Part 4: Commune in Awe in the Light, rather than "worship" since that has become an ambiguous term

Part 4: Realistic Hope

1.Begin with Reason
2.Humbly Seek and Search

3.Base Your Actions on Moral Realism
4.Don't Start with Ancient Scriptures

5.Study Cosmology, Astronomy, and Other Sciences
6.Be Open to Discovery, but Cautious of Speculative Claims

7.Keep an Informed Mind and Hopeful Outlook
8.Avoid Confirmation Bias, In-Group Dynamics,
Ideological Claims,Reductionism,
Fallacies,and 'Anecdotal Evidence.'

9.Speak Truth to Power; Work for Peace and Justice
10.Commune with Others in Awe in the Light

Live Oak Meeting House

Part 3: Realistic Hope--Don't Start with Ancient Scripture

PART #3: REALISTIC HOPE—Don’t Start with Ancient Scripture.

1. Begin with Reason
2. Humbly Search to Discover and Base Your Behavior Toward Others Upon Kindness, Meticulous Honesty, etc.
3. Don't Start with the Most Speculative or Ancient Scriptures

When one decides it’s time to think about the philosophical nature of Reality, beyond the truths of moral realism and basic reasonable living, then
one ought NOT
first seek guidance from ancient literature
such as the Jewish Bible or the Christian New Covenant. 1

INSTEAD, all human ought to study user-friendly academic books on astronomy, cosmology, and evolutionary biology.

Based upon those extensive facts, scientific discoveries, defended theories, and a general overview of basic reality, (along with reason and moral realism), a human can then begin
to make educated guesses as to the inherent or transcendent nature of God.

Always keep an open informed mind.
--Avoid confirmation bias,
--fallacies of thinking,
--popular anecdotal ‘evidence,’
etc.

At this point, one of the many reductionists or skeptics will probably jump in and emphasize that all of this worldview of Reality is built on presuppositions such as moral realism, the realness of the human mind, self-aware consciousness, and moral responsibility.
That, of course, is true.

No view of Reality begins without a few presuppositions which form the foundation. Heck, science can’t even function unless one accepts such presuppositions as that meticulous honesty must form the basis of all research.

And, it is possible, as the famous atheist, philosopher, and Nobel-winning writer, Albert Camus, wrote, that reality is “absurd.”
However, most scientists and thinkers do think that reality exists objectively, that humans are capable of meticulous honesty, and we are all morally responsible.

NASA scientists, mathematicians, and technologists have been able to repeatedly send probes into space, including all the way to Pluto, to land surveyors on Mars, and astronauts onto the moon, and to the International Space Station.

None of those achievements could have happened if math is "fictional," if the cosmos isn’t out there, and so forth.

So those basic presuppositions, based upon Enlightenment values, don’t seem like a quick-sand foundation.

2 Even if there is no reality out-there, even if moral realism is fallacious, even if all humans are “biochemical puppets,” (to quote Sam Harris), etc., Albert Camus wrote then
we humans ought to “rebel” against such an absurd existence.

Camus sought to live this out, living as if moral realism is true,
as if justice is real,
as if humans do have inherent worth.

He emphasized that slaughtering humans is wrong, that justice ought to be pursued, that even capital punishment of murderers is unjust!
--

1 IF the 66 books of the Bible (or other Scriptures including the Quran, the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita, Buddhist Sutras) had truly been revelations from God, then all of many horrific immoral, unjust texts wouldn’t have been included in such Scripture.

Think of all very evil slaughters, enslavements, thefts, lies, etc. that multi-millions of believers have committed in the last 3,000 years because of those evil verses!

As for the marvelous morally true passages, if led by God, his followers when reading and memorizing their holy books in a supernatural way, would have lived inspired moral just lives.

THE EXACT OPPOSITE HAPPENED MOST OF THE TIME.

Study the tragedy and absurdity of history of ancient Judaism and creedal Christianity (the Roman Catholic Church, Reformed Church, Lutheran Church, Evangelicals, Charismatics, etc.) . God believers have avidly persecuted, oppressed, abused, stolen, lied, even committed genocide, burned at the stake, drowned, tortured in the name of their God and his abstract doctrines and dogmas.

Very few—only a tiny number—of believers
have sought to live some of the great moral ideals of ancient Jewish writers and statements of truth from Yeshua and other writers in the NT.

Even today in the 21st century, rampant evil happens because of devout believers in God.

In the U.S. at least 78% of Evangelical Christians support immoral and unjust and unequal polices completely contrary to the very words of Jesus’ moral truths.

Millions of American Christians strongly support a government administration who advocates the violation of the Geneva Conventions, supports autocratic regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey (who execute, deny human rights and freedom of religion, and imprison many thousands of innocent humans).

This ‘Christian’ Trump administration emphasizes arrogance—U.S. FIRST, and it demeans, name-calls, distorts, lies, bullies, and sells weapons to unjust governments.

It builds a multi-million-dollar wall to keep out refugees--the illiterate, impoverished, and persecuted.
It falsely accuses most of these ‘huddled masses’ of humans as being thugs and drug cartel killers,
BUT
that is completely disproven by known statistics which show that most cartel drugs come through ports of entry into the U.S.

So many famous Christian leaders such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Evangelist Franklin Graham claim that God supports President Donald Trump. They claim that Trump is God’s man, that God put him in the Whitehouse! Some even state that those who didn’t vote for Trump are against God!

YET these same Evangelicals claim that billions of us humans are foreordained to eternal damnation because we don’t believe in strange abstract doctrines such as Original Sin, Penal Substitution, and the Trinity.

Thankfully, we don't need to live by ancient texts,

Dan Wilcox

Part 2: Realistic Hope--Reason, Humble Searching, Moral Realism

Part 2: REALISTIC HOPE

1. Begin with Reason
2. Humbly Search to Discover

3. When seeking what is true, don’t start with the most speculative, but with the here and now, daily life of human choice and creativity.

HOW DIFFERENT AMERICAN POLITICIANS, both REPUBLICANS and DEMOCRATS and THEIR CONSTITUENTS WOULD ACT if they first started with COURTESY,

KINDNESS, HONESTY, HUMILITY TOWARD each other and everyone else—all other humans,
NOT with their own in-group, political party, etc.
NOT their own particular worldview,
NOT their own philosophical beliefs about reality.

Think about daily details right in front of you, decisions you need to make today, how ought you to treat others, what you should do, and what you shouldn't, what is wrong for everyone to do.

When we have discovered how to live morally at this brief moment in this time and this place,
THEN
from that foundation, we can hypothesize, even guess, what may or may not be true about Ultimate Reality.

Notice in current events, and throughout history, most humans have instead chosen a life-stance/worldview concerning all of reality,
and then, based upon that speculative stance
have made their daily decisions. They’ve made ethical decisions based upon speculative beliefs.

Under that tragic system, humans hold that the end justifies means—so we show bias, will lie, steal, deceive, be cruel, will abuse, oppress, slaughter, even many thousands of civilians because God or the Absolute or Dialectical Materialism or the Historical Process or the Romantic-Nationalist Ideal wills the means to achieve the just end.

To be continued--

In the Light,

Dan Wilcox

REALISTIC HOPE

REALISTIC HOPE
Once one has discovered the fallacious nature of organized religion, its superstitions, denials of verified scientific study, and illusions, where does one turn for new hope?

Definitely not to the nihilism and illusions of many non-religous humans who claim that moral realism is false, that the good, the true, the just, human rights, equality, meticulous honesty, inherent worth, meaning, and purpose are all “myths."

They claim all those values are delusions, not true, and that all humans are incapable of moral choice, are only “biochemical puppets,” and morality is subjective, a mere preference of a human or a society.

INSTEAD, we humans ought to start searching for what is true, good, and just. Study the thinking of the Enlightenment
(though obviously not the darkness of the French Reign of Terror or the hypocrisy of leaders such as Thomas Jefferson).

1. Reason is central to start one’s trek up toward that impossibly difficult climb toward God, Ultimate Reality (using Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary first definition of “God”).

A beginning caution, however, is immediately in order because all of us humans have a way of rationalizing/misguiding our reasoning. Or we start with fallacious presuppositions and thus our brilliantly reasoned conclusions are based upon a foundation of quicksand.

One example of how this happens is Benjamin Franklin’s famous example from his autobiography of how he managed to reason himself into anything that he already wanted to do;-)*

2. A realistic humility is very important through out one’s life. The older I get, the more I realize how little I (and all humans) ‘know’. We live, experience, think, test, hypothesize, revise, repeat… NO ONE KNOWS in the sense of certainty. How could a finite human primate, a brief blip /conscious spark in a cosmos of billions of galaxies, possibly KNOW?

I still am baffled and shocked how many creedal Christians, Muslims, orthodox Jews, and Atheists, etc. are sure--certain--that they ‘KNOW’ the ultimate nature of reality.

Famous scientists including Einstein strongly emphasize humility is the beginning of real learning and wisdom.
For, instance, Einstein wrote, “I am not an atheist...The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different languages.

“The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God.

“We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations.”
Albert Einstein
--
BUT billions of humans in the past and the present claim to be certain. Not, that such a certainty wasn’t an essential part of my own childhood faith in non-creedal Baptist religion. We were constantly told and preached at, that everyone can KNOW.

However, I never had such assurance. Though I sought that "assurance, "to KNOW," instead, I always had questions, doubts, could step outside of my genuine hope, and observe Existence and the Cosmos from other contrary worldviews and life-stances.

As I used to joke, I was born with a “why” in my throat, instead of the infamous spoon.

To be continued--


In the Light of the Good, the True, and the Just,

Dan Wilcox

Blind-sided by Circumstances...after 5 Weeks, 12,000 Miles of Driving Adventure

FROM HIKING AT DESERT VIEW, GRAND CANYON TO 'PLANKING' INVOLUNTARILY AT ARROYO GRANDE, CALIFORNIA
ACUTE REHAB FACILITY in only a few weeks--

WOW, WHAT A TRANSITION! To go from basic daily living—often swimming before breakfast, driving, walking, getting up, morning routine including washing my face, combing my hair, etc. guiding and playing with our 3-year-old grandson, working on a number of writing projects,
TO INABILITY
in all actions!--
being only able to use my limited arm range to get things,
and having to push the red button for nearly everything else:-(

Becoming a patient with lots of impatience...

GIST: Last Friday, I woke early before 5 am so decided I might as well get to the pool for a good swim. BUT
when I got on my feet, I toddled! Not dizzy, I was confused. Then I realized it was because my left leg was wobbly (despite the fact that I don’t live in 1916 and am not a western Colorado mine worker—corny historical allusion)…

I was wobbly, toddling; I didn’t know why since I had walked a lot yesterday—stable and full of energy--and had driven home 500 miles with no problems.

SO, I decided to swim down at WV, and did. And it was good, except, my left leg refused to cooperate. When I frog-kicked, lefty, moved in slow motion, more of a laze than a kick.

Worried, I managed to climb out of the pool and get to my Ram camper van, but then it got worse. I became Long John Silver...I had to drag a wimpy peg-leg along behind me, as I posted forward on my right:-(

Somehow I managed to climb up in the Ram and get home. Worried...my condition worsened moment by moment...

Within 2 hours, we decided that I needed to be driven to Urgent Care, but when I tried to stand up, neither of my legs would listen to me.
'Planking' NOT by choice (that fairly recent shenanigan where humans lay flat without moving, like a wood plank)

(not actually me, of course, though I have planked in National Parks)


So, then a quick call was made to the ambulance guys. They hefted me into a body bag and carried me down our narrow stairs to Merriam Hospital.

The rest is my history—me turned into a bed potato, incapable of almost anything except continuing to study a long biography on Aaron Burr, Fallen Founding Father, and one on Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel, while I listen on You-Tube to Simon's songs.

Now I call my left leg, "Arizona," because in so many ways it is Petrified, as in that National Park.


Respond to bad circumstances with commitment to transcendent truths,

Dan Wilcox

Josh Turner - Long Black Train Please don't go riding on the false American train.

A Poetic Debacle of the American News

A Poetic Debacle

So many skate in this human race
A-cross the iced world of all surface
No depth.
What deepness? They sneer.
Shallow
“We see only ice that slides
By under our ‘bully’ shove
Of our steel.”

And their blades
Glisten in the winter’s sun
As they cut most humans off
From their care.
Their cuts that won't heal.

They lash past
All bundled in their parka of pride and self;
“Our nation, First, and one else;
To hell with the Kurds, poor refugees;
Wall them out,” they shout.

Acrobating a-cross
The frozen waste, millions lost
These masters of the TV Reality show
Play crack the whip with “huddled masses”
Ignoring the graved forms left
And the fading snow
Where deathly ice broke
Below
Sheol



Dan Wilcox


Please rise up, stand for the "huddled masses," and speak truth to these false masters of the show.

The Best Way to Take Care of the Future...

Guest Blog from Professor Roger Olson: "What if humanity could be saved only by torturing children to death?"

from An Ethical Dilemma Posed in a Stephen King Novel
SEPTEMBER 29, 2019 BY ROGER E. OLSON

"What if…the world, humanity, could only be saved from total obliteration by torturing children to death?

"Spoiler alert! If you intend to read King’s latest novel The Institute you may not want to read this as it contains some details about the plot. I will not, however, give away the ending.

The Institute is not your typical King novel if there is such a thing. It’s not exactly a horror story although it is a horrifying story. It contains some sci-fi elements and some violence but it’s nothing like “It” or “The Shining” or “Pet Sematary.” I would compare it more with “Mister Mercedes” or even “The Stand” in terms of tone.

"Like most of King’s novels and short stories it carries within it an ethical dilemma. What’s the right thing to do in a grievous situation where there does not seem to be a right thing to do?

"Of course, there’s often the hero who intuitively knows the right thing and does it.

"But here is the intriguing question embedded in The Institute: If the world, humanity, the whole of nature on earth, could only be saved by kidnapping and torturing children with the inevitable result that they die, would doing that be ethically justified?"

READ THE REST OF PROFESSOR ROGER OLSON'S ETHICAL REFLECTION BASED UPON STEPHEN KING'S NOVEL, THE INSTITUTE at:

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2019/09/an-ethical-dilemma-posed-in-a-stephen-king-novel/


In the Light of Moral Realism,

Dan Wilcox

The Spectrum of Probabilities: Theism versus Atheism

From Richard Dawkins:
1. Strong theist. 100% probability of God. In the words of Carl Jung: "I do not believe, I know."

2. De facto theist. Very high probability but short of 100%. "I don't know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there."

3. Leaning towards theism. Higher than 50% but not very high. "I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God."

4. Completely impartial. Exactly 50%. "God's existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable."

5. Leaning towards atheism. Lower than 50% but not very low. "I do not know whether God exists but I'm inclined to be skeptical."

6. De facto atheist. Very low probability, but short of zero. "I don't know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there."

7. Strong atheist. "I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung knows there is one."
The God Delusion, pages 50-51

from the thinker J.J.C. Smart at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
“Let us consider the appropriateness or otherwise of someone (call him 'Philo') describing himself as a theist, atheist or agnostic. I would suggest that if Philo estimates the various plausibilities to be such that on the evidence before him the probability of theism comes out near to one he should describe himself as a theist and if it comes out near zero he should call himself an atheist, and if it comes out somewhere in the middle he should call himself an agnostic."

"There are no strict rules about this classification because the borderlines are vague. If need be, like a middle-aged man who is not sure whether to call himself bald or not bald, he should explain himself more fully."
J.J.C. Smart, “Atheism and Agnosticism” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/
--

My central observation of all of this:
I am baffled by both atheist thinkers such as evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins who has stated that he is a 6.9 and by contrary theists such as the famous psychiatrist and thinker Carl Jung who was a 1! And, of course, many Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders who claim to be 1’s.

In my own case, I can't imagine such certainty!

How could either famous theists or famous atheists, finite humans who don’t even know the nature of such scientific things as dark matter, possibly know for certain the ultimate nature of all of reality?!

In my many years, I've read a lot of books on biology, cosmology, philosophy, etc. and all of that learning
(from The Ancestor's Tale by biologist Richard Dawkins, the best of the bunch,
to The Elegant Universe by theoretical physicist Brian Greene)
has helped me to become
far more aware of how little I actually know
about the incredible vastness and depth of existence.

But even in my most devout Christian days of 55 years, when I was more ignorant,
I never, if look back at those years impartially, probably got closer to certainty than a 3, about 77-74% convinced of theism.

And, though an ex-Christian now, I am probably not much higher toward atheism than a 3 either, but I am more tentative, probably.

When it comes to cosmology, I tend to think in possibilities, and probabilities based upon what is explained by cosmologists, astrophysicists, biologists, etc. than by either those so committed to atheism or theism.

Many humans in-between the chasmic divide of theism versus atheism turn toward agnosticism.

Hmm...agnosticism… IF that is a not-knowing SEEKING for what is true, good, and just that could be a wise way of living human.

The caps on seeking are the key. BECAUSE for millions, 'agnosticism' as a life stance is dangerous and almost always harmful. To them not-knowing as a life stance, means not only not "KNOWING" the Ultimate Nature of Reality, but also having a severe skepticism about anything except hard facts and matter and energy:-(.

To them, morality is merely subjective preferences, not moral realism. Heck, many of them have claimed that even slavery, rape, molestation, dishonesty, and slaughter aren’t wrong! Only subjective views of humans!

A BETTER WAY is to start with our day-to-day moral encounters and decisions. Even if we humans don't or can't discern the ultimate nature of existence and the cosmos, every moment we live, we need to make moral decisions based upon what we think is true about existence.

We need to make decisions about whether or not to drive carefully, hold to meticulous honesty, show generosity and caring for those not of our own family and nation, work for equality and justice for all humans, etc.

SO Start with what is probably true:
1. Moral realism is true.
2. All humans have inherent worth and are equal in value.
3. All humans are morally responsible and capable of making creative choices among alternatives.
4. Human rights exist.
5. At the very least, compassion is far better than cruelty, generosity than selfishness, viewing one's nation as a humble ideal, not putting it FIRST, etc.

From that practical day-to-day moral foundation, then one can make tentative, educated guesses as to ultimate questions.

Check out Oxford professor Keith Ward's books such as The Big Questions in Science and Religion and Steven Pinker’s book, Enlightenment Now.

Though an atheist, Steven Pinker thinks Enlightenment values are real, that human progress is possible, that such values have brought about amazing accomplishments for the good in the last couple hundred years.

He admits in the book, that humankind could regress--as we did in the 20th century with the mass slaughters, dictatorships, destruction, etc.

But, Pinker thinks that if we continue to support Enlightenment values, then humans can continue to progress.

According to him, Enlightenment values can change even doctrinaire Muslim societies and other oppressive ones gradually. He states this has already started to happen. Current terrorism, as horrific as it is, is only an aberration, not the future.

Enlightenment Now is one of the best studies I have read on humankind and the influence of moral realism such as human rights, equality, concern for the impoverished, democracy, etc.

In the LIGHT of real moral values,

Dan Wilcox

Afghan Drone Attack--The Road to Elsewhere

Are you feeling like Vonnegut after the debacle'd news of the last few months?
Here's a poem by me to chew on:

The Road to Elsewhere

Gehenna…
The highway to ‘hail,
Hail Afghans all here,’

(“Give me your ears…”)
Is paved with good intentions and ‘IUO’s.’
On that yellow ‘book’ road, quran
Tell tales-where-banned
Men of lairs acclaim allah’s offense…

Come out of your pious lores, you liars.
But over here, we’re First,
We’re all so right, “god’s man”
Christ-ones
Of the west wind

Our shocked awe amazes
18 years of twistered god-centered war
“only a little more…”
every precedence tells,
rankly wrong
(“You, too …’brutal’?”)

We’re not in Kansas
No more, morals, nor never were. Was?
A last ‘stand’ stammering
In that season—us dogs of Mars and a sheep’s head,
Let’s make pieces with the Muslims,
More mothers slump to that deserted bleeding ground.*
Balmed for All...

Uh…
Can't we humans get a heart?
--

Work for peace,
Dan Wilcox
First pub. Fish Food magazine

TEETER-TOTTER with supposed enemies of the U.S. Use the WALL of DIVISION as a way of sharing and fun!

Governments seek to divide, to separate, to propagandize, to lie, to harm...so tragic. EVERY SINGLE KID, EVERY SINGLE HUMAN IS EQUAL AND OF INHERENT WORTH!

Look at this creative overcoming of that disheartening wall of dividing. TEETER-TOTTERING
SHARING

SEESAWING, USING THE WALL OF DIVISION AS A FULCRUM OF SHARING AND FUN!

FROM http://www.ktvu.com/news/husband-and-wife-professors-dream-up-pink-seesaws-at-us-mexico-border-long-before-president-trump
"Regardless of which president is in power, San Fratello said that the pop-up "Teeter Totter Wall," was created to "expose the ridiculous-ness" of separating people.

"The artful play structure, which was set up temporarily for 30 minutes on Sunday at the border of Colonia Anapra, a community on the western side of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico, was supposed to represent whimsy and joy...
--
"SUNLAND PARK, New Mexico (KTVU) - The unusual sight of children and families laughing and bouncing up and down on neon pink seesaws straddling a steel fence dividing the United States and Mexico appeared to be a direct visual and artistic attack on the Trump Administration's anti-immigration mandates and directives.

"But Virginia San Fratello, an assistant professor of art and design at San Jose State University who lives in Oakland, said the idea for the whimsical teeter-totter was born as a result of the Secure Fence Act of 2006.

"People near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico bounce on pink seesaws created by Ronald Rael and Viginia San Fratello. June 28, 2019 Photo: Rael San Fratello
People near Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico bounce on pink seesaws created by Ronald Rael and Viginia San Fratello. June 28, 2019 Photo: Rael San Fratello
The act authorized and partially funded nearly 700 miles of fencing along the border. According to government figures, U.S. Customers and Border Protection has spent about $2.4 billion on fencing, gates, roads and infrastructure along the nearly 2,000-mile southwest border from 2007 to 2015.

"This idea came long before Trump," San Frateloo said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

Mauricio Martínez
✔
@martinezmau
Artists installed seesaws at the border wall so that kids in the U.S. and Mexico could play together. It was designed by architect Ronald Rael. ⁣
⁣
"Beautiful reminder that we are connected: what happens on one side impacts the other.
🇲🇽 ❤️ 🇺🇸

"Regardless of which president is in power, San Fratello said that the pop-up "Teeter Totter Wall," was created to "expose the ridiculous-ness" of separating people.

"The artful play structure, which was set up temporarily for 30 minutes on Sunday at the border of Colonia Anapra, a community on the western side of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and Sunland Park, New Mexico, was supposed to represent whimsy and joy, she said.

"But it also represented the ramifications of political yin and yang.

"What happens to someone on one side of the border, affects someone on the other," she said.

"The seesaws, which she co-designed with UC Berkeley architecture professor Ronald Rael -- who is also her husband -- were purposely painted hot pink. That's the color that represents the hundreds of women and girls who have been killed near Ciudad Juarez during a rash of robberies and gang wars since the 1990s.

"Pictures from the scene on Sunday show a girl in pigtails laughing while riding high on the seesaw, a mother smiling and taking selfies with her baby and crowds chatting along the sandy road to watch people from different homelands connect with each other through a fence, fashioned from steel and concrete.

"The teeter-totters were fabricated in Mexico by local craftspeople and installed by a collective called Colectivo Chopeke. On the Mexican side, the gathering of people was mostly spontaneous. A residential neighborhood is located a stone's throw from the fence and families simply walked up to it and started riding.
--

"Her husband wrote on Instagram: "The wall became a literal fulcrum for U.S. - Mexico relations."

"She and Rael sent up a drone to take video of their efforts, which was tweeted by Mexican actor Mauricio Martinez, bringing international attention to their work. They each posted the video on their Instagram accounts and the story spread far and wide.
READ THE RES

"Martinez tweeted that the seesaws were a "beautiful reminder that we are connected."
In a Ted Talk that he gave, Rael, who teaches a class on "design and activism," described that the architecture as a political statement should be seen as both "satirical" and "serious."

"San Fratello and Rael conceived the idea for the seasaws as far back as 2009, which Rael documented in a book, "Borderwall as Architecture: A Manifesto for the U.S.-Mexico Boundary." But the seesaw was just one of the many ideas they had. The pair pictured building swings on to the fence "so you could literally swing over it," San Fratello said.

"They pictured a library and a burrito shop, with a portion of each building on one side of each country so people could meet halfway inside. They also drew up plans of turning the fence into a massive xylophone, where people on both sides could take turns hitting the metal and making music.
READ the rest at:
http://www.ktvu.com/news/husband-and-wife-professors-dream-up-pink-seesaws-at-us-mexico-border-long-before-president-trump

Let us think creatively of ways to artistically use the immoral and unjust acts of government to create the opposite--sharing and connecting of ALL HUMANS WHO HAVE EQUAL WORTH AND VALUE.

In the Light,
Dan Wilcox

My Life-Long Philosophical Journey

I've been on a long philosophical journey for about 68 years, so it could take many pages:-), but I will try and give you the dehydrated, non-fat version:
BACKGROUND
1. I appear to have been born with a 'why' caught in my throat, unlike my family or anyone else in a Nebraska village; always asking 'why' beginning at about 4, driving my parents tired.

2. Early on beginning about 10, I felt a deep keen moral concern. So I was troubled by the ethical horrors and inconsistencies in our Baptist Christian religion such as when our Sunday school teacher claimed that God had sent bears to maul kids making fun of the prophet Elisha. I countered God would never do such an evil action.

3. I presume that you are interested, mainly, in my philosophical journey so I won't share my own personal experiences related to that.

4. As Baptists, we weren't creedal; we strongly opposed Augustine, infant sin, Original Sin, and his other horrific beliefs and dogmas.
BUT then I discovered that most Christian churches did believe those dogmas. As a teen, I read a book from the library on the Creeds and was flabbergasted that anyone would believe such convoluted superstition.

5. As a thinking teen and through my adult years, I never believed Jesus was God, so over the years I've learned that most Christians leaders think I was never a Christian, not even when I was a Baptist youth minister, Bible teacher, later an elder, missions volunteer, etc.

6. At 18-20 I went to the University of Nebraska and Long Beach State, where most of our professors were agnostics, declared atheists or Marxist, almost no Christians. We formally studied philosophy and culture anthropology, philosophy, comparative literature. The ex-moderate fundamentalist encounters the secular world; from no-movies-or-dances religion to hanging out with philosophical beatniks and early hippies. Then I moved to Haight-Ashbury:-)

7. My adult life has been one life long search for what is true.

10 PHILOSOPHICAL VIEWS OF REALITY with my own views at the end:
These are the views of reality that I understand from the views of reality that I've read about from many well-known cosmologists, philosophers, biologists, etc.
Keep in mind that I do think ethics are what define intelligent, self-aware, ethical species. It's my view that all rational, aware, ethical species would oppose dishonesty, rape, slaughter, inequality, etc. and support meticulous honesty, compassion, altruism, bio-concern, etc.

Ethical realities aren't just labels that we place on behavior.
--
We are living in a universe about 27 billion light-years across, and about 13.7 billion years old. According to cosmologists, the cosmos will last many more billions of years.

What is the inherent or ultimate meaning of this cosmos?

Some human leaders claim it's meaningless, others that they know for sure its exact nature.

#1 All reality came about by cosmic chance. Seemingly the view of the French biologist Jacques Monod in Chance and Necessity, a powerful book I read a few years back, and the view of the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould.
My take on this as an average person: I think this view is possible. I guess given cosmic time even the "laws" of nature, math, reason, life, ethics, consciousness could all blip into existence.

#2 All reality came about by cosmic determinism of meaningless matter and energy which is eternal. Everything is lock step. There are no choices, not for what I supposedly ruminate on having for lunch or whether or not to commit murder or what to choose for my career. Or even whether to read about various views and to post this.

Based on our studying this at university, and for many years since, and many times trying to imagine my "I" as an illusion who is only 'done to' by the cosmos, I think this is one of the least likely views of reality. But the view is very popular these days--sort of an atheistic version of Calvinism/Augustinianism.

#3 All reality came about somehow by a temporary, finite, imperfect, even distorted, expression of the perfect eternal Ideal Forms of Platonism.

I find it intriguing that a minority of thinkers who identify as atheists do think that the Good exists! They are also moral realists.

#4 All reality came about by emergent possibilities in a quantum singularity vacuum or some unknown ultimate reality.
But where did the quantum singularity vacuum come from? Here goes "turtles all the way down."

This view seems to posit an eternal physical reality with no "super" reality 'transcending' it.

Like in #1 humankind is a "fluke," an "accident," a "lucky" break.

#5 All reality came about by an impersonal ultimate reality of cosmic beauty. Scientists such as Albert Einstein stated this was his view, that he thought the impersonal god of Spinoza was true. But this seems similar to a combination of #3 and #4.

However, unlike #2 and #4, the emergent-possibility cosmos isn't meaningless and purposeless, but is filled with meaning.
Interesting, but I doubt it.

#6 All reality is coming about by the everlasting but limited cosmic reality that is becoming. Essential reality is Process influencing matter and energy. This is the view of thinkers such as philosopher and mathematician Alfred Lord Whitehead, philosopher Charles Hartshorne, etc.

This cosmic but limited ultimate reality--God--who is far beyond human understanding works toward changing matter and energy and conscious life such as homo sapiens into increasing patterns and forms of beauty, meaning, and purpose. This is also the view of some Reform Jews.

But where is the evidence for this?
Process thinkers explain that consciousness, reason, ethics, mathematics, natural law, creativity, aesthetics, life itself, etc. are the evidence.

This view is appealing, but most of the technical philosophical explanations are BEYOND me. I'm a relatively average literature teacher (who got born with a "why" in his throat;-)

#7 All reality came about as just one of an infinite number of universes of an infinite multi-verse, the view of some modern cosmologists. What is the ultimate of the multi-verse is unknown or maybe the multiverse itself is ultimate.

Intriguing, but seems too speculative for me. However, I'm not as skeptical as Martin Gardner, one of the co-founders of the modern skeptical movement who wrote a scathing dismissal of this view.

#8 All reality came about by the impersonal Brahma God of Hinduism and some modern New Age leaders such as Ken Wilber with his Integral Theory, and Deepak Chopra, etc. .

The impersonal God Brahma is conducting a cosmic dance in which it forgets its self and dreams into billions of separated forms including in one minor edge of the universes, thinking humans.

But all is illusion. And all events both good and evil are produced by Brahman. That is why Ken Wilber and other such leaders claim that Brahman caused 9//11, causes all murders, all rapes, etc.

Given that I am a human rights worker from way back, for about 55 years, obviously this isn't my cup of philosophical coffee. Also, I still vividly remember as a Gandhi devotee being shocked when a Hindu priest in L.A. tried to persuade me to go to Vietnam to kill (when I was drafted), saying insects are killed all the time in reality.:-(

#9 All reality came about by unknowable factors. Everything beyond and before the Big Bang is such a complete unfathomable mystery that it will probably not ever be solved by finite humans at least not for a very long time.
Allegedly the view of the Mysterians such as Gardner, Penrose, etc.

#10 All reality continually comes about by infinite impersonal reality which never had a beginning. No creator god exists. Some forms of Buddhism (though other forms are theistic).
--
At this point in my life, I lean toward some view of #3 and #6, though I am open to #1 as a real possibility.

However, maybe, as some famous scientists have emphasized, we finite human primates don't have enough knowledge to even decide this question.

I certainly don't know even how to do calculations to send a rocket into space, let alone know the nature of reality in its astrophysical/cosmological ultimate sense.

However, each moment I exist, I am face with learning, making choices, etc, so by the very nature of being a human primate, I have to live out of one life stance. Even though I have no conclusive "proof," as I've said, ethical truths are a good start.


In the Light,
Dan Wilcox

Please write for 2 missing Turkish men, Gokhan Turkmen and Mustafa Yilmaz

From Amnesty International:
"Gökhan Türkmen and Mustafa Yılmaz have been missing since...February 2019...suspected to have been abducted and forcibly disappeared. The authorities have so far been denying that they are being held in official custody."

And "On 29 July four men who had been missing since around the same time resurfaced in detention at the Anti-Terrorism Branch of the Ankara Police Headquarters."

"The authorities must promptly investigate to determine the whereabouts of Gökhan Türkmen and Mustafa Yılmaz and urgently inform their families."

Turkey "is bound by the prohibition of committing enforced disappearance under customary international law and other human rights treaties of which it is party, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights."

"Write a letter...email, fax, call or Tweet them.

Mr Abdülhamit Gül
Minister of Justice
Adalet Bakanlığı
06659 Ankara, Turkey
Fax: +90 312 417 71 13
Email: info@adalet.gov.tr
Twitter: @abdulhamitgul
Dear Minister,

Ambassador Serdar Kiliç
Embassy of the Republic of Turkey
2525 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC 20008
Phone: 202 612 6700 | 6701
Fax: 202 612 6744
Email: embassy.washingtondc@mfa.gov.tr
Contact Form: https://bit.ly/2HZCUZu
Twitter: @SerdarKilic9 @TurkishEmbassy
Facebook: @turkishembassy

Salutation: Dear Ambassador,
https://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent-actions/urgent-action-investigate-whereabouts-of-two-missing-men-turkey-ua-111-19/



In the Light of Human Rights, Justice, and Equality,

Dan Wilcox

Review of The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War

This powerful history details a little known part of the Civil War--how Native Americans in Indian Territory responded to the Civil War.

The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War by Clarissa W. Confer is a very tragic narrative beginning with how some Cherokee leaders had adopted a few of the worst social behaviors of European Americans in the early 1900's including enslavement of others, owning at least 4,000 Negro slaves. (Of course, even a few Negroes also owned Negro slaves in the Carolinas and Florida so this wasn't unique to a minority such as the Cherokee.)

A few of the Cherokee became rich despite racism and opposition by White Americans, but then the Cherokee were jettisoned from their lands and homes (along with other 'Civilized Tribes') by President Andrew Jackson and other American leaders.

The national mistreatment officially began with the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which banished a number of tribes to Indian Territory so Whites could steal their lands, houses, and other things (including gold in Georgia), and forced the tribes onto the Trail of Tears.

The future state of Oklahoma became a dumping ground for unwanted peoples by the Americans, the state name even comes from a Choctaw leader who coined it, meaning “Red People”! Some of the Native Americans, after resisting for a while, eventually tried to appease the American government, thinking that was their only choice, and moved to Indian Territory soon.

But some of the Cherokee continued to resist. Even the resisters were forced out in 1838. Many Cherokee suffered disease, starvation and other horrors on their forced removal, about 3,000 dying on the way. The mostly Scottish John Ross (1/8th Cherokee, 7/8th's White), was one of the Cherokee Nation leaders who severely criticized the Cherokees who had quit resisting the U.S. Law. His 2nd wife was a Delaware Quaker lady, Mary Brian Stapler.

The compromising Cherokee voluntarily moved to Indian Territory earlier. Eventually, some pro-Ross forces murdered 3 of these Cherokee leaders; and Ross supporters justified the murders as following Cherokee Law, that of executing 'traitors.' No one was ever arrested for the murders.

Both pro-treaty and anti-treaty Cherokee owned slaves. John Ross continued to own slaves until one year before his death in 1866. One question is why did Ross continue to own slaves after he married a Delaware Quaker. Was Mary Brian Stapler only culturally a Friend, or wouldn't Ross listen to her abolitionist views?

In the midst of these controversies within the Cherokee Nation, the Civil War started. The Cherokee, including John Ross supported the Confederacy because of the many cases of abusive treatment by the U.S. Furthermore, the Confederate Government made big promises including representation in the Confederate Government!

However, the Confederate leaders failed to follow through on most of their promises. So then some Cherokee for various reasons decided to switch and support the Union. This led to civil war within the Cherokee Nation itself. Native American groups attacked other Native Americans, stole, destroyed property, and slaughtered each other. Pro-Union Cherokee civilians were attacked as they fled north by pro-Confederacy Cherokee.

Union and pro-Confederates burned homes in the Cherokee capital, etc. At least one Union army attacked and killed Native Americans after being told, basically, to kill them all, not take prisoners.

The whole book shows so vividly how evil war is, no matter what its justifications. Again throughout the U.S. and including Indian Territory, both sides violated most moral truths, all of the commandments of 10 Words of the Old Testament, especially slaughter and stealing.

The Cherokee Nation never recovered to its previous achievements, but at least slavery was banned after the end of the war.

Stand Watie (De-ga-ta-ga), the only Cherokee (3/4's Cherokee, 1/4 White), to become a general in the Civil War, continued to fight against the Union, even after Robert E. Lee surrendered in April 9, 1865. Brigadier General Watie kept fighting until June 23, 1865! He was also the only one of the 4 accommodating Cherokee leaders who escaped assassination by the pro-Ross faction of the Cherokee.

Watie served as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1862 until 1866. (An intriguing historical footnote is that the U.S. Postal Service printed a stamp honoring Watie on June 29th, 1995, 130 years later.)

The compassionate views of Watie's wife, Sarah Caroline (Bell) show that despite the fog and horrors of the war that at least some recognized that war is contrary to compassion and spirituality. She wrote her husband "to be a good man as always" and to maintain a clear conscience before God and others. She was "particularly worried about the effect of wartime conduct on the young men in the armies."

When she heard that her son, Saladin and a nephew had killed a prisoner, she became very upset. "It almost runs me crazy to hear such things....tell my boys to always show mercy as they expect to find God merciful to them." "She worried that because of this early exposure to condoned killing, Saladin would never value human life as should."
page 131, The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War

Book Evaluation: B

For insights into how Quakers eventually became involved with Native Americans in the 19th century read "Quaker Indian Boarding Schools--Facing Our History and Ourselves" by Paula Palmer, October 2016 in the Friends Journal:

https://www.friendsjournal.org/quaker-indian-boarding-schools/


In the Light,
Dan Wilcox

Take a Social-Political Survey

Here's another one of those social-political surveys. I, again, come down as a Left-leaning Libertarian. After answering questions as varied as free market (which I am for; I am against protectionism and against tariffs and against nationalism)
and abortion-on-demand (am against; sometimes conception has tragic elements; then the decision ought to be between the mother and her doctor; politicians of the left and right ought to stay out of the heart-rending decision).

Take the test:
https://www.politicalcompass.org/


In the Light,

Dan Wilcox

Ought Americans (or any other nationality) emphasize they come FIRST?

When I was growing up,
many devout American Christians emphasized
GOD FIRST,
OTHERS SECOND
ourselves third!

BUT now they EMPHASIZE U.S. FIRST
Others, including refugees,
third!:-(((((

American Christians' arrogant attitude, lack of concern for the impoverished and persecuted
is
SHAMEFUL,
IMMORAL,
UNJUST,
and
ungodly.

A large percentage of Americans' actions are now self-centered, group-egotistical, demeaning, harsh, name-calling, lying, uncaring, ungenerous, unkind, etc.

American government leaders, are AGAIN, rejecting the moral truths of great human leaders of the past such as Jesus and,
instead, pursuing very selfish, arrogant realpolitik policies.

HOW TRAGIC.

Please, every day, stand up and speak truth to Americans.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Part 4: Pompei's Pillar on the Yellowstone River

Bulky Pompei’s Pillar
Towers over Yellowstone's River
Flowing;
That rugged brown bluff rears,
Engraved with historic graffiti

With Clark’s signatured
Declaration still writ large
Over 210 years later
Behind Plexiglas for us to gawk,
But Lewis ended it all;
Allegedly he balked;

Still the icy water courses on
Toward the Big Muddy
For all of us,
Finally down to the Gulf,
Each of us a brief tag
In this
Muddled flow of history,
Flashing specks
Sparks of consciousness,
Then ashed and gone--
Deep Time
Rushes
On



Dan Wilcox
First pub.
in Lunarosity,
then Dark Energy
Poetry Collection

Part 3: The Removal of Public History--Defenses, Objections, Alternatives

Probably many people will find my article objecting to the removal of signatures and images (after 1906) at El Morro Rock National Monument a rather picky criticism over a minor change by the U.S. Government.

(Notice in the following photo where squares of rock have been smoothed, post-1906 signatures or images removed.)

And, besides, don't nearly all of us object to the defacing of homes and businesses by gang graffiti?!

Is there any difference between (possible examples) some young cowboy's branding image in 1911 or the signature by a Great War soldier in 1918 or the scrawled name by a young teen when his folks stopped here on their southwestern vacation in 1921
VERSUS
the signatures of a famous Spanish conquistador such as Don Juan de Ornate in 1605, or Western Explorers, or U.S. soldiers including a future Confederate leader, Breckenridge, or by Sarah Fox, a Wagon Train 12-year-old girl in 1858?

Well, yes and no.

I suppose given the nature of human beings, our sense of ethics, order, art and history and public knowledge that governments often need to make somewhat arbitrary judgments when it comes to its public places.

There are reasons given, some of them valid, some invalid, some inconsequential. For instance, consider the legality and illegality on a different topic. In the 1970's, the U.S. Government suddenly instituted the 55 mile an hour speed limit on the nation's highways. This occurred and remained in effect for over 20 years. Various reasons were given for the ruling including as a way of dealing with the 70's oil price hikes of Middle Eastern Nations and as a way to reduce auto accidents, in other words a way of safety.

Yet the federal law was repealed by Congress in 1995. Now on my recent trips, I regularly not only encountered speed allowances of 75 on major Interstates, there were also ones of even 80 miles per hour in Nevada and Utah, and 75 on narrow county roads in Texas! Etc.

Indeed, the nuances and bases of legality versus illegality vary from time to time depending on which facts are valued the most. And the rules of governments don't necessarily reflect moral truth or even good sense.

But one objection to graffiti is that it is crass, intrusive, and defacing.

graffiti: "usually unauthorized writing or drawing on a public surface"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/graffiti

etymology: "1851, "ancient wall inscriptions found in the ruins of Pompeii," from Italian graffiti, plural of graffito "a scribbling," a diminutive formation from graffio "a scratch or scribble," from graffiare "to scribble," ultimately from Greek graphein "to scratch, draw, write" (see -graphy). They are found in many ancient places, but the habit was especially popular among the Romans. Sense extended 1877 to recently made crude drawings and scribbling in public places."
https://www.etymonline.com/word/graffiti

However, as the etymology of the very word states, this sort of human activity has been going on for thousands of years. Indeed, archaeologists have discovered Roman soldiers' graffiti in Jerusalem from the time of Jesus and saved it, protected as worthy for public history!

And, it's not like that Onate's markings, those of the a Spanish conquistador and Governor of New Mexico, were significantly different than those of ancient Roman soldiers or even of modern at-risk youths carving their names or images or group identities into public places.

Notice in his signature that Onate carved right over an ancient Native American petrogyph!

Yet he could have signed his name anywhere on thousands of acres of blank massive rock.
Why did he deface the historical Native American's image?

Most likely because he didn't think that Native American images were important. As a Spanish leader he would have thought that Native Americans themselves were insignificant. He might have even done it intentionally to establish his territorial claim, like a male cat leaving his mark.

After all, Onate was an invader. And he brought a thousand Mexicans to settle this confiscated land that actually belonged to the Pueblo Native Americans and had for centuries before he and other Spaniards had conquered it.

Stacia Spragg, Associated Presss








What of some of the other actual signatures, unlike Onate's that didn't ride herd over ancient art?

Are they in their own way worthy to be considered art, more than mere doodling?

Yes, some of the inscriptions at El Morro Rock are very elegant and beautiful such as E. Pen Long's, true works of art.

https://www.americansouthwest.net/new_mexico/el-morro/national-monument.html

But other old markings at El Morro are unclear, even some may have been idle scratches or hastily marked territory claims no different than disdained modern graffiti.
I still remember one day after a day of teaching students, discovering WP carved into one of my classroom's wood book cases in Santa Maria, California. I was not a happy educator at the time, though even then, I realized the seeming innate need of human beings to leave their mark.

ALTERNATIVES:

Here is a nuanced view of a professor of anthropology:
Should the National Parks repeal its prohibition of new inscriptions?

"Doing so might revive a more vibrant, living kind of history at the monument, a history in which we participate as active agents, an open-ended history that is not yet finished or determined. Visitors might even glean a more authentic understanding of the experiences of those who passed by this very same place long ago.(28)

"And who is to say that the name of someone who died 300 years ago is more important than my name, or my child's?

"Allowing new inscriptions would certainly result in the loss of older ones (the monument receives 35,000 visitors a year), but such loss happened in the past, is inevitable in the future, and could be mitigated through documentation.

"So what policies and practices would I recommend instead? First of all, I am not suggesting that the park service repeal its prohibition of new inscriptions.
"Still, the prohibition makes sense to me, and I am glad that we can still see all those engravings from the past. Not only are the inscriptions interesting, they can teach us something about people who came before us and the history of the Southwest.

"Happily, the park service has provided two boulders outside of the visitor center and a sign that reads, "Carve your initials on this typical piece of local sandstone, if you must—but please remember: it is against the law to carve anything on Inscription Rock itself!"(29) Visitors can also "inscribe" their names in the monument's registry.”
from History, Preservation, and Power at El Morro National Monument: Toward a Self-Reflexive Interpretive Practice
by Thomas H. Guthrie, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina.
https://www.nps.gov/crmjournal/winter2010/article2.html
--

I didn't see the 2 boulders at the visitor center where anyone can inscribe their names.
But if that is still true, it is an excellent example of what the Park Service ought to do, ought to keep doing.

Providing an alternative for present day inscribing, as the professor Guthrie emphasizes, is not only a positive alternative to the negative of prohibition of Federal law, it creates new history for future visitors.

Consider how, especially, teens might not be enthralled most history, by some long-ago Spanish conquistador called Onate, but they might find identity with a teen from their own city who had carved his or her name 50 years before in 2019!

We live briefly in this stream of conscious history, then we die. Hopefully, we can leave behind memorable actions and creations.

But how important are even mere scratchings of the least important human being.

In the Light,

Dan Wilcox

Part 2: El Morro Rock: ERASING HISTORY-- About the Take-Downs of Some Monuments and Sites, Wrong! And Alternatives

When are the remains of history valid?
When is it ever correct to take down the memorials, monuments, statues, markings, etc. of past humans?

WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES?

This article is about the intriguing action of the U.S. Government at El Morro Rock.

Here on this imposing monolith in Northern New Mexico, thousands of humans for a few hundred years have inscribed images and/or their names.
(It is one of the most fascinating of National Monuments to visit, as I did a week ago.)

There are engraved names and images from Native Americans, Spanish explorers, U.S. Military troops, Wagon Train emigrants, railroad workers, and so forth.

An early marking was done by Provincial Governor Don Juan de Ornate, "Pasa por aqui..." (Passed by here the Governor Don Juan de Orante, from the discovery of the Sea of the South on the 16th of April, 1605). He had visited the site earlier in 1598 when he and 1,000 Mexican settlers came to the area. Ornate named the site Agua de la Pena (Water of the Rock).
Unfortunately, his 'graffiti' partially covers one prehistoric Native American petroglyph!

A pool of water is what first drew Native Americans here hundreds of years before Ornate. They founded a village atop El Morro Rock in about 1275 C.E. until droughts came in sometime in the 1300's.

The water comes from rain and snow melt, and when the pond is full can have as much as 200,000 gallons of water! However, this isn't a spring so can easily become shallow and polluted.
But it is the only water source for 30 miles.


A preteen, Sarah Fox, a member of a westward wagon train, scratched her name here in 1858.
Look carefully because her name is difficult to read. Her name is right above the CA in the lower left of the photo. Later at the Colorado River, their wagon train was attacked by Mohave Native Americans, and she was shot with an arrow, but she survived.

But if teens (or adults) after 1906 carve their names or images, they are guilty of a violation of U.S. Law.
The sign states: "It is unlawful to mark...El Morro Rock."

A U.S. Army leader, P. Gimer Breckinridge came here twice. The first time was with Army camels; the 2nd time he signed on El Morro. Later he would become a leader in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

Will the U.S. Government or some local government eliminate his signature from the historic rock because he resigned from the U.S. Army (like thousands of other U.S. soldiers and Navy sailors and many West Point graduates) and enlisted in the Confederacy?

WILL BRECKINRIDGE BE ELIMINATED LIKE ROBERT E. LEE, STONEWALL JACKSON, AND OTHERS?

--

What concerns me in this article is the judgment by the U.S. Government to adopt 1906 as the defining date for judging names and other markings as either valued historical creations TO BE SAVED
or vandalism that was then
TO BE ELIMINATED.

IN THE EARLY 1920'S, EVON Z. VOGT, A RAMAH RANCHER AND AMATEUR HISTORIAN BECAME THE FIRST CUSTODIAN OF EL MORRO ROCK IN 1916. HE DECIDED IN THE 1920'S TO ERASE ALL MARKINGS ON EL MORRO ROCK AFTER 1906 AS INVALID.

PROBABLY, VOGT MEANT WELL, WAS ATTEMPTING TO PRESERVE THE PAST OF HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO FROM THE MORE RECENT PAST.

HOWEVER WHY WAS PRETEEN SALLY FOX'S SIGNATURE VALID BUT A TEEN'S FROM 1907 OR LATER NOT VALID OR WORTHY?

WHY ARE ANY LATER ADDITIONS VIOLATIONS OF U.S. LAW, BAD ILLEGAL ACTIONS?

AP Photo/Heather Clark











Let's deal with a few background philosophical assumptions related to the issue of when if ever public displays of the historical past ought to be eliminated.

Don't the removers (the governments, the defacers, vandals, politically-correct, and so forth) realize that when they do the take-downs, they erase public history (for millions the only history they know, since only a small minority of humans are avid book readers of history)!?

Well, of course, for those, the erasers, that almost always is exactly the point.
They want to revise history, to present to all humans their own distorted version of human history, eliminate the humans of the past with whom they disagree and strongly oppose.

In this blog, I've already explained in past posts why I think it is very wrong that the U.S. Government, and local governments such as Dallas and Baltimore and Virginia have been taking down statues of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, memorials for soldiers, etc.
I oppose the take-downs because I was an American literature-history teacher for many years.

The reason I oppose their removal isn't because I agree with Lee, or Jackson, etc. because I don't. They were both fatalists, both supported slavery, both participated in the slaughter of at least 700,000 humans, the wounding and suffering of millions, the theft and destruction of billions of dollars of land, housing, and personal possessions.

HOWEVER, if the government thinks that their statues and memorials and street names should no longer exist, then to be consistent and fair, they ought to also take down the statues, memorials, street names, etc. to Abraham Lincoln,
to George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson,
Sam Houston,
eliminate the State Flag of California--The Bear Flag, and so forth.

For the vast majority of Americans were as guilty, often more guilty, of racism, enslavement, slaughter than Lee or Jackson. HECK, 12 PRESIDENTS OF THE U.S. OWNED SLAVES IN THEIR LIFETIMES, 8 WHILE SERVING AS PRESIDENT.

George Washington owned slaves all of his life, didn't free them until his death.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, THOUGH PHILOSOPHICALLY OPPOSED TO SLAVERY AS WRONG, NEVER FREED HIS SLAVES.

THOUGH ABRAHAM LINCOLN PERSONALLY OPPOSED SLAVERY, AS PRESIDENT HE SUPPORTED THE ENSLAVEMENT OF NEGROES IN THE UNION UNTIL NEAR THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR!

LINCOLN EVEN DEFENDED A SLAVE OWNER IN COURT EARLIER IN HIS CAREER. AND HIS EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION APPLIED ONLY TO SLAVES IN THE CONFEDERACY.
"...Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a military measure, it didn’t apply to border slave states like Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, all of which were loyal to the Union. Lincoln also exempted selected areas of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control in hopes of gaining the loyalty of whites in those states. In practice, then, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t immediately free a single slave, as the only places it applied were places where the federal government had no control—the Southern states currently fighting against the Union."
https://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-lincoln-slavery-and-emancipation

LINCOLN STATED NEGROES WERE INFERIOR TO WHITES, NOT THEIR EQUALS: September 18, 1858, "I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men."
I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes. [Continued laughter and applause.]"

Lincoln. also, wanted all Negroes to go back to Africa or some other country! Even as late as 1863, the Lincoln Administration tried to get ex-slaves to move to British Honduras!

SO OUGHT WASHINGTON'S, JEFFERSON'S, LINCOLN'S MONUMENTS BE TAKEN DOWN?

NO.

STATUES, MARKINGS, STREET NAMES, ETC. OF PAST HUMANS--BOTH THE GOOD AND THE BAD, AND THE IN BETWEEN (PARTIALLY GOOD, PARTIALLY BAD)--OUGHT TO BE PRESERVED!

What ought we do about the memorials of previous leaders who held immoral and unjust views and who committed evil actions?

How ought worthy historical markings be separated from the markings of vandals?

To Be Continued--

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Stormy Great Lakes, American Heartland Exploration

Enjoying the summer weather of down-to-earth-30’s&40’s, hail, snow, heavy rains, etc. Here’s a photo of us on a warmer day:-)
I call our 5-week personal discovery of the Great Lakes, the American Lower Middle Heartland, etc.
the Stormy Exploration.

We loved our long vacation of exploring lighthouses, historic sites, and quilting stores, but sunny it was NOT.

Never before have we not seen the sun for weeks in our travels.
Heck, we've gone to Northwest (Portland, Seattle, Idaho for the Total Eclipse) several times in the last few years and, surprisingly, always encountered warm cloudless days!
And gone on trips including the Outer Banks, Georgia, Florida, etc. in September but only encountered a short tropical storm in the Outer Banks. The rest was warm sun all the way.

BUT the Great Lakes excursion was something else! STORMY TRIP NUMERO UNO

Driving across Colorado, I ran into a snow storm in the 3rd week of May before I even got to the high Rockies. Ironically, when I reached Loveland Pass, the sun actually peaked out of the clouds for an hour or so, the only sun I would see in for weeks.

In eastern Colorado and western Kansas, I had to knuckle down on my Ram's steering wheel battling against 30-40 knot cross winds. On the scary side, but I rolled on figuring I would stay on the highway as long as the semi's did. (However, later, when cross winds got worse, semi's kept being pushed out of their lanes. One semi in front of me was pushed out of its lane onto the shoulder by the harsh winds 4 times in a block and a half. Much of the time I, therefore avoided, passing the huge trucks, realizing to a scary degree the danger.

Then in central Kansas, I encountered a huge lightning storm--glaring lightning above me, and to both sides. And rain, of course.

In a humorous mood, I texted my sweetheart (who was going to fly into K.C. to be picked up) that it was just me and Toto crossing Kansas. BUT THEN I got a critical text on my phone from the U.S. Weather Service warning us to seek shelter because of severe weather including that 2 tornadoes had touched down in our area!

The Severe Weather Warning said the worst area was between road posts 195 and 204. You can believe your eyes that I quickly started reading the posts in the rain as I passed.
When I saw that the next post was 205, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Tragically, however, while I was having an adventure, many others weren't. That week houses were wrecked, a few people died, rivers overflowed including the Missouri along the South Dakota-Iowa-Nebraska borders, flooding homes and farm fields.

By the time I got to K.C., and then Missouri it was raining cats and hippos.

And when it wasn't it was overcast and grim. By the time, I picked my wife up and we drove into Illinois, it finally stopped raining for a couple of days, but the heavy overcast remained with sweltering humidity that melted us like the wicked witch of the east in The Wizard of Oz.

Then when we got to the Great Lakes and the temperatures dropped into the 30's and 40's, mainly caused by a very icy wind blowing out of the great North.

And it rained off and on. When we reached the border between Upper Michigan/Wisconsin and Minnesota, it hailed and rained cats and hippos again!

When we got back to Iowa, the Interstate 29 was closed down the Iowa-Nebraska border for at least 70 miles because of the Missouri flooding. So, like many places all across the center of the U.S., there were road closures and detours.

Everywhere creeks were flooding, fields drenched in shallow ponds covering large parts of them.
Etc.:-)

Finally, after 4 weeks of climate change, when we got back to K.C., visited the Zoo, the weather turned hot and sunny.

And I encountered plenty of sunny weather when I got to Oklahoma...

To be continued (all about the history sites I visited)

FINDING WHAT IS TRUE

“Am I committed to any ‘truth’ so deeply that I am willing to die for it, and willing to live moment-by-moment,
hour-by-hour, year-by-year for that truth, until my death?

How does one find what is the Good, the True, the Just, the Beautiful?

How does any individual discover whether a philosophical, moral, or political claim is genuine, is true,
is ‘truth,’
is an accurate reality

NOT
misinformation,
confirmation bias,
social distortion,
myth,
cultural dysfunction,
mass delusion, or
intentional deception?

At 72 years of age, now, I look back…

At Ramadan, What All Humans Need--3 Ought Not Fight

At this contentious time of physical and verbal harm,
this reflection is surely needed:

3 Ought Not Fight

Disking the rock strewn
Objected earth near Jerusalem,
Underneath the Middle Eastern sky
Rows of mean earth riven by the blades,
We cut away our anger, hate, and pride,
Stopping to drink, not from the liquor

Of fanatic corruption but from
The precious water welling up,
Our oasis of Jacob'd sharing,
In this Ramadan season
Months before Christ's birth
And Hanukkah.

Allah

We three sons of Abraham,
Muslim, Jew, and Christian,
Ought to fight the true battle
Not each other,
Not with weapons of harm
But
To be found worthy
In compassion
Sharing,
And kindness--
The true
Submission
To God
Over
All.

Selah



--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in
outwardlink.net

Divergent Human Stories, Science, and the Nature of Reality

“The sense of spiritual relief which comes from rejecting the idea of God as a
superhuman being is enormous.”
Julian Huxley, Religion Without Revelation

THAT'S one story.

HERE'S several others: The human species is "chemical scum;"
all humans are "biochemical puppets;"
all humans are "in essence, evil,"
all humans' sense of themselves is an illusion, etc.

And contrary ones such as: The human species is amazing in its abilities, achievements, and wonder--
that this one form of primate has become rationally, scientifically,
morally, and transcendentally aware,
is capable of creative choice and
has decoded the human genome, sent probes to the edge of our solar system,
has become aware or human rights, justice, and altruism
and creates aesthetics and music, and so many other positive, emotionally
and rationally new creations!

Astrophysicist Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams wrote in their humanistic astrophysics and meaning book, The View from the Center of the Universe that human thinkers need to come up with a new meta-story for the human species that is neither superstitious (old religious myth) nor nihilistic (some philosophers' and scientists' claims--see examples above).

WHAT IS THE TRUE NATURE OF REALITY?

Andrew Greeley, an American sociologist, writer, and liberal Roman Catholic wrote:

Anthropologist Clifford Geertz "...thinks of religion as a set of symbols which provide man a “meaning system” that can answer his fundamental problems about the interpretability of the universe. The “templates” which guide the behavior of animals are for the most part provided by innate instincts, but man has rather few instincts
and is capable of surviving in the world not because he is endowed with an elaborate system of instincts but because he is able to evolve culture; that is to say, a series of meaning systems with which he can interpret and organize his life."

"Man’s religion is the most fundamental of his meaning systems because it is one which provides answer to the most puzzling and basic questions about the meaning of existence itself...
Most of us need, at least implicitly, some sort of rough and ready answers to questions of whether
life has meaning,
of whether good triumphs over evil; or evil, good;
of how the good man lives;
of whether the really real is malign or gracious;
and of whether man is capable of establishing relationships with the real.

Our religious symbols contain, frequently in highly poetic form, the ultimate meaning system or interpretive scheme
which we use to cope with these questions."
--Andrew Greeley

And in another book by science and meaning, writer Nancy Ellen Abrams explains:
"The clear goal of my book, stated from the start, is to present a scientifically impeccable yet personally empowering way to think about God in the modern age.

"An emergent phenomenon is not the sum-total of a collective – it’s something radically and unpredictably new that arises from the collective by the laws of nature. Each of us, for example, is made of trillions of cells, but we are not just the sum-total of those cells, or we would be a large and slobbering mass of unconsciousness."

Yes, we exist only because of our cells, but what has over the course of evolution emerged from the complexity of those cells’ interactions is a human being – a complicated, self-conscious, feeling, acting, intellectually curious, potentially spiritual being that far outlasts all its individual cells and is in no sense in the image of a cell."
--
[Negative secular thinkers] "are out there giving popular talks where they cynically condemn our universe as “the worst of all possible universes” simply because of something that may (or may not) happen in billions of years; or they describe the heavy atoms cooked up in stars, which we and Earth are made of, as the “waste products of supernovae” when they could just as accurately and certainly more inspirationally call those atoms “stardust.”

So true. Abrams shows that the facts of the existence are the same, but how one understands the facts makes a huge difference. Some human thinkers view them very negatively from an anti-humanistic life stance, while others do the opposite.

Contrast the positive life outlook of science writer Carl Sagan when he wrote that humans are made of "star dust," to those naysayers, nihilistic thinkers who claim that all humans are "chemical scum,"
"waste products," "biochemical puppets," etc.

Abrams gives an example:
"There is nothing uncomfortable about dark energy but thinking makes it so. Once we accept that dark matter and dark energy account for 95% of our one-and-only universe, our spiritual challenge is to discover the comfort in them – and there’s plenty, because we owe them everything.

Without dark matter and dark energy we would never have existed. For billions of years dark matter has been pulling atoms together while dark energy flings space apart. Their interaction with each other has spun the galaxies into being, thus creating the only possible homes for the evolution of planets and life."
--

"The way our species as a whole is behaving today is unsustainable and even self-destructive in the long term. Bronze Age ideas about God are a big part of the problem, not only for believers but for atheists...who still see their job as opposing those old ideas rather than transcending them."

"But [creedal religious] belief and atheism are no longer the only options.

We are living in an amazing time when the new cosmology is teaching us not only what kind of universe we live in but how to open our minds to the cosmic deep time
from which we emerged and the cosmically long term future our descendants could have."
--
"Atheism is a reasonable reaction to the many impossible notions of God, but it cannot be the final stage of our understanding if we humans want to rise to our full potential and cooperatively confront the global problems that threaten us all."
A God That Could Be Real by Nancy Ellen Abrams
http://www.nancyellenabrams.com/blog/my-response-to-marcelo-gleiser-s-review-of-a-god-that-could-be-r



SEEK WHAT IS TRUE. CREATE HUMAN STORIES THAT ALIGN WITH SCIENCE, ONES WHICH CAN INSPIRE US TO NEW DEPTHS OF PURPOSE.

Daniel Wilcox