Don’t miss reading the new article in FRIENDS JOURNAL on Ramallah Friends School about how differing peoples can bring new hope there.
FROM
Growing Hearts of Compassion
By Cliff Loesch
A Quaker Witness in the West Bank
FRIENDS JOURNAL (Go to that magazine to read the article.)
Brief quote:
“This past April, I visited Ramallah with a group of eight people from the United States and England who assembled with the common goal of serving as a Quaker pastoral presence for the Ramallah Friends School (RFS) community during these difficult days..
“…four different students reported on the visits of the teams to each of the four villages and summarized their findings. One of the presenters was Waseem… He told me that the first people their team spoke to in this village were the priest, an Orthodox Christian, and the imam. The basic message they heard from each of these religious leaders was, “We are friends! We spend time together! Our congregations do things together! We celebrate each other’s festivals!” This was really good news to hear….”
Don’t miss this hopeful article by Quaker leader Cliff Loesch in FRIENDS JOURNAL.
In the Light of Hope, Good, Equal, True, Just,
Daniel Wilcox
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Monday, September 29, 2025
Human History is Mostly an endless TELL of what NOT to do...
Our moral sensitivity about good versus evil on various actions didn’t come to us via tradition, revealed religion, our taste buds, the desire of our eyes, or some personal quirk, and certainly not from human instinct or matter and energy.
Moral concern, moral realism, is a transcendent “ought,” not a subjective “like” or “dislike.”
When it comes to the moral compass we are talking objective, transcendent truth. (Well, many humans are).
Other millions of modern people claim that morals, like personal preferences, are subjective, relative whether of the individual or a group or a nation.
But I wouldn’t characterize my own moral struggles of the last 67 years as battling over what I like or dislike. For instance, I like salmon, but can’t stand cow tongue (which I was required to eat as a kid growing up in Nebraska because we got over half a cow each year from our grandfather, and had to eat even the rubbery tongue and the gross tail). To each his own, when it comes to “like.”
In contrast, immoral actions (and attitudes) such as slavery, war, torture, molestation, rape, inequality, oppression, prejudice, greed, lust, promiscuity, jealousy, gossip, theft, lying, dishonesty, porn, obscenity, profanity, coveting, jealousy, selfishness, egotism, gossip, human sacrifice, cannibalism…most people will agree, (at least when these actions are done to them) that they are wrong.
In most cases of human moral choice, humans of the present generation don’t need to reinvent the moral wheel of truth. We’ve had the basics of moral realism since the some society’s early bronze age rules, and the Jewish 10 Commandments,
since Buddhism’s moral precepts, since Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13, James, and many other passages from other holy books for thousands of years!
Where is the failing then?
In the carrying out of the moral truths, in the applying of the truths we expect others to observe in how we ourselves behave.
True sometimes, our moral blindness leads us astray such as when the Christian leader Robert E. Lee, for instance, spoke of how we should love our enemies as Christ said, yet was himself largely responsible for hundreds of thousands of humans being slaughtered, and many hundreds of thousands being wounded (and by devout Christians in the North who refused to let Southerners secede)!
What was their excuse?
Lee did this in defense against the invading army, the Union forces who invaded his state, his county, his home (even stealing family treasures).
Or when Christian Americans slaughter nearly half a million human civilians and declare this justified!
Or when Christian manufacturers put Bible verses on the barrel of assault guns which are used to kill others! Or when...
Or when ‘revealed religious leaders state that they should love their enemies personally, but that they ought to hate and destroy their enemies for God and country.
Yes, there are multi millions of cases back through religious histories including creedal Christian history which show humans of good will who violated the most basic of moral laws because they did it in the name of Jesus or...
And then there plenty of modern secular leaders who claim there are no moral truths.
In contrast, there are flawed moral leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. who state moral law is transcendent (fMLK—"I’m here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. Yes, eternally so, absolutely so. It’s wrong to hate. Yes, That’s right. It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong. (Amen) It’s wrong in America, it’s wrong in Germany, it’s wrong in Russia, it’s wrong in China. It was wrong in 2000 B.C., and it’s wrong in 1954 A.D. It always has been wrong, (That’s right) and it always will be wrong.
"(That’s right) It’s wrong to throw our lives away in riotous living. (Yeah) No matter if everybody in Detroit is doing it, it’s wrong. (Yes) It always will be wrong, and it always has been wrong. It’s wrong in every age and it’s wrong in every nation. Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute….And so long as we adopt this relative attitude toward right and wrong, we’re revolting against the very laws of God himself. (Amen)… This universe hinges on moral foundations… God has made the universe to be based on a moral law.” from “Rediscovering Lost Values”)
How can we know--prove--for sure that some actions are inherently evil, some transcendently good?
We can’t, unfortunately. We can’t prove the truth of moral realism. We can’t know. Not in the sense of factuality such as that 1,000 plus 1,000 equals 2,000 or in the sense that we can verify that the earth is a sphere, not a flat land.
In fact, even more disconcertingly, there is some experiential evidence which seems to deny the truth of moral realism.
But (with the exception of some hard Atheists, some Augustinian-Reformed and Islamic leaders), the vast majority of humans at present do think slavery is inherently evil—that the claim and act of “owning” another human being as a tool, as an object (rather than a person with inherent worth) is very immoral. Such an institution as slavery denies equality. But we need to keep in mind that for thousands of years equality wasn’t considered truth. Even as recently as 150 years ago famous Calvinist theologians such as R.L. Dabney wrote extensively (even after the Civil War ended!) showing that there was nothing wrong with slavery.
Furthermore, secular leaders and scientists have long held that “equality” doesn’t exist in nature, that existence is based on “survival,” this most famously stated in the theory of natural selection.
Simply observe how cats treat birds or what happens when dogs, even on leases spot each other in the street—seldom any equality. It’s usually about power, not sharing.
Even in the Jewish Bible the law emphasized that if an owner of a slave beats his slave so the slave dies a couple of days later, there is to be no punishment of the owner because the slave was his “property” Exodus 21:20-21 NAB
And the Torah emphasizes that a Hebrew slave owner has the right to pass slaves down to his kids (Leviticus 25:44-46 HCSB. But what then?
If there is no basis for objective ethics in nature and religious books often give the wrong answers, how do we go about living morally?
We discover and moral truth in a way like a tiny coral lives atop a coral reef:-)
In this existence we billions of human primates are but small finite coral on a great barrier coral reef which holds back the onslaught of Nature’s typhoon rampages, human instinctive desires bloated by selfishness and pride.
Deism, Fundamentalism, Friends-Brethren, key Scriptural passages on moral realism in such as 1 Corinthians 13, the Sermon on the Mount, James, etc.
Of course, this coral reef perception/awareness isn’t always upward and beautiful. As cited above, spiritual blindness can mislead us such as when Christians over the centuries have slaughtered millions of other humans in the name of Jesus Christ (such as when creedal Roman Catholic Bernard of C., who was known as the speaker of love called on Catholics to slaughter in the name of Jesus and when Martin Luther called on the princes to kill, slay, and “wash their hands in the peasants’ blood.” And, when most Christian leaders burned heretics at the stake, etc.
And, currently when “born-again evangelical Christians” advocate immoral actions in the name of politics which are contrary to Jesus’ clear moral truths. Still, over all in every generation, some humans do experience the blessed hope of moral realism and share moral good actions and oppose all the immoral and unjust actions.
Let’s take a more specific look at the issue of equality and how I ended up, a tiny living coral in the early 1950’s coming to a strong stand for equality, even though so many millions of Christians during that time actually were very against equality. And, even today in the 21st century the Russian Orthodox Church opposes human equality and justify the slaughter of innocent Ukrainian civilians!
It’s all about looking backward down the reef of moral realism.
Secondly, this question is one of theodicy, too.
We could ask why God didn’t supply humans with accurate moral guidance from the beginning some 200,000 years ago?
But then, God. also didn’t give us knowledge of disease and how to overcome it, and thus protect billions of humans from excruciating deaths in epidemics such as the Black Plague.
For whatever reason, God requires us human primates to seek, and study, and find solutions on our own. Moral realism is a ‘coral reef’ experience to be sought with reason, experience, intuition, and history.
Like Martin Luther King pointed out, “I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him.”
In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox
Moral concern, moral realism, is a transcendent “ought,” not a subjective “like” or “dislike.”
When it comes to the moral compass we are talking objective, transcendent truth. (Well, many humans are).
Other millions of modern people claim that morals, like personal preferences, are subjective, relative whether of the individual or a group or a nation.
But I wouldn’t characterize my own moral struggles of the last 67 years as battling over what I like or dislike. For instance, I like salmon, but can’t stand cow tongue (which I was required to eat as a kid growing up in Nebraska because we got over half a cow each year from our grandfather, and had to eat even the rubbery tongue and the gross tail). To each his own, when it comes to “like.”
In contrast, immoral actions (and attitudes) such as slavery, war, torture, molestation, rape, inequality, oppression, prejudice, greed, lust, promiscuity, jealousy, gossip, theft, lying, dishonesty, porn, obscenity, profanity, coveting, jealousy, selfishness, egotism, gossip, human sacrifice, cannibalism…most people will agree, (at least when these actions are done to them) that they are wrong.
In most cases of human moral choice, humans of the present generation don’t need to reinvent the moral wheel of truth. We’ve had the basics of moral realism since the some society’s early bronze age rules, and the Jewish 10 Commandments,
since Buddhism’s moral precepts, since Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13, James, and many other passages from other holy books for thousands of years!
Where is the failing then?
In the carrying out of the moral truths, in the applying of the truths we expect others to observe in how we ourselves behave.
True sometimes, our moral blindness leads us astray such as when the Christian leader Robert E. Lee, for instance, spoke of how we should love our enemies as Christ said, yet was himself largely responsible for hundreds of thousands of humans being slaughtered, and many hundreds of thousands being wounded (and by devout Christians in the North who refused to let Southerners secede)!
What was their excuse?
Lee did this in defense against the invading army, the Union forces who invaded his state, his county, his home (even stealing family treasures).
Or when Christian Americans slaughter nearly half a million human civilians and declare this justified!
Or when Christian manufacturers put Bible verses on the barrel of assault guns which are used to kill others! Or when...
Or when ‘revealed religious leaders state that they should love their enemies personally, but that they ought to hate and destroy their enemies for God and country.
Yes, there are multi millions of cases back through religious histories including creedal Christian history which show humans of good will who violated the most basic of moral laws because they did it in the name of Jesus or...
And then there plenty of modern secular leaders who claim there are no moral truths.
In contrast, there are flawed moral leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. who state moral law is transcendent (fMLK—"I’m here to say to you this morning that some things are right and some things are wrong. Yes, eternally so, absolutely so. It’s wrong to hate. Yes, That’s right. It always has been wrong and it always will be wrong. (Amen) It’s wrong in America, it’s wrong in Germany, it’s wrong in Russia, it’s wrong in China. It was wrong in 2000 B.C., and it’s wrong in 1954 A.D. It always has been wrong, (That’s right) and it always will be wrong.
"(That’s right) It’s wrong to throw our lives away in riotous living. (Yeah) No matter if everybody in Detroit is doing it, it’s wrong. (Yes) It always will be wrong, and it always has been wrong. It’s wrong in every age and it’s wrong in every nation. Some things are right and some things are wrong, no matter if everybody is doing the contrary. Some things in this universe are absolute….And so long as we adopt this relative attitude toward right and wrong, we’re revolting against the very laws of God himself. (Amen)… This universe hinges on moral foundations… God has made the universe to be based on a moral law.” from “Rediscovering Lost Values”)
How can we know--prove--for sure that some actions are inherently evil, some transcendently good?
We can’t, unfortunately. We can’t prove the truth of moral realism. We can’t know. Not in the sense of factuality such as that 1,000 plus 1,000 equals 2,000 or in the sense that we can verify that the earth is a sphere, not a flat land.
In fact, even more disconcertingly, there is some experiential evidence which seems to deny the truth of moral realism.
But (with the exception of some hard Atheists, some Augustinian-Reformed and Islamic leaders), the vast majority of humans at present do think slavery is inherently evil—that the claim and act of “owning” another human being as a tool, as an object (rather than a person with inherent worth) is very immoral. Such an institution as slavery denies equality. But we need to keep in mind that for thousands of years equality wasn’t considered truth. Even as recently as 150 years ago famous Calvinist theologians such as R.L. Dabney wrote extensively (even after the Civil War ended!) showing that there was nothing wrong with slavery.
Furthermore, secular leaders and scientists have long held that “equality” doesn’t exist in nature, that existence is based on “survival,” this most famously stated in the theory of natural selection.
Simply observe how cats treat birds or what happens when dogs, even on leases spot each other in the street—seldom any equality. It’s usually about power, not sharing.
Even in the Jewish Bible the law emphasized that if an owner of a slave beats his slave so the slave dies a couple of days later, there is to be no punishment of the owner because the slave was his “property” Exodus 21:20-21 NAB
And the Torah emphasizes that a Hebrew slave owner has the right to pass slaves down to his kids (Leviticus 25:44-46 HCSB. But what then?
If there is no basis for objective ethics in nature and religious books often give the wrong answers, how do we go about living morally?
We discover and moral truth in a way like a tiny coral lives atop a coral reef:-)
In this existence we billions of human primates are but small finite coral on a great barrier coral reef which holds back the onslaught of Nature’s typhoon rampages, human instinctive desires bloated by selfishness and pride.
Deism, Fundamentalism, Friends-Brethren, key Scriptural passages on moral realism in such as 1 Corinthians 13, the Sermon on the Mount, James, etc.
Of course, this coral reef perception/awareness isn’t always upward and beautiful. As cited above, spiritual blindness can mislead us such as when Christians over the centuries have slaughtered millions of other humans in the name of Jesus Christ (such as when creedal Roman Catholic Bernard of C., who was known as the speaker of love called on Catholics to slaughter in the name of Jesus and when Martin Luther called on the princes to kill, slay, and “wash their hands in the peasants’ blood.” And, when most Christian leaders burned heretics at the stake, etc.
And, currently when “born-again evangelical Christians” advocate immoral actions in the name of politics which are contrary to Jesus’ clear moral truths. Still, over all in every generation, some humans do experience the blessed hope of moral realism and share moral good actions and oppose all the immoral and unjust actions.
Let’s take a more specific look at the issue of equality and how I ended up, a tiny living coral in the early 1950’s coming to a strong stand for equality, even though so many millions of Christians during that time actually were very against equality. And, even today in the 21st century the Russian Orthodox Church opposes human equality and justify the slaughter of innocent Ukrainian civilians!
It’s all about looking backward down the reef of moral realism.
Secondly, this question is one of theodicy, too.
We could ask why God didn’t supply humans with accurate moral guidance from the beginning some 200,000 years ago?
But then, God. also didn’t give us knowledge of disease and how to overcome it, and thus protect billions of humans from excruciating deaths in epidemics such as the Black Plague.
For whatever reason, God requires us human primates to seek, and study, and find solutions on our own. Moral realism is a ‘coral reef’ experience to be sought with reason, experience, intuition, and history.
Like Martin Luther King pointed out, “I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the 'isness' of man's present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness' that forever confronts him.”
In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox
Friday, August 29, 2025
Presence Transcends
Presence transcends
Drowned in family tragedy, despairing, distraught--
that morning earlier;
thus down encumbered,
he came to worship meeting, but not speaking
of his family’s severe circumstance, kept that hidden;
But in the midst
of open expectant communion, Transcendent Light, broke through tragedy— when another Quaker suddenly started singing,
a cappella spiritual chorus--
a deep songing deepening within;
intense meaning lifted us gathered in invisible communion--
vivid encouraging Hope;
That sacred chorus didn’t negate shattered-glass
lives, nor end countless distraught
circumstances and heartaches--
but
Oh, what Hope
Fulled us up within.
In the Light of the Good, the True, the Just,
Daniel Wilcox
Drowned in family tragedy, despairing, distraught--
that morning earlier;
thus down encumbered,
he came to worship meeting, but not speaking
of his family’s severe circumstance, kept that hidden;
But in the midst
of open expectant communion, Transcendent Light, broke through tragedy— when another Quaker suddenly started singing,
a cappella spiritual chorus--
a deep songing deepening within;
intense meaning lifted us gathered in invisible communion--
vivid encouraging Hope;
That sacred chorus didn’t negate shattered-glass
lives, nor end countless distraught
circumstances and heartaches--
but
Oh, what Hope
Fulled us up within.
In the Light of the Good, the True, the Just,
Daniel Wilcox
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
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
#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
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
The Difficulties of Thinking that Quakerism is the Truth
Does God exist creating, bringing order and goodness and beauty out of chaos?
One Huge difficulty of the Hope of Quakerism...
“…a caring loving God "could" exist.”
by agnostic Edward T. Babinski
“1) despite the fact that incessant suffering and death appear to have been a necessary part of the very process that eventually brought forth the evolutionary tree of life including the primate and human branches of the evolutionary tree,
"2) and despite billions of years of physical death and increasing awareness of pain and suffering by living organisms, including our stone age ancestors having to struggle just to discover basic comforts like fire, or which plants were poisonous, or the wheel, or agriculture, and a thousand other things that eventually made Randal's (and mine) present time and place on earth seem so wonderful in comparison with past ages.
"Even in our current era of pre-natal medical exams, obstetrical nutrition and exercise science, half of all human zygotes never develop all the way to achieving the birth of another human being, and the woman may not even know she's lost the zygote or early embryo. And prior to the development of vaccines and antibiotics, half of all human beings never made it past the age of eight-years-old.
"3) and despite humans having shown up at the last second of cosmic time, extreme latecomers in the cosmos (who also remain at risk via human-made and natural dangers of becoming extinct the next second of cosmic time, mere flashes in the pan).
“But...
“given that kind of evidence from nature, such evidence makes it appear like whatever "God" may exist, that such a God is at best a distant and aloof figure who simply tossed each generation of "his children" into the water to see if they could swim.
“The children who tread water a bit longer than the rest before drowning are like those organisms in nature who survived long enough to breed the next generation, etc.
“Which is to say that a compassionate God might still exist who pins a medal on everyone's chest, maybe even Koko the gorilla's chest, after they wind their way through their limited lifetime in this cosmos.
“A life where one's knowledge and experiences are limited by one's place of birth and the culture into which one is born, where we each have limited time for study, and limited vision as to what lay on the other side of the metaphysical curtain, as well as living in a world containing a plethora of holy books and an even greater number of books containing rival interpretations of them.
“And one must add to such "less than good" circumstances the countless non-religious obligations one must expend time fulfilling daily just to survive -- in a world already clouded and crowded with ignorance, waves of emotion, headaches, backaches, toothaches, strains, scrapes, breaks, cuts, rashes, burns, bruises, PMS, fatigue, hunger, odors, molds, colds, yeast, parasites, viruses, cancers,
“genetic defects, blindness, deafness, paralysis, mental illness, ugliness, ignorance, miscommunications, embarrassments, unrequited love, dashed hopes, boredom, hard labor, repetitious labor, accidents, wars, PTSD, old age, senility, fires, floods, earthquakes, typhoons, tornadoes, hurricanes and volcanoes.
“Knowing all such limitations and the full spectrum of suffering and ignorance, I certainly don't see what rational sense it makes....”
Edward T. Babinski
Daniel Wilcox replied,
You wrote, "given that kind of evidence from nature, such evidence makes it appear like whatever "God" may exist, that such a God is at best a distant and aloof figure who simply tossed each generation of "his children" into the water to see if they could swim..."
I agree the view that God of all of the Omnis (most of creedal Christianity, Orthodox Islam, and Orthodox Judaism) seems to drown in inherent contradictions, especially related to the horrific nature of survival of the fittest, seemingly purposeless natural evil, and genocides of humans.
But it seems that Charles Hartshorne, Whitehead, Plato, some Jewish thinkers, Martin Gardner, etc. have made a fairly good case that God may exist in a more limited sense,
that God IS
"becoming" is gradually influencing the somewhat chaotic nature (at least from the viewpoint of humans) of existence toward more and more goodness, justice, and beauty.
It is true that there are huge swaths of "parasites, viruses, cancers, genetic defects, blindness, deafness, paralysis, mental illness, ugliness..."
But math, reason, the scientific method, creativity, purpose, meaning, consciousness, kindness, compassion, generosity, justice, human rights, ecological concern, etc.
Do Exist
too.
The reason I am not an atheist, besides the fact that I don’t KNOW the ultimate nature of Realty, I do not define my view of Reality by a negative definition but by the creative moral and rational positives of Reality.
And, far too many atheists claim that morality isn’t real, that HUMANS HAVE NO INHERENT WORTH, and that even our consciousness is an illusion.
Maybe so, but I strongly doubt it. It makes more far rational sense to think that Reality is TRANSCENDENT, NOT omly matter and energy. That G_D is still creating, bringing order and goodness and beauty out of chaos.
In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox
One Huge difficulty of the Hope of Quakerism...
“…a caring loving God "could" exist.”
by agnostic Edward T. Babinski
“1) despite the fact that incessant suffering and death appear to have been a necessary part of the very process that eventually brought forth the evolutionary tree of life including the primate and human branches of the evolutionary tree,
"2) and despite billions of years of physical death and increasing awareness of pain and suffering by living organisms, including our stone age ancestors having to struggle just to discover basic comforts like fire, or which plants were poisonous, or the wheel, or agriculture, and a thousand other things that eventually made Randal's (and mine) present time and place on earth seem so wonderful in comparison with past ages.
"Even in our current era of pre-natal medical exams, obstetrical nutrition and exercise science, half of all human zygotes never develop all the way to achieving the birth of another human being, and the woman may not even know she's lost the zygote or early embryo. And prior to the development of vaccines and antibiotics, half of all human beings never made it past the age of eight-years-old.
"3) and despite humans having shown up at the last second of cosmic time, extreme latecomers in the cosmos (who also remain at risk via human-made and natural dangers of becoming extinct the next second of cosmic time, mere flashes in the pan).
“But...
“given that kind of evidence from nature, such evidence makes it appear like whatever "God" may exist, that such a God is at best a distant and aloof figure who simply tossed each generation of "his children" into the water to see if they could swim.
“The children who tread water a bit longer than the rest before drowning are like those organisms in nature who survived long enough to breed the next generation, etc.
“Which is to say that a compassionate God might still exist who pins a medal on everyone's chest, maybe even Koko the gorilla's chest, after they wind their way through their limited lifetime in this cosmos.
“A life where one's knowledge and experiences are limited by one's place of birth and the culture into which one is born, where we each have limited time for study, and limited vision as to what lay on the other side of the metaphysical curtain, as well as living in a world containing a plethora of holy books and an even greater number of books containing rival interpretations of them.
“And one must add to such "less than good" circumstances the countless non-religious obligations one must expend time fulfilling daily just to survive -- in a world already clouded and crowded with ignorance, waves of emotion, headaches, backaches, toothaches, strains, scrapes, breaks, cuts, rashes, burns, bruises, PMS, fatigue, hunger, odors, molds, colds, yeast, parasites, viruses, cancers,
“genetic defects, blindness, deafness, paralysis, mental illness, ugliness, ignorance, miscommunications, embarrassments, unrequited love, dashed hopes, boredom, hard labor, repetitious labor, accidents, wars, PTSD, old age, senility, fires, floods, earthquakes, typhoons, tornadoes, hurricanes and volcanoes.
“Knowing all such limitations and the full spectrum of suffering and ignorance, I certainly don't see what rational sense it makes....”
Edward T. Babinski
Daniel Wilcox replied,
You wrote, "given that kind of evidence from nature, such evidence makes it appear like whatever "God" may exist, that such a God is at best a distant and aloof figure who simply tossed each generation of "his children" into the water to see if they could swim..."
I agree the view that God of all of the Omnis (most of creedal Christianity, Orthodox Islam, and Orthodox Judaism) seems to drown in inherent contradictions, especially related to the horrific nature of survival of the fittest, seemingly purposeless natural evil, and genocides of humans.
But it seems that Charles Hartshorne, Whitehead, Plato, some Jewish thinkers, Martin Gardner, etc. have made a fairly good case that God may exist in a more limited sense,
that God IS
"becoming" is gradually influencing the somewhat chaotic nature (at least from the viewpoint of humans) of existence toward more and more goodness, justice, and beauty.
It is true that there are huge swaths of "parasites, viruses, cancers, genetic defects, blindness, deafness, paralysis, mental illness, ugliness..."
But math, reason, the scientific method, creativity, purpose, meaning, consciousness, kindness, compassion, generosity, justice, human rights, ecological concern, etc.
Do Exist
too.
The reason I am not an atheist, besides the fact that I don’t KNOW the ultimate nature of Realty, I do not define my view of Reality by a negative definition but by the creative moral and rational positives of Reality.
And, far too many atheists claim that morality isn’t real, that HUMANS HAVE NO INHERENT WORTH, and that even our consciousness is an illusion.
Maybe so, but I strongly doubt it. It makes more far rational sense to think that Reality is TRANSCENDENT, NOT omly matter and energy. That G_D is still creating, bringing order and goodness and beauty out of chaos.
In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox
Tuesday, July 1, 2025
The Nature of Human Children
What is an infant?
Don't ask theologians or become entangled in illusions and delusions, long-winded metaphysical splits/spit;-) of religious thinking. Even some Quakers in the U.S. and Britain have been adopting Augustinian untruths about young humans!
Let us, instead, realize each baby is a gift from the Light.
Human beings at birth are neither divine nor depraved. A baby is a natural offspring of a primate species. Uniquely, she has the potential to grow spiritually--to seek the Good, the True, the Just...and to create herself and bring newness and improvements into existence. Human primates have been created with a sense of morality and transcencence.
What a wonder each infant is!
I recently held my 6th new born grandchild. Experientially, the moment was blessed. How perfect her tiny living body. What a true gift from the Light.
But a little later, when she got hungry, wow, what lungs and what a puckered face she suddenly developed!
I must admit, I don't think something called a "soul" enters a baby at conception, or for that matter anytime later.
At conception a new life begins with amazing characteristics from the genes of her/his ancestors. At conception, the life appears to have no awareness. But brain wave activity begins early in the womb.
Even after birth, however, a baby is sort of an eating and pooping blob;-) She has awareness, but probably not much except she wants to be fed, and fed now!
Then gradually her awareness grows month after month. Finally she becomes self-conscious. Then later her sense of conscience develops.
Finally, an awareness of her finiteness and the mystery of existence comes into her consciousness.
No, a baby doesn’t come into the world a walking, talking, mentally active philosopher/theologian/moralist/saint.
On the contrary she is a living breathing consciousness at the most simple level.
As she grows in the next 6 to 7 years in her consciousness, self-awareness, and her moral conscience develops with a sense of ought, then she will become a moral and spiritual individual who acts. Sometimes she will fail, sometimes "miss the mark."
But even then she is still an innocent child struggling to function and to understand and to fulfill needs and desires and hopes, and the demands of the big people in her life.
Is not this the stage that Jesus referred to when he said those who enter the Kingdom of God must do so as a little child? And where he said to people to let little children come to him for of such is the Kingdom?
And this was my own personal experience—when so young. I don’t remember being a sinnig child that many religionists claim all babies and small children are.
Instead, as far back as I can remember, I had very deep desires to do good, to be good, to know God and to love him. And I had a lot of childlike wonder questions about God, life, others…always asking why about everything:-)
Of course the slither of wrong thought, wrong action, wrong living does come to us all, but not yet.
A child's awareness will grow if she is introduced to God and is shown her responsibility to share, to think of others and their needs, even though she still doesn’t voluntarily give outwardly if it is to her own privation.
Finally, the moral consciousness kicks in mid-childhood. At each given moment, there will be a tussle between her babyhood past (all spontaneous need and desire) and her adulthood future (potentially all give and bliss).
At that moment by moment juncture—that possibility moment--she must make continual ethical, spiritual decisions. She is finite and so will make mistakes and fail. She is learning in her emotions, her mind, her conscience, and her body as she moves through time.
Her choices are a much more complicated version of the way she learned to walk and to talk 3 years earlier--by trial and error.
But now a new possibility rears its ugly or saintly head. If she doesn’t continue to develop holistically, widening outwardly her care, her helpfulness, her compassion, then she slows, stalls, or even regresses backward to a total need/want level.
However, since she isn’t an infant but has the outer body and will and growing mental ability of a 6 or 7 year old, her regression hurts herself and others.
To try and fulfill life as a growing child, by returning to the barely conscious self-focused life of an infant actually distorts life and will bring harm to others to varying degrees.
Continued growing, in contrast, takes her through new stages of human development and new challenges. Each developmental advance brings new ethical and spiritual choices—either good or bad, advancing or regressing or a combination of both.
As anyone knows, when climbing a mountain, the higher one goes the more dangerous the climb becomes—not because the action of climbing mountains is evil, or because individuals who climb mountains are depraved sinful beings, but because the very nature of going "higher" also offers more options of choosing.
Some of the ways are wrong, even could cause one to plummet to the bottom. Some of the ways are right, and lead toward the peak.
When a small child cries when she hungry or grabs another child's food that doesn’t show she is sinning.
On the contrary, that is how G_D created children. If a 4-year-old child throws a tantrum and takes her little brother’s bottle because she thinks she isn’t getting enough attention from her parents, while her action is wrong and to be corrected, she hasn't failed because she hasn’t developed enough in her conscious awareness and moral conscience to make altruistic decisions.
However, if at 8, she hides her little brother’s medicine, because she wants all the attention instead, this is very wrong because by then her mental, moral conscience has developed enough to know that her action isn't the right way to get attention.
And, besides, by this point she should be widening her compassion and care for others out beyond her own needs and desires.
If at 18, she steals her younger sister’s boyfriend to build up her own ego, very deep wrong has occurred. By 22, if she joins with her countrymen and demonizes another country and lies, steals, and kills the enemies, we do have actions of evil;
just as if in contrast,
she joins an outreach organization such as Habitat for Humanity or World Vision and sacrifices her time, talent, and money and inspires her younger sister to do so as well; then we have actions of goodness.
Then the two sisters think of a way to get other people in their neighborhood, school, and city to get involved. One such inspired girl, about 13 years of age, raised thousands of dollars for starving, hurting people in a far off country.
See how the moral growth of human beings happens. A human being is in process from simple surviving to becoming the liver of moral truth.
Now that is the beginning of good news. Reminds me of several of Jesus’ moral speeches...
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
Let us, instead, realize each baby is a gift from the Light.
Human beings at birth are neither divine nor depraved. A baby is a natural offspring of a primate species. Uniquely, she has the potential to grow spiritually--to seek the Good, the True, the Just...and to create herself and bring newness and improvements into existence. Human primates have been created with a sense of morality and transcencence.
What a wonder each infant is!
I recently held my 6th new born grandchild. Experientially, the moment was blessed. How perfect her tiny living body. What a true gift from the Light.
But a little later, when she got hungry, wow, what lungs and what a puckered face she suddenly developed!
I must admit, I don't think something called a "soul" enters a baby at conception, or for that matter anytime later.
At conception a new life begins with amazing characteristics from the genes of her/his ancestors. At conception, the life appears to have no awareness. But brain wave activity begins early in the womb.
Even after birth, however, a baby is sort of an eating and pooping blob;-) She has awareness, but probably not much except she wants to be fed, and fed now!
Then gradually her awareness grows month after month. Finally she becomes self-conscious. Then later her sense of conscience develops.
Finally, an awareness of her finiteness and the mystery of existence comes into her consciousness.
No, a baby doesn’t come into the world a walking, talking, mentally active philosopher/theologian/moralist/saint.
On the contrary she is a living breathing consciousness at the most simple level.
As she grows in the next 6 to 7 years in her consciousness, self-awareness, and her moral conscience develops with a sense of ought, then she will become a moral and spiritual individual who acts. Sometimes she will fail, sometimes "miss the mark."
But even then she is still an innocent child struggling to function and to understand and to fulfill needs and desires and hopes, and the demands of the big people in her life.
Is not this the stage that Jesus referred to when he said those who enter the Kingdom of God must do so as a little child? And where he said to people to let little children come to him for of such is the Kingdom?
And this was my own personal experience—when so young. I don’t remember being a sinnig child that many religionists claim all babies and small children are.
Instead, as far back as I can remember, I had very deep desires to do good, to be good, to know God and to love him. And I had a lot of childlike wonder questions about God, life, others…always asking why about everything:-)
Of course the slither of wrong thought, wrong action, wrong living does come to us all, but not yet.
A child's awareness will grow if she is introduced to God and is shown her responsibility to share, to think of others and their needs, even though she still doesn’t voluntarily give outwardly if it is to her own privation.
Finally, the moral consciousness kicks in mid-childhood. At each given moment, there will be a tussle between her babyhood past (all spontaneous need and desire) and her adulthood future (potentially all give and bliss).
At that moment by moment juncture—that possibility moment--she must make continual ethical, spiritual decisions. She is finite and so will make mistakes and fail. She is learning in her emotions, her mind, her conscience, and her body as she moves through time.
Her choices are a much more complicated version of the way she learned to walk and to talk 3 years earlier--by trial and error.
But now a new possibility rears its ugly or saintly head. If she doesn’t continue to develop holistically, widening outwardly her care, her helpfulness, her compassion, then she slows, stalls, or even regresses backward to a total need/want level.
However, since she isn’t an infant but has the outer body and will and growing mental ability of a 6 or 7 year old, her regression hurts herself and others.
To try and fulfill life as a growing child, by returning to the barely conscious self-focused life of an infant actually distorts life and will bring harm to others to varying degrees.
Continued growing, in contrast, takes her through new stages of human development and new challenges. Each developmental advance brings new ethical and spiritual choices—either good or bad, advancing or regressing or a combination of both.
As anyone knows, when climbing a mountain, the higher one goes the more dangerous the climb becomes—not because the action of climbing mountains is evil, or because individuals who climb mountains are depraved sinful beings, but because the very nature of going "higher" also offers more options of choosing.
Some of the ways are wrong, even could cause one to plummet to the bottom. Some of the ways are right, and lead toward the peak.
When a small child cries when she hungry or grabs another child's food that doesn’t show she is sinning.
On the contrary, that is how G_D created children. If a 4-year-old child throws a tantrum and takes her little brother’s bottle because she thinks she isn’t getting enough attention from her parents, while her action is wrong and to be corrected, she hasn't failed because she hasn’t developed enough in her conscious awareness and moral conscience to make altruistic decisions.
However, if at 8, she hides her little brother’s medicine, because she wants all the attention instead, this is very wrong because by then her mental, moral conscience has developed enough to know that her action isn't the right way to get attention.
And, besides, by this point she should be widening her compassion and care for others out beyond her own needs and desires.
If at 18, she steals her younger sister’s boyfriend to build up her own ego, very deep wrong has occurred. By 22, if she joins with her countrymen and demonizes another country and lies, steals, and kills the enemies, we do have actions of evil;
just as if in contrast,
she joins an outreach organization such as Habitat for Humanity or World Vision and sacrifices her time, talent, and money and inspires her younger sister to do so as well; then we have actions of goodness.
Then the two sisters think of a way to get other people in their neighborhood, school, and city to get involved. One such inspired girl, about 13 years of age, raised thousands of dollars for starving, hurting people in a far off country.
See how the moral growth of human beings happens. A human being is in process from simple surviving to becoming the liver of moral truth.
Now that is the beginning of good news. Reminds me of several of Jesus’ moral speeches...
In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Danger of the Cliché, “to love”
Christians for many centuries, over and over, have stated, "God is love." Most famously, St. Augustine said, "Love God and do as you like."
All this sounds so good, so pious, so wonderful,
but, tragically, like so many philosophical and moral assertions, the devil is in the details:-(--
not the God of Jesus.
The same St. Augustine of the famous "love" quote supported the persecution of other Christians, torture, killing, etc.
Augustine abandoned his common-law wife of 10 years, with plans to marry an aristocratic Roman lady instead.
From 300 A.D down through hundreds of years of cruelty, abuse, intolerance, injustice, and slaughter to the present, 2025, Christian denominations in the name of "love" have committed horrific actions.
Millions of humans have been slaughtered, burned, hanged, shot, bombed, and drowned--all in the name of Jesus and this religious ideal of Christian "love." A Roman Catholic leader. Bernard of Clairvaux, often called the apostle of love called forth the 2nd Crusade!
A more recent American case is that of devout Christian soldier Stonewall Jackson who ordered the death of many thousands during the American Civil War. And the chaplain of his army, the famous R. L. Dabney, not only strongly supported this ‘Christian’ war, but American slavery, even publishing a study after the Civil War defending enslavement!
They gave all thanks to Jesus Christ and God for their killing successes, and yet at the same time, emphasized the importance of love to God and others. Read the excellent and powerful biography, Stonewall Jackson: Portrait of a Soldier by John Bowers.
In a secular sense, General Jackson was a great war general! And what a devout believer and how personable and kind to those of his own kin and group.
But what a ruthless killer of others, and in his killing, he gave all the praise for his winning battles to the Christian God! He often prayed, worshiped, and read his Bible in the midst of lethal fighting!
Not that Christianity has a corner on these strange demonstrations of "love." When I lived in the Middle East, I visited a Palaestinian restaurant. On the wall was a sign which listed all the characteristics of love in Islam.
Yet, then (and in the past and now)multi-millions of Muslims quote the Qur'an and the Hadith to justify slaughtering enemy civilians.
“So it goes.”
(quoting the satirist, Kurtr Vonnegut).
And check out secular history. Humanists who reject religion for all its horrors, also, often define "love" as a worthy human goal, yet their actions are contrary to love, too.
Here’s a minor example of how “empty bucket” the word “love” is. Back during my university days (late 60's), Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlavsky came to the University of Nebraska to do a poetry reading. Allen kept emphasizing that "love" is the answer to the world's problems.
I, a naive, college student from a small village in southeast Nebraska was impressed,
but an older student and former beatnik told me, "Don't to be deceived."
Later I learned how deceptive these new age leaders' talk of "love" was. One of the young girls in our college group was, allegedly, left pregnant and alone by Orlavsky who moved on with Ginsberg to their next poetry readings.
Young men of other worldviews tried to persuade us that a man could have multiple relationships with women and it was "love."
Forget all the tragic results of these "love" affairs.
And since then, all manner of distortions continue to be put forth as "loving" up to 2025.
Thinkers have even claimed the intentional carpet bomb killing of hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians, including children, fire fighters, doctors, etc. is an action of love and justice!
And more and more, acts of euthanasia, abortion, lust, etc. are said to be expressions of love!
Indeed, the devil is in the details. Evil hogs them.
Why is it God always gets left holding the bag of evil?
Enough of the very bad news!
What is the nature of true caring--the kind that doesn't result in hell on earth?
The great Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh gives some very good clear examples if you wish a definition which isn't centered in the New Testament. However, since I am a Friend of Jesus, that is where I find my understanding of what love is.
Check out Luke 10:27. Jesus said, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."
Well, the problem is still in the details again though, because most of the leaders, warriors, slave-owners,abusers, immoral and unjust individuals etc. of the last 2,000 years have claimed to believe Jesus' words, indeed have done their evil with this verse on their lips, praying to Jesus and reading the Bible as they did their horrific deeds.
So, we need to go deeper.
A lawyer questions Jesus--sounds legalistic doesn't it--asking exactly, "WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?"
(Remember, in Jewish culture, men wouldn't even eat with Gentiles!)
Jesus reverses the thinking of humans such as that lawyer by giving the Parable of the Good Samaritan, pointing out we should be loving like a heretic and national enemy and show active compassion and practical deeds of help including personal involvement, the giving of our money and our time.
This is a continuation of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 38-48) where he even contradicts such Jewish heroes as David and says that we should love our enemies.
And so his followers wouldn't get the wrong idea (like so many later would despite his very words), Jesus emphasizes that "loving one’s enemies" means practical actions on our part.
For instance, if an enemy nation conquers you and its soldiers abuse and execute your people and these killers demand you behave as a servant by carrying their military bags for a mile, then you are to offer to carry these enemy killers' things for another extra mile!
When enemies "HATE YOU, BLESS THOSE WHO CURSE YOU, PRAY FOR THOSE WHO MISTREAT YOU.."(Luke 6: 27-38).
Of course, for most of us (like Jesus' disciples who wanted to kill the Romans and call fire down to destroy the Samaritans, etc.), we need even more directions of what the word "love" actually means and so the N.T. provides many more definitions and examples. The best is 1 Corinthians 13:
Love is patient,
love is kind
and is not jealous;
love does not brag and is not arrogant,
does not act unbecomingly;
love does not seek its own,
is not provoked,
does not take into account a wrong suffered,
does not rejoice in unrighteousness,
but rejoices with the truth;
bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. (NASB)
How can we possibly love individuals of HAMAS or Iran or Russia!?
Muslim jihadists?
Criminals who rape, abuse, kidnap, murder?
A co-worker who lied about us so that we lost our job?
One way is to remember as Martin Luther King cautioned, we aren't called to "like" evil doers, but are rather called to show them benevolence in order that they might turn from their evil ways.
This is Jesus' walk, what it means to be Friends.
To love everyone into the realm of the LIGHT--the GOOD, the TRUE, the Just:-)
In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox
but, tragically, like so many philosophical and moral assertions, the devil is in the details:-(--
not the God of Jesus.
The same St. Augustine of the famous "love" quote supported the persecution of other Christians, torture, killing, etc.
Augustine abandoned his common-law wife of 10 years, with plans to marry an aristocratic Roman lady instead.
From 300 A.D down through hundreds of years of cruelty, abuse, intolerance, injustice, and slaughter to the present, 2025, Christian denominations in the name of "love" have committed horrific actions.
Millions of humans have been slaughtered, burned, hanged, shot, bombed, and drowned--all in the name of Jesus and this religious ideal of Christian "love." A Roman Catholic leader. Bernard of Clairvaux, often called the apostle of love called forth the 2nd Crusade!
A more recent American case is that of devout Christian soldier Stonewall Jackson who ordered the death of many thousands during the American Civil War. And the chaplain of his army, the famous R. L. Dabney, not only strongly supported this ‘Christian’ war, but American slavery, even publishing a study after the Civil War defending enslavement!
They gave all thanks to Jesus Christ and God for their killing successes, and yet at the same time, emphasized the importance of love to God and others. Read the excellent and powerful biography, Stonewall Jackson: Portrait of a Soldier by John Bowers.
In a secular sense, General Jackson was a great war general! And what a devout believer and how personable and kind to those of his own kin and group.
But what a ruthless killer of others, and in his killing, he gave all the praise for his winning battles to the Christian God! He often prayed, worshiped, and read his Bible in the midst of lethal fighting!
Not that Christianity has a corner on these strange demonstrations of "love." When I lived in the Middle East, I visited a Palaestinian restaurant. On the wall was a sign which listed all the characteristics of love in Islam.
Yet, then (and in the past and now)multi-millions of Muslims quote the Qur'an and the Hadith to justify slaughtering enemy civilians.
“So it goes.”
(quoting the satirist, Kurtr Vonnegut).
And check out secular history. Humanists who reject religion for all its horrors, also, often define "love" as a worthy human goal, yet their actions are contrary to love, too.
Here’s a minor example of how “empty bucket” the word “love” is. Back during my university days (late 60's), Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlavsky came to the University of Nebraska to do a poetry reading. Allen kept emphasizing that "love" is the answer to the world's problems.
I, a naive, college student from a small village in southeast Nebraska was impressed,
but an older student and former beatnik told me, "Don't to be deceived."
Later I learned how deceptive these new age leaders' talk of "love" was. One of the young girls in our college group was, allegedly, left pregnant and alone by Orlavsky who moved on with Ginsberg to their next poetry readings.
Young men of other worldviews tried to persuade us that a man could have multiple relationships with women and it was "love."
Forget all the tragic results of these "love" affairs.
And since then, all manner of distortions continue to be put forth as "loving" up to 2025.
Thinkers have even claimed the intentional carpet bomb killing of hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians, including children, fire fighters, doctors, etc. is an action of love and justice!
And more and more, acts of euthanasia, abortion, lust, etc. are said to be expressions of love!
Indeed, the devil is in the details. Evil hogs them.
Why is it God always gets left holding the bag of evil?
Enough of the very bad news!
What is the nature of true caring--the kind that doesn't result in hell on earth?
The great Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh gives some very good clear examples if you wish a definition which isn't centered in the New Testament. However, since I am a Friend of Jesus, that is where I find my understanding of what love is.
Check out Luke 10:27. Jesus said, "YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF."
Well, the problem is still in the details again though, because most of the leaders, warriors, slave-owners,abusers, immoral and unjust individuals etc. of the last 2,000 years have claimed to believe Jesus' words, indeed have done their evil with this verse on their lips, praying to Jesus and reading the Bible as they did their horrific deeds.
So, we need to go deeper.
A lawyer questions Jesus--sounds legalistic doesn't it--asking exactly, "WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?"
(Remember, in Jewish culture, men wouldn't even eat with Gentiles!)
Jesus reverses the thinking of humans such as that lawyer by giving the Parable of the Good Samaritan, pointing out we should be loving like a heretic and national enemy and show active compassion and practical deeds of help including personal involvement, the giving of our money and our time.
This is a continuation of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5: 38-48) where he even contradicts such Jewish heroes as David and says that we should love our enemies.
And so his followers wouldn't get the wrong idea (like so many later would despite his very words), Jesus emphasizes that "loving one’s enemies" means practical actions on our part.
For instance, if an enemy nation conquers you and its soldiers abuse and execute your people and these killers demand you behave as a servant by carrying their military bags for a mile, then you are to offer to carry these enemy killers' things for another extra mile!
When enemies "HATE YOU, BLESS THOSE WHO CURSE YOU, PRAY FOR THOSE WHO MISTREAT YOU.."(Luke 6: 27-38).
Of course, for most of us (like Jesus' disciples who wanted to kill the Romans and call fire down to destroy the Samaritans, etc.), we need even more directions of what the word "love" actually means and so the N.T. provides many more definitions and examples. The best is 1 Corinthians 13:
Love is patient,
love is kind
and is not jealous;
love does not brag and is not arrogant,
does not act unbecomingly;
love does not seek its own,
is not provoked,
does not take into account a wrong suffered,
does not rejoice in unrighteousness,
but rejoices with the truth;
bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. (NASB)
How can we possibly love individuals of HAMAS or Iran or Russia!?
Muslim jihadists?
Criminals who rape, abuse, kidnap, murder?
A co-worker who lied about us so that we lost our job?
One way is to remember as Martin Luther King cautioned, we aren't called to "like" evil doers, but are rather called to show them benevolence in order that they might turn from their evil ways.
This is Jesus' walk, what it means to be Friends.
To love everyone into the realm of the LIGHT--the GOOD, the TRUE, the Just:-)
In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox
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