.
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And this fight and this denial of the misuse of religion to support the oppression of the many by the few has been one of America’s great gifts to itself and to the world.
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And to drive the final nail into the coffin of privilege for the elite..liberals upset the power of both “god” and of religion by establishing new “Gods” for themselves to answer the fundamental questions of life…which they “christened” as Reason” (from the French Revolution) and “Randomness” which they took from the biological sciences.
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And so here we are today 50 years later.
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The science of Physics and its related off shoots of astronomy and cosmology..when freed from establishment politically correct coercion… no longer totally supports randomness as the final answer to questions related to the creation of life of individuals and of the cosmos itself.
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And this is where Birnbaum come in… Born into an American society that discriminated against him as a Jew, he lived through the metamorphosis of American society where we (while still a work in progress) have made more positive changes toward the social inclusivity of so many different “others” than ever before in human history.
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And Birnbaum being the “insider/outsider” has given America and the world a great gift.
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The liberal attack on religion was needed and was correct. But as often is the case in such heated battles..the baby is thrown out with the bath water.
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Randomness as part of genetics and of daily life is still a reality but now thanks to Birnbaum….wrapped around this hard reality is the softer, more flexible and evermore hopeful theory of Quest for Potential.
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The wheel turns. The concept of a universal power that created the heaven and earth and all that is within was first given to the world by the early Hebrews some 3200 years ago. This concept was corrupted over time..and is still corrupted as we see every day on TV with the religious terror that is encompassing the Middle East…and where it is still corrupted it still needs to be fought with ideas and as necessary also with force.
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But in a modern liberal society that we have in America where secularism is the norm and at the heart of public policy..we no longer have to deny the concept/idea/belief in a Life Force that created all of us and endows all of us with a potential that is our purpose in life to find and unfold, embrace and enjoy.
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Randomness and Reason are part of our world. We do not need any longer to spend much energy in embracing or rejecting these concepts because no reasonable person can deny them. Randomness and Reason are real but so is the old Hebrew concept that there is an Intelligent Designer that created the big bang that has led to the development of human life and human consciousness; What follows from this is the understanding that the task of all living things is to as best as they are able to reach their full potential without claiming exclusive rights to do so, and without denying this right to all those who also live on earth.
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We live in a world of rapidly expanding human consciousness and in a world that is shrinking before our eyes….as we clearly see when an Embola outbreak that may begin in far away Africa soon can make its way to our shores…or when a refugee crisis in Syria soon becomes a refugee crisis in Europe.
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There are no easy answers. The complications and complexities of providing a decent standard of living for some 7,000,000,000 people without having us all drown in pollution and the resulting global warming that will totally disrupt life on earth as we currently know it is mind blowing.
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But if enough of us reach deep to maximize our Quest for Potential..and whether we do this from a secular or religious perspective…we have a fighting chance to bring a measure of peace to ourselves, to our nation/tribe and to all who share the world with us.
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And if we don’t find the ways and means to do this we will all go down with the mother ship which is our complex, harmonious but ultimately fragile eco system
that can only endure so much abuse.
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We as human beings crave hope. It is the wind beneath our wings. It is the Life Fore within us and all around us…and it means we need to take good care of our selves, our families, our tribe and all that share this world with us including all other living things and the environment that sustains all of us.
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It is doable. There is reason to be hopeful. But nothing is guaranteed. There is a great amount of meaningful work ahead for all us. And this is a good reason to get up every day and to be grateful for all that we have and for all that we can yet be.
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