Tag Archives: #Peace

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Hope.Sail
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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 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/Academic/Establishment find itself pushed into the uncomfortable corner where an amateur philosopher beats them at answering the basic question of human life..which is “Does the Universe..including our individual lives have any meaning?”
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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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Michael Papo
mapapo44@gmail.com
www.PapoBlogSumma.com

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god-in-sky

“I form the light, and create darkness;
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I make peace, and create evil;
I am the Lord,
Who has made all these things.”
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– Isaiah 45.5
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“The Tao is called the Great Mother:
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empty yet inexhaustible,
it gives birth to infinite worlds.
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It is always present within you.

You can use it any way you want.”
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– Lao-tzu, “Tao Te Ching” 6
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“The purpose of man is to quest for his potential–spiritual and other.”
– Daivd Birnbaum “Summa Mertaphysica 1” p.54
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MOSES IN EGYPT: A MODERN DAY MIDRASH
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Moses, adopted by an Egyptian princess, according to midrashic sources, was nursed by his mother… an easy to hire and readily available Hebrew wet nurse… in the Palace of Pharaoh. When he was weaned, his mother never stepped foot again in the palace, and while some 8 decades latter Moses was able to reunite with his brother and sister, he never saw his parents again.
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Growing up as a royal prince of Egypt, Moses was 100% Egyptian by nurture but not by DNA.
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As a teenager and young adult, in contrast to the back breaking work of his fellow Hebrews, Moses lived a life of both great material luxury, and intense intellectual stimulation.
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As one of the great centers of world power, Pharaoh’s court was visited by  a stream of savants and charlatans, magicians and hustlers. Some came to entertain, others to con, and a few to attempt to educate and enlighten.
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None of what he heard fully resonated with Moses, who while part and parcel of life in the Palace, still smarting from the teasing of his peers for his lowly Hebrew origins.
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And in his search for answers to the existential questions of life which from time immemorial sensitive teenagers and young adults have always asked; Moses’s spiritual journey took him out of the cultural mainstream as he also paid attention to the counter cultural monotheistic beliefs of the “One God of their Fathers” that the Hebrew slaves talked about among themselves.
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Moses matured into a man of great strength and passion, and at the age of 40 when so many of his peers were suffering the normal mid life crisis of feeling life beginning to slip away from them… Moses having struck down in anger a cruel Egyptian slave supervisor, began the middle third of his life with purpose as a shepherd; and where under the clear star filled nights of the desert, he returned to the question of “What was the purpose of life?”; and how best he could articulate an answer to himself and others.
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In tales of Zen masters, time after time a student seeking enlightenment would fail to achieve this desired spiritual level until at a given moment  literally out of nowhere, and totally unexpected, everything would became clear. And so it was with Moses.
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Moses had no teacher, or rabbi or zen master to instruct him. He was on is own and as he neared the age of 80, he began to feel his strength fading and he began to realize that his quest for enlightenment might not succeed…and as he began to make peace with this eventuality, Moses stumbled across a burning bush that was not consumed.
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And out of this bush, Moses heard a voice calling to him. And Moses stopped and listened and paid attention and he did one thing more…he entered into a dialogue with the “the Voice”…asking questions, expressing his opinion (including his fears and anxieties) and Moses, still on his quest to enlightenment, had the courage to gently ask the question, the answer to which would complete his personal spiritual journey and which would in  the final 1/3 of his life elevate him into a historic spiritual leader whose teachings are still studied with respect a full 3,000 years later.
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The answer that God gave Moses about His name was in Hebrew
 “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh”. This phrase is not easily translated but is commonly understood to mean ” I will be what I will be” or at a higher level of consciousness, it could be translated as “I am Pure Being in the Process of Continual Transformation”.
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It is David Birnbaum’s great insight as expressed in his three volume “Summma Metaphysica” that it was this moment of revelation for which Moses (and 3,00 years later David Birnbaum himself) had spent his whole life preparing.
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And Moses having found the spiritual answer for which he was hungering…. (later described by David Birnbaum as “Potentialism Theory”..that as God was in the Process of Becoming, so was every aspect of the Universe from the big bang forward through evolution to the current spiritual consciousness of humankind…the very beings created in the image of the “Ever  Becoming God.”)…  at the mature age of 80 was ready to reach his full Potential as a human being, as guide to his people and as a universal spiritual leader of unparalleled proportion.
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And having reached this point of much desired spiritual enlightenment, Moses did not, as so many others would, retreat further into the desert to continue to nourish his new found spiritual insights.
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Moses did the opposite. Encouraged by God, he turned his face back to the Palace he had left 40 years earlier to proclaim the then (and still) revolutionary concept that ALL people..even the most lowly…having been created in God’s own image of Ever Becoming…had the right to have the time/space and opportunity to not only worship but to emulate their Ever Becoming God as best they were able as individuals/families and tribes.
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And knowing that the Hebrews carried a heavy burden of the marks and memories of slavery on their shoulders, Moses realized that the newly freed Hebrew slaves would by definition have to deal with the drama and trauma of suddenly finding themselves being totally intellectually,  emotionally, physically and spiritually unprepared for the journey ahead.
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And Moses realized that with a slave mentality still being prevalent, he had to tend first to the physical and emotional well being of the recently freed Hebrew slaves and that this people..his people… was not yet prepared to fully understand, accept and embrace having been created in the image of a God of pure Potential.
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And so Moses… as the accomplished national, military and spiritual leader that he, without any training… had emerged as, learned to craft his experience of enlightenment and spiritual understanding in words that simultaneously and effectively communicated to the generations that left Egypt as well as all those generations of human beings, Jew and non Jews, whose lives have followed.
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Moses, among his other skills and talents also excelled as a writer.  His Five Books of Moses. and the entire body of literature that followed from them…..tended with some major exceptions…to focus on God the rescuer, and God the law giver while the concept of the God of Pure Potential was “hidden” often obscurely, but also often within plane sight for those who who have the eyes and inclination to see, appreciate and understand the original vision (name of) God that brought Moses to a state of spiritual enlightenment at the burning bush.
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It was this “multi-message” of Moses, and the enlightenment he received in learning God’s name that allow us…some 3,000 years later to continue to revere him as the greatest Prophet in Israel; and to continue to marvel and appreciate what he had learned and what he has transmitted to us in terms of of Our God granted Potential for continued growth in every aspect of our lives.
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Michael Papo
mapapo44@gmail.com
www.PapoBlogSumma.com
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