Who Owns the land and by What Right?

Here are eight of the possible views of land ownership:

#1 Historic Right

#2 Worldview/Religion/Moral Claim

#3 Present Possession

#4 Military Might (The most popular view with most people in most of history)

#5 Best Use

#6 Diplomacy/Compromise

#7 Legal Claim

#8 Visitor Status (No one group, nation, religion, ideology, etc. “owns” the land. All humans are merely visiting. We must share.)



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

I Was a Nonviolent S.D.S. Radical: A Beginning Memoir of My Life in the 1960's

Late in 1964, I experienced a spiritual transformation, went from being a gung-ho rightwing individual (like my parents and work boss) who supported the bombing of Vietnam to realizing that such a war stance is contrary to the Way of Jesus as presented in the Sermon on the Mount, etc.

So, instead of joining the Navy Reserves after high school and going to Vietnam to kill communists for Christ, I chose a third way. At the time all of my relatives, friends, everyone I knew in Nebraska supported the war.

But there was a former missionary and a Mennonite family who also opposed war. Thus, I became a conscientious objector.

I applied for that status with my draft board. Even after those 2 witnesses vouched that I was opposed to war including the Vietnam War, our Draft Board in Lincoln, Nebraska still interviewed me, grilled me personally on various specific violent situations, such as what if your family is attacked by killers, etc.

Finally, they gave me the I.O. status, which meant that when drafted, I would be performing nonviolent alternative service, working with poor people in Latin America or with mental patients, etc. instead of killing.

A couple of years later, when I was drafted and taking my physical with many other young men, the friendly Black medical sergeant who was testing me, after seeing my conscientious objector status, started calling me “Brother Love.”

Then in the summer of 1965, after my graduation from Lincoln Southeast High School, a week later, I started attending the University of Nebraska. With in a few weeks, I became involved with the student protestors, those opposed to the War and opposed to segregation and racism.

The first protest I attended was for the latter. It was one against Apartheid in South Africa.

With in a few weeks, I also joined a new social action-civil rights-anti-war organization called Students for a Democratic Society.

Of course, this was long before when S.D.S. turned to hate and violence, arson, attacks on police, etc. like it did with its splinter group, the WeatherUnderground and its bombings, arson, and violence at various universities including Kent State University in 1970.

To make a long complex story brief, by the spring of 1967, I was living as a spiritual hippie in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, but got drafted that summer. BELOW is a picture of me in the spring of 1967.

I was sent to serve my service time at a mental hospital for emotionally disturbed children and teens in Trevose, Pennsyvania, got evicted from my apartment for an anti-war sign on the back of my Greenbriar van, “the Mystical Hippopotamus”:-), etc.

As the nonviolent protests of the 60’s turned to hate and violence, even arson, bombings, and killings, I despaired. Where had the wondrous nonviolent altrusim of Martin Luther King, John Lewis and others gone?

I very strongly rejected the new hatred and violence of the extremists. IInstead, I emphasized more and more the Quaker and MLK way of reconciliation.

Standing in silent Quaker-like vigils against the War, we tried in many conversations to reason with others (both violent and nonviolent), including a soldier who had just come back from Vietnam, where he had been seriously injured in his left leg.

That whole tragic absurd period of history was “the Best of Times, the Worst of Times.”

Still radical after all these years*

Dan Wilcox

*an obvious paraphrase of a famous Paul Simon song title:-)

Review of The Big Picture by Theoretical Physicist Sean Carroll

What a good read--this powerful book on the nature of reality from the perspective of a famous physicist. Professor Sean Carroll writes so well, lucidly, explaining very difficult concepts in astrophysics—so that we non-scientists can gain a basic understanding of cosmology. And his prose is so user-friendly that even a few parts' hardest points, still made a little sense!

Only the book's couple of chapters on computer simulation of physics and evolution were dry, boring. Also, the whole idea of scientists intentionally trying to show how evolution works—especially natural selection—by designing experiments seems odd! Their very intent, their complex efforts, all of that is DESIGNED by them, so how can that really show that evolution, though looking designed, is actually NOT designed?!

The Big Picture is one of the best books on the nature of physics, cosmology, and the nature of reality. I read it avidly. That is until Carroll's negative references to God kept coming up--that God isn't needed, that God can’t be real or true because God violates the nature of physics.

Of course, almost always the "God" Carroll refers to, that can't be true, is the God of fundamentalistic or creedal Christianity. He doesn't deal in depth with more scientific concepts of ultimate reality. On the contrary, he is a committed naturalist, materialist, atheist.

Even worse Carrroll rejects any meaning to this matter-energy reality, rejects human choice, and the reality of ethics. He thinks humans just make morality up:_(

I admit despite such total nihilism, Carroll's striking views need to be seriously considered, even if they are bleak. After all, he is a brilliant genius, a theoretical physicist at Cal Tech, has been award many science prizes and fellowships, and (unlike some controversial 'new atheists),' he is considerate, courteous, and engaging.

Of course, like most humans, even brilliant ones (whether atheists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus), Carroll contradicts himself. He claims all of time/space is already set and unchangeable, that humans are just “complicated collections of matter moving in patterns,” (page 295).

So, despite his efforts to appear positive and hopeful unlike some materialists who seem to glory in negativity, Carroll actually agrees with their claim that existence is bleak, that humans are only matter, that nothing has meaning:-(

But then near the end of the book Carroll tries to end on a positive upbeat note by bridging the chasm of negation with a little hope--he calls his view "poetic." He states that on the human “level” of reality, humans can make choices, only he is quick to emphasize that isn't libertarian choice. It's only in a compatibilistic sense.

Carroll asserts that the laws of physics prohibit human "choice" in the normal dictionary sense of the word--selecting among alternatives--because the “laws of physics” prohibit that.:-(

So then I feel like asking him—why write a book explaining physics since reality is set and can’t be changed in the future or the past?

I suppose he would answer, 'Yes, I am just a "complicated collection of matter moving in pattern" (page295) and part of that determinism is that it was determined that I write this book.' In other words, he would answer, not too dissimilar from how hard Reformed Christians such as Stonewall Jackson answered. As always, determinism is an endless loop, unfalsifiable.

Carroll’s asserts that most cosmologists are atheists and, basically, hold the same view as Einstein and other scientific determinists.

BUT then how do contrary astrophysicists who are theists counter such deterministic, atheistic claims?

Would they disagree about Carroll's "Big Picture" or only show that in their life-stance they are compartmentalizing?

CONSIDER the contrary outlook of famous cosmologist George Ellis who co-wrote wrote The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with Stephen Hawking. Also, contrary, to Carroll's view that ethics are made up, Ellis strongly supports the view of moral realism. He actively opposed the immoral, unjust system of Apartheid in South Africa.

Professor George Ellis: "Many scientists are strong reductionists who believe that physics alone determines outcomes in the real world, This is demonstrably untrue – for example the computer on which I am writing this could not possibly have come into being through the agency of physics alone."

"The issue is that these scientists are focusing on some strands in the web of causation that actually exist, and ignoring others that are demonstrably there – such as ideas in our minds, or algorithms embodied in computer programs."

"These demonstrably act in a top-down way to cause physical effects in the real world. All these processes and actual outcomes are contextually dependent, and this allows the effectiveness of processes such as adaptive selection that are the key to the emergence of genuine complexity."

"As I stated above, mathematical equations only represent part of reality, and should not be confused with reality. A specific related issue: there is a group of people out there writing papers based on the idea that physics is a computational process. But a physical law is not an algorithm. So who chooses the computational strategy and the algorithms that realise a specific physical law? (Finite elements perhaps?)"

"What language is it written in? (Does Nature use Java or C++? What machine code is used?) Where is the CPU? What is used for memory, and in what way are read and write commands executed? Additionally if it’s a computation, how does Nature avoid the halting problem? It’s all a very bad analogy that does not work."

Interviewer John Horgan: "Einstein, in the following quote, seemed to doubt free will: "If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the Earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord…. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will."
Do you believe in free will?"

Ellis: "Yes. Einstein is perpetuating the belief that all causation is bottom up."

"This simply is not the case, as I can demonstrate with many examples from sociology, neuroscience, physiology, epigenetics, engineering, and physics. Furthermore if Einstein did not have free will in some meaningful sense, then he could not have been responsible for the theory of relativity – it would have been a product of lower level processes but not of an intelligent mind choosing between possible options."

"I find it very hard to believe this to be the case – indeed it does not seem to make any sense. Physicists should pay attention to Aristotle’s four forms of causation – if they have the free will to decide what they are doing. If they don’t, then why waste time talking to them? They are then not responsible for what they say."
from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/physicist-george-ellis-knocks-physicists-for-knocking-philosophy-falsification-free-will/
The Big Picture
Scientific American
John Horgan directs the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology. His books include The End of Science and The End of War.


In conclusion, what if Carroll's "deepest" level of reality, atoms, neutrons, etc. is actually the most basic level of reality (as the cosmologist George Ellis counters), and actually the really complex, the most real level of reality is the one of ultimate reality (God), meaning, math, reason, ethics? Then down in the physical world, human consciousness wouldn't be an illusionary tag-a-long at all.

Evaluation: B+/H-

To Be Continued--


In the Light and Hope of Meaning and Choice,

Daniel Wilcox

Palestinian Stranger: Of a Different Mind and Place

The Middle Eastern stone and masonry buildings hunched like a dense crowd at the gate, darkened in the dusk’s sun, and I stood there, my red American backpack leaning against my knee. Down the twilighted street it looked dark and foreboding.

Where might I find a hotel? It was 6:30 pm and I had just missed the last bus leaving Nablus, Palestine at 6 pm.

I was going to be stuck here all night. True, Palestinians had been courteous and friendly all day.

The people in Nablus hadn't been at all like most Palestinian Muslims who support killing civilians, not at all like Palestinians who had recently knifed to death Jewish civilians including a 13-year-old girl in her own bedroom. Or the ones who intentionally rammed into Israeli cars, trying to kill Jews. In one car attack, a 1-year-old Jewish infant had been killed.

Immediately, the Palestinian government in the West Bank had praised that Muslim attacker as a"martyr." Really sick and twisted.

My bumpy ride up from Jerusalem in the blue and white bus had been fascinating and safe. A short, black-haired Palestinian teen in the seat next to me had introduced himself and plied me with many questions about America, grinning with enthusiasm and intensity.

And for the past 6 hours, I had wandered the ancient streets of Nablus (called in the Bible, Shechum), marveling at the dead stones of that ancient past contrasting now to the lively hubbub of present day life.

Shop sellers had given me the hard sale, though had been very polite. No hostility. Probably spotted me immediately as North American. Some of the Arab men dressed American, but very conservatively, not with my colorful garb.

I saw few teen girls in the streets, only about or 6, and they walked quietly beside their men escorts, ensconced in cocoons of dark cloth with only their faces visible shaped like pert olives.

So, excited by another new adventure, though tinged by anxiety, I walked down a central street past more shops, looking for what might be an inn. Some older men in traditional dress were pulling sheep heads, slabs of meat, and sheened metal cookware from their display tables, and then pulling down the dull, metal rolling doors, locking out the night. Noisily and uncertainly came the darkness.

Would I even have enough Israeli currency for a room? Or would they take American money? What would their attitude at the inn be, if I found one?

Would they demand to see my passport? Up until now my looking more Jewish than all Jewish members on our kibbutz where I worked in eastern Galilee, had been humorous—my dark curly hair and prominent nose; also often bent close to the text of my Jewish Bible, which none of them, the actual Jews bothered to read. They wondered about this goyim who knew all about Nahum and Jeremiah.

But now I was hungry in a strange place, a mind’s distance from Americanized Israeli cities, so I walked over to something familiar, a small falafel cubicle still open.



It was a bright spot along a large dark 3-story building. The cook, a tall Palestinian youth, probably about 19, was busy cleaning a grimy grill, scraping off pea crud and the last shreds of dark meat.

But he paused smiled and said, “Salaam."

I pointed and asked, “How much?”

Behind him 2 boys about 7 and 5 were cleaning bowls and shoving vegetable shavings into a dented trash can.

Then in perfect English, the cook said he was near closing but still had enough for a couple falafels. I ordered two and stood there eating them, crunching delicious hot peas, meat, and steaming vegetables. Between a 3rd and 4th bite, I asked, "Are there any hotels near here?"

“You American?” he asked as he continued to clean and he rushed some Arabic at the boys behind him.

”Yes, I missed the bus. I came over to the Middle East after finishing college in California--am an anthropologist--actually hitched across Europe, then down down the Croatian coast, when I should have been at my commencement. Your English is very clear. You a student?"

"Yeah, I'm Ismael, recently graduated from Ramalah Friends High School, and now attend an-Naja National University here in the city. And your name?”

We flowed like the Jordan River into a young adult conversation, the kind that take place anywhere--
comparing notes on studies, girls, religion, and, finally, politics, of course. Is there any other topic in the Middle East?

He rinsed the grill and said, “I can direct you to a hotel, but if you wait a short bit longer for me to lockup, you are invited to our home; I'm sure my mother and father would be happy to provide you with hospitality for the evening. Then we could continue our discussion. I would like to ask more questions."

That night with the Abrahamic stars outside, countless in the black sky, I sat in the cook's family's 2nd story living room of a 3-story concrete home.

Ismael explained, "Our third story is still blocked off, under construction." On the wall behind us hung a tapestry with a deer and a mountain. In front of it sat Ismael’s father stocky with short hair and a pudgy face ensconced like a sheikh on a stuffed chair, his 5 children sitting on the floor by him, all watching TV.

His father didn't speak much English, and me, of course, no Arabic. So Ismael translated a few words he said to me in greeting.

A few times, Ismael walked into another room to answer his cell. The old and the new.

I sat on a low chair and watched fascinated as the white hijabbed mother first served me--as honored guest, a dish of Arab meat with red and green vegetables, then served her husband, then Ismael, then children, and lastly back in the kitchen, I guess, Ismael's younger sister and herself.

To my surprise, after conversation, they didn’t have me sleep in a side room or on cushions in the living room. As the guest of honor, the parents gave me their own large bedroom with its king-sized American-style bed covered in large elaborate quilts.

I felt sheepish being so honored, but remembered that they were no doubt practicing the Islamic rule of hospitality to strangers. Or, maybe, my skeptical side kicking in, trying to impress this American, hoping for some favor from me in the future.

The next day we dined formally on the floor in their dining room. I sat cross-legged in front of a spacious banquet of many dishes, again served first. The gracious mother ate last. Maybe, not so different from my own Thanksgivings as a kid growing up in the Bible Belt of Nebraska where the women labored most of the day in the kitchen, while the men sat in the living room watching the North/South Football Game.

The next morning Ismael didn’t have to work and took me down to the young men’s club. The open air game room was on the top floor of a 5-story building in downtown Nablus. At a pool table, 7 young adults avidly played billiards. We soon joined after introductions, but I didn’t get many balls shot before the conversation turned to politics.

Especially, a very serious guy in a rap shirt kept button-holing me, saying in flawless English, “Why does America keep helping the Jews? That’s what I want to know. Your President Trump, what an idiot! Obama was no better!"

He paused to cue a ball, then continued, "We are oppressed every day, by the Zionist dogs always telling us what to do and where to do it. And they won’t give us our land back. Look at how they are stealing our land, and settlers are cutting down our olive trees.

But we will get it back by blood and bravery. Thank Allah, praise be his name, that we have Fatah to stand up for us!”

I listened, somewhat taken back by the harsh barrage. Other Palestinians jabbed in their own knife points, bitter comments. Since I had come on this great pilgrimage leaving the U.S. behind because of my own disillusionment with Obamaism, I found it hard to know what to say. But I couldn’t stomach the Palestinians' attacks on Jewish civilians, and reminded them that Jewish people have suffered, too.

So, while we poked spheres of color into pockets--and debaters would step aside every few minutes to take cell messages, I side-stepped the anti-American barrage with mild-mannered equivocations.

They didn’t seem to really be asking for answers but only using me as a sort of political, Islamic piñata.

Gradually the conversation cooled, but then the guy wearing the old rap t-shirt asked “Why did have you come to Palestine? If you call it 'West Bank,' I'll punch you.”

Suddenly, the conversation was no longer impersonal insults; it got direct and personal.

Ismael started to come to my defense, even had the pool game stopped.

But I motioned, "No, let me respond. I'm a theist, a spiritual seeker, a Friend, and wanted to see the land where all 3 large monotheistic religions began. This brought forth mild surprise from a number of faces.

One perceptive youth who hadn't spoken yet, said, "It's more than 3; don't forget Baha'i."

"Very good point! I responded." And then continued telling them about my travels and background.

Only having been in the Middle East for a few months, I still didn’t grasp the real nature of religious people in Israel or the West Bank. How many Jews, how many Muslims, how many Christians really believed in their religious identities? Or were those only their cultural and political, often rancorous, worldview, not a thought-out lifestance.

These pool players, friends of Ismael, of course, were more religious, than the Jews on my kibbutz who were all hard atheists. One 45-year-old kibbutzim farmer worked on Jewish holy days, disking fields all day, working hard as ever on Yom Kippur, that most holy day of the Jewish calendar when no cars were seen on major highways, and even the most hardened secularist would at least reflect on his errors from the past year and make new resolutions.

But what of these modern Muslim youth with their cell phones? Only two months before, 5 Muslim fighters had come across the Jordan River and attacked 15 Jewish civilians in apartment buildings in Bet Shean just a mile and a half from the kibbutz farm where I lived and worked. Israelis reserve soldiers bullet-riddled the terrorists and fire-torched their bodies.

Would the young adult in the shades and rap shirt, who had verbally attacked me, soon pull a knife at a bus stop and stab an old Jewish lady or a Jewish child for Allah and Palestine? Or would he join a Muslim jihad organization such as HAMAS?

What did that even mean to them? Did they really believe in Allah?

While I ruminated on such questions in a side-part of my mind, I finished up with my explanation to them, "Last week while eating at a Palestinian restaurant in Jerusalem, there had been an Islamic plaque on the wall that said, "Islam is a religion of love." Would you agree with that?"

But what about the verses in the Quran which advocate the killing of Infidels—which means Jews, heretical Muslims, and us Americans. Or the drastic Quranic statement that at the end of the world Jews will try and hide behind rocks, but the stones will cry out and tell Muslims where Jews are hiding so they can be killed?"

Ismael glanced around toward the downstairs and at other buildings near the open terrace where we stood, and whispered to me, "It's best not to discuss Islam in a public place."

"Oh, okay. Sorry."

"So, what about girls?" I chuckled. "Is that an okay topic? Are you allowed to date as Muslims?"

"No," said Ismael and several others chimed in--no they "couldn’t date; dating isn't part of Islamic culture."

A stocky guy sitting near the edge of the roof on a hardwood chair and nursing his cell phone spoke up, "Look at Pakistan's Islamic government in the news today. They've banned Valentine's Day. Our government ought to do that, too."

"Not quite," said Ismael to the anti-Valentines youth. "Check the news, again. What happened is that the Islamabab High Court prohibited all Valentine’s Day festivities in government offices and public spaces and directs the media not to promote or cover Valentine’s Day."

Then Ismael turned back to me. “First, I must finish university and then build up a business--like my father did--so that I have a secure foundation; and then my family will arrange a wedding for me with a respectable girl."

“Really?” His conservative explanation jarred paradoxically with the lurid news I had read in the English-language Jerusalem Post the previous week. "What about several East Jerusalem youths who followed an American woman a couple weeks ago and attempted to fondle her as she walked down a windowless street? Many Muslim men seem to have a vulgar attitude toward women."

"Wade, keep in mind, young men here think all American women are like actors in Hollywood movies, loose and adulterous."

Finally, Ismael said it was time to go.

I thanked everyone for their hospitality, and added, "I'll work on improving my billiards' game." They laughed at that.

But at the door out, the stocky guy in the rap t-shirt walked up close to me and whispered.

"What?" I asked. I thought he was making another sarcastic comment, a parting shot at me and the U.S.--that I was getting verbally stoned, again.

But instead he repeated in a low voice, “Do you think you can get me an American visa?”


-Daniel Wilcox


In the Light, hoping for reconciliation for the Jewish and Palestinian peoples,

Daniel Wilcox

"The Past Is Never Dead" and the Great Hope of One Brief Essay

Is “it true that living in the past---to be a kind of…Miss Havisham—can be bad for the mind and the soul, preventing us from engaging in the battles and causes of our own time”?1

Depends on how long we live in the past and for what purpose. According to Jon Meacham, “When we are at our best, history and heroes enable us to look ahead, not backward. We are the sum of the stories we tell ourselves…memory” creates the present and then the future.

First the negative, then the positive, the hope:

“History is bunk. History is myth.”
Henry Ford

“…If you didn't know history, you didn't know anything. You were a leaf that didn't know it was part of a tree…The purpose of history is to explain the present…tells us what is to be ignored, or discarded. That is true power - profound power.”
Michael Crichton, Timeline

“History is a contest of evidence…like archaeology: you need to dig.”
Patrick Lockerby

An historian thinks about the "dead" past in order to reveal our relationship with a past that lives in us.
Anon.

“The past is never dead; it’s not even past.”
William Faulkner

Then quotes of hope:

“Stories are the center of the human condition. Everybody dreams. Try to dream in nonfiction.”
Jim Trelease

“If you believe the impossible, the incredible can come true.”
Phil Alden Robinson, Field of Dreams

And so forth, maybe…

“The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope.”
Winston Churchill

“…the past should give us hope”? How unlikely.
It’s been my avid vocation, but misfortune, to read hundreds of scholarly books on history, especially about Christianity. From Jesus Wars2 to the Great War to First-Strike Iraq, history of the Christian sort mostly brings tragic sorrow and despair. Not that Islamic or Hindu or secular history is any less horrific.

Another writer wrote that history is HISstory, meaning, of course, that history is God’s story—that God sovereignly ordained/caused/willed/predestined whatever has come to ‘past,’ and what is, and what will be.
3(To see my honest reaction to that statement see footnote.)Unlike what Churchill says ought to be, the more one reads the past, the more one’s hope will often fade, weighed down by millions of gutted bodies, of so many horrific wrong turns.

If it weren’t that “the past is never dead; it’s not even past” but very present, it would probably be better not know the despair of the past.

But, leave all of that in the past:-)

Here's a silver lining, a redemption of actions that show how one single action by one individual human--the writing of a brief essay--can bring great hope and change to the world.

How did Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and many other social reformers of the 20th century come to act as they did for peace, justice, and compassion?

The central past event was one short essay of American literature, "On Civil Disobedience," by Henry David Thoreau. This brief reflection written n 1848 against the U.S. invasion of Mexico, though unknown by most Americans, has had more impact on world history than all other American literature, except for the Declaration of Independence. And the essay continues to influence events and will do so into the future.


Follow the links to see how the essay has changed millions of peoples lives since it was written.

1848, New England
Written against the Mexican War and against slavery
|
1920-1948, India
Used by Gandhi to obtain freedom for India from England
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1938-1943, Germany
Considered by Bonhoeffer as a way to oppose Hitler
|
1950's, the World
Banned by every U.S. library around the world during McCarthyism
|
1954-1968, USA
Stated by King to be the central factor that moved him to help start the Civil Rights movement

|
1963-1974, USA
Used to oppose the Vietnam War
|
1955-1992, South Africa, USA
Method of opposition to oppose Apartheid of South African Government
|
1960-1990's, California
Adopted by Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers to seek just working conditions and pay

|
1960's-1998, USA
Practiced by both pro-abortion and anti-abortion groups
|
1950's-1990's, the World
Used by people to oppose nuclear weapons and chemical weapons

1990-to the Present
Used by protesters against oppression by both Palestinian and Israeli governments, against the Gulf War, First-Strike Invasion of Iraq, immigration deportation, economic disparity, etc.


What historical past has inspired you to live now and to hope for the future?

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

1"From The Stories We Tell Ourselves" by Jon Meacham, Newsweek, July 7, 2008
2Jesus Wars by Phillip Jenkins, a history of the twists and killings of early Christianity
3To hell with that. What an obscene joke.