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

Excerpt from AN EYE for the BEHEADING novel on Palestine-Israel crisis

An Eye for the Beheading

Copyright 2024
All rights reserved
ISBN-13: 978-1495380341
ISBN-10: 1495380343

Dedication:
To the People of Palestine and Israel--
that they may share in peace

Historical Prologue:

Beheading enemies is a very ancient custom. The Hebrew Bible describes David cutting off the head of Goliath and carrying it to Saul. It also mentions that the Philistines cut off the head of Saul.
1 Samuel 17:51, 1 Samuel 31:9-10

“And pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan.” Judges 7:25

“When you encounter the unbelievers on the battlefield, strike off their heads.”
Holy Quran, Sura 47

“Your Lord inspired the angels with the message: ‘I will terrorize the unbelievers. Therefore smite them on their necks and every joint and incapacitate them. Strike off their heads and cut off each of their fingers and toes.”
Quran 8:12

An eye for an eye: “…eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Just as he inflicted an injury upon a person, so shall it be inflicted upon him.” Leviticus 24:19-21

unknown artist
--
Chapter 1: Sea Dog

Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja Mexico, June, 2026

Smoking debris filled the horizon; nature’s smudged sun set on another aeronautical disaster.

But pawing through swirling water and small waves, a Labrador retriever didn't know anything of plane dynamics or Islamic
terrorism, or why it was swimming in strange waves, only that it was very thirsty and hungry. And Two-Leg who regularly fed and patted it was missing.

Momentarily, the dog raised its head and barked roughly, but got salty water in its jowls—oily off-taste. Barked again. Gagged. Then paddled on. No sounds except painful thunder; intense acrid smells.

The yellow retriever swam around a large cabin section, passed more burning objects, on past broken flight chairs, discolored suitcases, and charred bodies, but didn't find his owner.

He paddled and paddled in amongst hundreds of yards of abandoned things. Finally, tiring, the dog spotted a large chunk of meshed baggage that floated in the distance, swaying back and forth, up and down on rolling heaving waves.

Swimming to that bunched island, the lab then pawed at the webbing, and on his 3rd try, succeeded in climbing out of the oily water up on to it.

His large dog nose sensed possible eatables and, hurriedly, he chewed through black webbing and a synthetic cover, until he got a plastic packet in his teeth, bit through that, not eatable. Tried another, found and ate tuna, scarfing up delicious morsels.

Then the sopping retriever lay down by empty packets, put his jowls onto his fore-paws and slept, despite intense rain and the rocking and swaying of the webbed baggage. In the black night, it rained and rained.

Later Lab woke in in the heavy rain and lapped shallow water which had accumulated in dips in the baggage.

Suddenly, he spotted movement over to the right on a large odd-shaped orange float. Earlier no scent had come to him of anything living, but now a wet-man smell filled his nostrils, a little like his owner’s when they played in the surf at home in Maryland. But this wasn't his owner’s smell.

Getting up, the retriever growled and then barked loudly. Repeatedly. And paced back and forth, with defensive hostility, yet interested to meet this other life.

He hesitated whether to swim over to this 2-legs on the orange object as it floated closer on low waves, indistinct in now in the constant rain. Or stay at this safe place where plenty of food in packets lay beneath his paws.

His keen ears picked up sounds from the man’s mouth.
“Here boy, come over here and help me.”

The human sounded friendly. But there was something wrong. This two-leg’s right leg looked twisted, and discolored. It smelt of blood. So, the dog still hesitated.

Then suddenly a rogue wave shoved through acres of debris, and the storm exploded; lightening spiked down, and then thunderclaps ached in the retriever’s ears. He howled and howled. Then drenching, torrential rain lashed down.

Wreckage on the high sea lurched back and forth, various objects jostling and smashing into each other, and the man’s orange float rolled closer toward the dog’s baggage-island.

The lone survivor tied his open Swiss-army can-opener to a long length of thin rope, and then anxiously swung it through the blinding downpour, and pulled back trying to catch the hook on any ridge or strap of baggage. But it slipped across the webbing of many bunched boxes and whipped down into heaving waves.

Trying over 31 times, but failing, failing…Exhausted and weak from blood loss, the man wrapped rope around his torso, tying himself to his large orange float, then lay down and slept through incessant lashing rain.

Across churning waves, the hunched wet dog on its island, hungry again, pawed deeper into its life raft, chewed into deep into boxes until it found a sack of strange tasting meat and wolfed it down, filling the emptiness within.

Then the dog bit and pawed further until he could squirm into the cavity, escaping the chill wind gusts and incessant torrent.

Later when the yellow retriever woke from a short nap, he saw the human, again; it was up and swinging its long rope again. Past images of play came to the Lab; he barked excitedly, dove into shoving waves and caught the rope as it rolled back away. Maybe this man, like his owner, wanted to play keep away.

Swimming back to its island, the Lab scrambled up on to baggage, turned toward the slumped man’s float, and gritting its teeth pulled back on the taut rope, and backed up across a flat area behind it, uttering a friendly growl.

Just after another thunderclap, the animal heard the man yelling, “Yes! Good dog!” whatever that meant, not what his owner always said, but the voice sounded positive; and seemed excited, maybe did like to play. So, the retriever continued pulling backwards, while the man pulled back.

Gradually, the two floating islands moved closer, though at times the rope almost ripped from the dog’s mouth, as counter waves crashed them away from each other. The man also had his end knotted around his waist.

When the rope slackened due to downward swoops of waves, the dog chewed on the rope’s wet cording; not like a rawhide bone, but enjoyable.

Soon the storm sea grew even more violent, rising waves becoming 7 footers, then 11, rocking and rolling the two life rafts. The rope got yanked back and forth, and the dog pulled back, and the man held on till his hands bled.

Despite wind and wave, the two life-rafts finally came within about 3 feet of each other on a down-swing of a huge wave. Ignoring stabs from his broken leg, the survivor shouted to himself, “Now or never!”

Desperately, he did a one-legged jump toward the dog’s island. Short! Not enough.

Throwing out his arms, he clawed at the dog’s baggage clump, despite raging waves. Gagged on salt water. Sunk. Coming back up, gagging, he caught one hand on loose mesh hanging in the sea, puked, got his breath back.

He hung on, and then finally managed to pull himself up, and squirmed onto the top, just as another huge wave swept over them. He rolled dangerously close to being heaved over the far side of baggage island, but managed to hold on. And the large yellow Lab pulled back again.

Then their rope fell slack as the baggage-clump slumped down into a dark canyon of water. And the man lay, almost unconscious from pain, too groggy to do anything. Blood seeped from his compound fracture. And he didn’t care.

The retriever backed up and growled. This wasn’t his owner. Lying down, he chewed on the rope end, jawing at the knife’s plastic sides.

Suddenly, a 15-footer crashed, almost washed both man and dog overboard. The cascade of water gouged through the human’s mental fog, and he opened his eye and pulled on the rope, “Let go, boy. I’ve gotta secure us.”

At first the dog wouldn’t but then lost interest in their contest and sat on its haunches watching this stranger.
The human took the loose rope end and began threading it through binding cords of some boxes. The dog watched, but growled whenever the man pushed the rope his way.

“There, there, boy, no offense. Just securing us.” But then a sharp pain ripped up from his broken leg and he moaned again. “Now then, what if I attach this end to that leather collar around your neck?”

Tensing, the retriever growled and prepared to attack if this man tried to grab him.

“Okay, I get it. You’ll share your land, but we’re not friends. Got it.”

While the ocean surface rose to 18-foot rollers, and their island hell-bucked and plummeted, the man fell
unconscious.Cascades of rain lashed down endlessly.

The Lab retreated into his dug-cave and slept.
But then later as the storm lessened, he belly-crawled over to this crumpled sleeper, sniffed, and finally lay down next to this two-legs like the dog always did every night with his owner.

Morning came bright and cool, shining its brilliant sunlight down on the floating graveyard and its two castaways.

--
Chapter 2: Sniper Attack

“And he [Khalid] ordered his [Malik’s] head and he combined it with two stones and cooked a pot over them. And Khalid ate from it that night to terrify the apostate Arab tribes and others. And it was said that Malik’s hair created such a blaze that the meat was so thoroughly cooked.” 633 AD
The Beginning and the End (al-bidaya we al-nihaya), an Islamic history by Ibn Kathir

“Crusaders…laying siege, first, to the Asia Minor city of Nicaea, where they used catapults to hurl the severed heads of Muslim defenders over fortified walls.”
Historian James Carroll

“The Muslim leader Saladin ordered each cleric in his army personally to behead at least one Christian knight. Saladin singled out for special treatment the approximate 230 Knights Templar and Hospitallers who had surrendered.
Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin, Reserve Attaché, U.S. Embassy Israel

News Alert Exclusive! KNXTV LOS ANGELES:
“There’s been a shooting in Orange County. Our reporter Shelia Cameron was on location doing interviews near South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa when shots rang out. One Muslim young woman has been wounded. No assailant has yet been apprehended.”

“The shooting took place during a noisy demonstration by over 103 Muslim students from the University of California Irvine and Orange Coast College. They are protesting Israel’s renewed bombings 3 days ago after a an Islamic attack in the West Bank.”

“That seriously injured woman in Orange County hasn’t been identified, but she was flown by Medevac helicopter to Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. Her condition is unknown at this time. Police are investigating the attack.”

“Here’s the disturbing video from earlier:”

>>“Free Palestine! From the River to the Sea! Allah Akhbar! God is great!”

Chanting rows of Muslim protestors walk up and down in front of South Coast Plaza near the 405 Freeway; carrying signs and waving Palestinian flags; some of them yelling to passing motorists.

Suddenly, there’s the unmistakable retort of several gunshots and one young woman lets go of her protest sign, spasms, and crumples to the concrete. Swathed from head to foot in Islamic clothes, she lays silent, red blooding her robe in the stomach area.

Chaos erupts. Screams and shouts in Arabic and Urdu—a few in English: “Oh Allah! Help her! Where's the shooter? Protect the others!”

Camera footage jitters as the KNXTV news crew tries to get past male protesters. Angry men shove their hands up in front of the lens and shout in Arabic.

Protesters run out onto Bristol Avenue; cars shriek to grinding stops. Harsh crunch of metal—two vehicles collide, then a BMW smashes into the back of a Lexus.

More deafening shouts, a cacophony of horns blare; screams in Arabic, Urdu, and English; demonstrators running back and forth;

Reporter Sheila Cameron talks loudly into her microphone over the yelling, and repeats what has happened, is happening.

The newsreel cameraperson videos the chaotic scene; angry male students shoulder-around a line of head-covered women, and hold their hands out like shields; they scan the area--from Plaza buildings near Bloomingdales, and southward toward the 405 Freeway overpass to honking vehicles crowded on Bristol Avenue.

Fearful; expecting more gunshots. Except for repeated shouting and blaring of car horns, and heavy traffic noise on the freeway overpass, a dangerous silence engulfs.

Then finally everyone pulls out cellphones, punching numbers while Cameron pushes closer, continues to summarize the attack. Suddenly she and her cameraman are shoved, the camera view swings up and back capturing clouds and a sunny sky and sideways to heavy traffic and swirling around, tops-turvy.

To be continued

In the Light of Peaceseeking, Equality, Justice, Sharing,

Daniel Wilcox

3 Sons OUGHT NOT SLAUGHTER each other's families!

Three Sons OUGHT No Longer Fight

Disking the rock strewn
Objected earth near Bet Shean,
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 Hanukkah season
Of Christ's mass after
Ramadan.

Allah

We three sons of Abraham,
Muslim, Jew, and Christian,
Fight the true battle
Not each other but
To be found worthy
In compassion
Giving,
And purity--
The true Submission
To God
Over
All.

Selah



First pub. in
outwardlink.net

Review of the complex, powerful History of Modern Iran by Abbas Amanat

IRAN: A MODERN HISTORY by Historian Abbas Amanat

A few months back, I had only a superficial modern media-based understanding of Iran.

Based on misinformation from the past, I had thought Iran/Persia had had a great history before modern times. One very different from the current fanatical Islamic dictatorship.

Iran's worst troubles seemed to have come about because of the revolution against the Shah and the U.S. in 1979 and the previous overthrow of the democratically elected government of Iran by the U.S. CIA in 1953 which had put the current Shah in power.

But in this deep, biographically detailed, suspenseful, reflective history by the brilliant scholar Abbas Amanat, I quickly learned that these modern events were but a horrific continuation of hundreds of years of immoral and unjust actions by religious and secular Iranian leaders.

And that often Iran has suffered repeated invasions, manipulations, destructions, and slaughters by other nations.

The U.S. overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953 was only the latest in hundreds of years of destructive actions by other nations against Iran. By far the worst invasions of foreign powers were the attacks covering several hundred years by the British Empire and Czarist Russia.

Also, tragically, like so many nations in history, Iran's dictatorial leaders often lived in arrogant, self-centered opulence, extravagant glut, and were guilty of vicious actions oppressing the poor illiterate masses, leveling oppressive taxes on farmers, etc.

While outwardly the aristocratic leaders claimed to adhere to Shia Islam, strongly supporting the fanatical mullahs in their persecution and executing of Iranians, the leaders actually lived degenerate, evil lives contrary to what any civilized human would do.

Even dictators who accomplished much that was good for average Iranians were sociopathic in their behaviors. For example after the Great War, Reza Shah came to power (1925-1941), restricted the oppression of Islamic mullahs, modernized the crimial code and economics of the nation.

But he was very paranoid like Stalin of the Soviet Union, cruel, and draconian in his actions to make Iran a modern secular society. One might call him a secular mullah.

HOWEVER, despite these hundreds of years of civil wars, oppressions, persecutions, small movments for justice, compassion, and human rights sometimes managed to arise. One of the most exciting, inspiring movements was the democratic one before the Great War!

IF only modern Iranians could overcome the present oppressive theocracy of the mullahs and begin again plans for a democratic, human-rights based society.

IF you have any interest in the Middle East and its complex history, don't miss this tour de force.

Best history I have read since The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World--1788-1800 by the historian Jay Winik.

from Amazon blurb: "Political history is the driving narrative force, given impetus by Amanat's decades of research and study. He layers the book with discussions of literature, music, and the arts; ideology and religion; economy and society; and cultural identity and heritage."
©2017 Yale University (P)2018 Tantor


In the Light of Goodness, Truth, and Justice,

Dan Wilcox

The HORROR of Natural Evil and Human Evil Actions including the tragedy in Miami

WHY AREN'T TERRIBLE TRAGEDIES LIKE THE BUILIDNG COLLAPSE PREVENTED?

Or questioners could have cited the horrific tsunami in Indonesia in 2004 that slaughtered over 240,000 innocent humans.

Or the 30 Years War, where about 1/3 of all the population of the area of Germany died, about 4-12 millions humans!

The list of human and natural evil events are endless. As a reader of many history book for many years, and a teacher of the American and world literature/history, and the Holocaust, etc., while at the same time being a liberal Christian, I couldn't account for these thousands of years of millions of events of horrific evil.

NONE of the lame theodicies of Christian theologians were satisfying. Most of them made the horrors all that more evil.

Thankfully, I wasn't a creedal Christian, but I did read in depth terrible answers from creedal theologians:

1. God doesn't owe humans any thing because we are his creations and so don't even deserve to exist at all. Its God's grace that we get to live at all.

2. God doesn't rescue the millions of infants who die horrible deaths because at conception, they are in "essence, evil" even though they haven't yet sinned. Michael Wigglesworth the famous American Calvinist stated in his theological poem that was a favorite in nearly every house in New England, that infants will be given "the easist room" in Hell.

3. God plans/ordains/wills all of those horrific evils because all evil brings God "glory" and "good pleasure." That was a favorite of Calvinist leaders:-( Even the Holocaust will give God glory! Whew:-(

4. God gave Adam and Eve free will but they ate the apple so they lost free will and all of us are thus damned, but God provides a limited number of humans, chosen before the foundation of the cosmos, eternal life. IF Adam hadn't sinned, then there would be no natural or human evils. ETC.

I also remember how many Muslim world leaders claimed the tsunami was for specific sins that the 240,000 humans had committed. And, also, one of the key doctrines of Islam is that whatever happens in reality is God's will. ETC.

So what did I do?

As a follower of Jesus and a moral realist, I was convinced that all evils--human atrocities, natural disasters, disease, etc.--are contrary to what is good, what is true, what is just.

So I was left with the terrible contradiction of God's love for every single human versus the utter lack of God's stopping constant evil-- hanging over me-- like a gullotine.

My whole focus was--and still is--on fighting against all human evil actions, and helping to alleviate those who suffer in natural disasters, etc. That is also how some Christian relief-development agencies deal with this.

For instance, MCC and World Vision, which has rescued millions of children and families from poverty, etc. since its founding int he 1950's states that the suffering of any and all humans "breaks God's heart."

They don't attempt to answer how this claim is so contradicted by all of the horrrific evils they work against.

My last comments: It seems to me, that those who think horrific human evil and terrible disasters, cancer, etc. show that God isn't in control is correct. Human history and current events prove that there is no monotheistic God who loves all humans infinitely.

There is too much evidence to the contrary.

Of course, I don't agree that the evidence proves that atheism is true. (But that's another story, why I don't think atheism is true, why I am a Process-theist.

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

Dan Wilcox

Part 2: Living the Questions: Meta-Stories about Reality

Living the questions, without definitive answers--somewhat lost, unlike most humans who seem so sure they know what it's all about.

I’m lost...not lost in the sense of the religious pietistic term, not un-rescued in the moral sense...not blind to ethical and transcendent truths...not existentially estranged in the sense of not having hope in the future, not lost when it comes to moral realism.

No, I’m not lost in those common meanings—nor am I caught in destructive habits or delusions or nontheistic confusions.
Though I often find I don't live as good as I know I ought to do,
I do seek to do what is right. And I do often experience the Light,
have a sense of the Good, the True, and the Just.

In all of those, I am found.
Thankfully.

No, how I am lost is
that I no longer have a vivid meta-story to identify with, a cosmic narrative.
I no longer have a sense why natural evils occur, such as Covid-19, cancer, etc.

About 10-15 years ago, I finally lost all hope in the Christian meta-story.
It turned out to be even at its best, an illusion. So I lost the philosophical
and theological understandings of my Christian worldview that I had thought
was a fairly stable foundation, despite my questions.

But the Christian meta-story turned out to be only many mirages, swirling sand that blew into a shifting Sahara of fading dunes. Besides, there were so many contradictory versions of what other humans claimed Christianity was!

Heck, most Christians claimed that Christians such as myself, who was one for 55 years, actually never were real Christians.

Furthermore, even all of those years as a Christian I never believed in their Creeds or their horrific concept of God.

But, finally, I realized, deeply, that I was trying to live a “true Scotsman” version of Christianity, one completely contrary to what most Christians claim. I realized down to the marrow of my bones that not even the Anabaptist/Quaker version of the Good News can be true.

I’m lost in that sense--from an intellectual standpoint. When in reflection, I step outside of my own personal commitment and try to see Life impartially and accurately, I have to admit that I don’t know the ultimate nature of Reality.

Unlike all of those who support various contrary versions of Christianity, those who claim they know that the meaning of existence is Islam, and those who claim to know that there is no god, etc., I am uncertain; indeed, never was “certain,” but now am very aware how little I know.

This is not the first time, I suddenly woke up lost--doubting my thinking and my perceiving, not knowing as much as I thought I knew when I was young.

Not long ago, about 10 years ago, I was sharing my spiritual struggles, a crisis I was in,
and one of my family joked “Oh Dan’s whole life has been one long spiritual crisis.”

And, in a sense, I suppose that is true as far as it goes:
from my earliest remembrances, I have—more than many—been the living human primate of “questions” far more than “answers.”


in process

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

Is it Necessary for the Holocaust to Happen for "Greater Good" to Come About as Many Religious Leaders Claim?

The historian Karen Armstrong points out a life-stance doesn’t succeed because it “can be demonstrated rationally but because it [is] effective in preventing despair and inspiring hope.”

Of course, if the life-stance is fallacious, irrational, superstitious, harmful, unjust, destructive, etc., even questionable, then the hope it inspires is delusionary, not real.

Maybe, even despair would be better than delusion, than false hope.

Isn’t facing loss, distress, heartache, grief, sorrow, anguish, tragedy, desperation, hopelessness, and intense suffering preferable to what is false, an empty pretentious lie?

Ought not we human primates to realize that terrible accidents happen for no reason, and that often evil events occur without any hope against them?

There is no meaning in an accident, especially not in a serious one. (Isn't that the usual meaning of "accident"--that it happened by chance, wasn't planned!?)

UNLESS, of course, one is a Muslim for whom everything that happens, evil as well as good, is Allah’s will...
Or a creedal Christian for whom the Trinitarian God foreordained every event, evil as well as good, before the universe came to be...
Or an Orthodox Jew who believes that God created evil in the beginning, etc.

Billions of such true believers claim to know that accidents are planned:-(

And another very bad philosophical view in another sense is the horrific belief that God ordained and permitted (or willed) the Holocaust, the Black Death, the 30 Years War, etc.

According to them, God allows, permits accidents and other evils in order to achieve “greater good”!

For instance, the Baptist philosophical professor Randal Rauser argues that not even God can get humans to demonstrate compassion…without allowing the amount of evil/suffering which would be required a condition for the demonstration of compassion.”

Even more reprehensibly, Rauser sincerely states, “Even in the paradigmatic example of evil, the Holocaust, one could readily draw up a vast list of some (but certainly not all) of the types of reasons that might be operative in God's allowing that evil. At no point is the Christian left with "very little, if any, content to such speculation."

Totally baffled and grieved, I courteously asked Randal Rauser, “May I ask what greater good came from the Holocaust?

And the 1918 Spanish Flu, the Great War, the 30 Years War, the Black Death, etc.?

Also, doesn't allowing horrific evil in order to achieve a greater good sound similar to the immoral action of the end justifies the means?

God permits horrific abuse, torture, and slaughter of millions including children and infants in order to achieve a “greater good”?

As a former teacher of the Holocaust and one who has lived and worked in Palestine-Israel, I can't think of any good that has come out of the Holocaust, let alone any greater good.”

BUT Rauser never answered me, didn’t give even one example of a greater good that came about because of the Holocaust!

--

But, thankfully, most humans, even many millions of religious ones are baffled and appalled by such horrific thinking by millions of other Christian leaders. During the 55 years I was a dedicated liberal Christian, mostly a Quaker, we NEVER thought that accidents or intentional evil actions happened for some greater good.

What an immoral, unjust, terrible idea—that the God had to allow the intentional torture and slaughter of over 10 million humans, 6 million of them Jewish, in order to get some unknown great good.

Even on the local level such thinking is wrong! I still remember reading about this high school girl who thought she had had an accident, become paralyzed so that she wouldn't be able to dance, because dancing was a sin in their conservative Christianity.
How absurd and tragic both at the same time.

A commenter on Rauser’s blog wrote even more starkly about this, “The innocent smile of a child hides within itself all the evils of history. It is horrible when children suffer and die; but, when I look at my son and daughter smiling at me, I realise that smile is only possible because other children (my older siblings for instance) suffered and died.” “If God loves the particular persons who exist as the particular persons who they are, and loving them wills their existence, then he must also will everything necessary to their existence, including even great and horrific evils.”
“If the Holocaust had never happened, then very many Jewish people alive today would never have been born. Without the Holocaust, there would have been, not just more Jews in the world, but a very different set of particular Jewish individuals.” Jews who live now do so only because “of the Holocaust.”
“So, if one of these individuals concludes that it is good that they exist – or good that their own beloved children exist – well, that good is only possible because of the Holocaust.”
“If God loves the particular persons who exist as the particular persons who they are, and loving them wills their existence, then he must also will everything necessary to their existence, including even great and horrific evils.”

WHEW:-(

How can one possibly answer such grossly immoral, unjust defenses of the idea that some God premits horrific evil, even genocide in order to get “greater good”?

I think the best response to such bizarre religious thinking is the story from Dostoevsky:
"Tell me yourself, I challenge your answer. Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth."

"No, I wouldn't consent," said Alyosha softly."

And can you admit the idea that men for whom you are building it would agree to accept their happiness on the foundation of the unexpiated blood of a little victim? And accepting it would remain happy for ever?"

"No, I can't admit it."

The Brothers Karamazov
--
Thankfully, ALL such religious doctrine is fallacious.

But that doesn't mean that all theistic thinking is wrong.

I do think that theists are right, that there is meaning in existence, just not in accidents, not in chance, not in evil events, especially not in the Holocaust.

No, I’m not of the sort of modern non-religious leaders who claim that everything is meaningless, that the human species is only “pond scum,” "biochemical puppets," without any worth, etc.!

When any human shows care and concern for others there is good meaning. And the Enlightenment values of human rights, justice, and equality are of great meaning.

That is why I think that moral realism is true, that humans have inherent worth, that existence isn't meaningless, and so forth, why I am a theist, not an atheist or agnostic.

However, I don't claim to know the ultimate nature of reality; I suppose some might term me an agnostic theist.

Unlike many theists and atheists, I don't start by asserting the ultimate nature of existence, but start with the local--reason, moral realism, caring, human rights, math, etc. and
from finding those reasonable, I work my way out toward the cosmic,
thinking that while I don't know ultimately what is the final nature of existence, I can be fairly confident that reason, moral realism, caring, human rights, math, etc. aren't meaningless and worthless even if human primates are a rather insignificant brief species in a minor solar system of the universe.

In the Light,
Daniel Wilcox

Mary, Joseph, and Baby Yeshua at U.S. Border

Muhammad was NO Prophet of God

1. No prophet of God would invade a town and behead 500 Jewish men who opposed him and then sell their wives and children into slavery.

Muhammad did.

2. No prophet of God would rob caravans.

Muhammad did.

3. No prophet of God would marry a 6-year-old when he is 50 years old!!

Muhammad did.

4. No prophet of God would marry his adopted son's wife as soon as she divorced his son!

Muhammad did.

5. No prophet of God would own slaves.

Muhammad did.

6. No prophet of God would call for people of other religions to be beheaded.

Muhammad did in the Quran.

7. No prophet of God would commit polygamy, marrying many women.

Muhammad did.


Maybe there are no prophets of God.

However there are human leaders who, unlike Muhammad, do stand up for compassion, justice, equality, human rights, women's rights, freedom to reject your religion, freedom of speech, etc.

* Drawing of Muhammad from Wikipedia

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

You Can't Teach an Old Dogma New Traits

"You can't teach an old dogma new traits."

That is my adaption of American writer Dorothy Parker's incisive punning aphorism against religionists who seek to revitalize their ancient beliefs by revising their old dogmas and then claiming the dogmas to be current with modern knowledge and achievements.

Parker's actual words were: "You can't teach an old dogma new tricks."

Whether tricks or traits, the satirical insight does seem to be true. (Side Note: I think my adaption more accurately reflects the nature of her point, and is less caustic in its view of religion).

Either way, consider the way that many conservative Christians and Muslims attempt to show that their scriptures--especially the Old Testament and the Quran--are accurate when it comes the beginning of the universe and other modern scientific discoveries. Or the religious leaders, instead, use other modern knowledge to claim that modern scientists are misled, (or deceiving), about the true nature of the cosmos and life.

But which ever, many Christian and Muslim scholars read into their scriptures modern concepts and views that actually don't exist in the ancient texts. They are guilty of unscholarly eisegesis, when what they ought to be doing is describing their scriptural texts as they actually were, exegesis.

As clearly obvious in her caustic comments, Parker had a very negative view of religion, especially the Roman Catholic faith, though she did attend a RC elementary school at Convent if the Blessed Sacrament. According to Wikipedia, she "once joked that she was asked to leave following her characterization of the Immaculate Conception as "spontaneous combustion."

Evidently her father, though Jewish, sent her to the elementary school because he thought it would give her a better education than public school.

Though negative toward religious doctrines, Parker was a strong supporter of human rights and the Civil Rights Movement. In her will, she gave all of her estate to Martin Luther king Jr.
--

Here's another satirical aphorism:

"Look at the dog, Ma, no paws."

--

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are wrong because of the broken places."

This adaption emphasizes that when tragedy strikes, some humans choose to do right and good despite the bad circumstances, while other humans choose to lash out and blame/harm others for the bad circumstances.

The actual famous quote is from Earnest Hemingway:
"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."

The irony of Hemingway's aphorism is that he himself wasn't strong after bad times, but often instead did much harm to others. And that he drank so heavily that it was a major factor in his serious ill health in his late 50's. He often drank a bottle before breakfast and drank 17 drinks once at the Cuban bar, El Floridita!
--

Related to that is another aphorism:
"I've taken way more out of alcohol than its taken out of others," the infamous self-deception of heavy drinkers.

Adapted from:
"I've taken way more out of alcohol than its taken out of me."
-Winston Churchill
--

"In war time, political lying is so specious, that it needs to be attended by a bodyguard of truth."

The actual quote by Churchill is horrifically dangerous, as shown by many historical wars of the past.
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
-Winston Churchill

And, of course, don't forget all of the red ball-caps on Americans at present which state, "Make America Hate, Again."
--

Do you have any satirical aphorisms to share?


Please, lighten the load of b.s. (bad snark;-) that all of us seem to be getting buried under by the current U.S. Evangelical-Christian-Political Debacle.
And the diametrically opposite nonreligious-political debacle.

We need to defangle it all.

Daniel Wilcox

Support free speech: Request that Indonesia release Meliana for false charge of blasphemy

from Amnesty International:

"URGENT ACTION: 18 MONTHS IN PRISON FOR MOSQUE NOISE COMPLAINT (INDONESIA: UA 161.18)
Meliana, an ethnic Chinese Buddhist woman, has been convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to 18 months in prison for complaining about the loudspeaker volume at a local mosque.

Amnesty International considers her a prisoner of conscience who must be immediately and unconditionally released.

Meliana, an ethnic Chinese Buddhist woman, has been convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to 18 months in prison for complaining about the loudspeaker volume at a local mosque.

1) TAKE ACTION
Write a letter, send an email, call, fax or tweet:

Immediately and unconditionally release Meliana and all other individuals who have been convicted of blasphemy;
Ensure that Meliana and her family are given effective protection from violence or threats of violence;
Repeal or amend all blasphemy provisions set out in laws and regulations which violate the rights to freedom of expression and of thought, conscience and religion.
Contact these two officials by 10 October, 2018:
Ministry of Law and Human Rights
Minister Yasonna Laoly
Jalan H.R. Rasuna Said Kav 6-7
Jakarta Selatan, DKI
Jakarta, Indonesia 12940
Fax: +62 (0)21 525 3004
Email: rohumas@kemenkumham.go.id
Salutation: Dear Minister

Ambassador Budi Bowoleksono
Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia
2020 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington DC 20036
Phone: 202 775 5200
Twitter: @KBRIWashDC @b_bowoleksono
Salutation: Dear Ambassador

--
Read the rest of this urgent action at AI:
https://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent-actions/urgent-action-18-months-in-prison-for-mosque-noise-complaint-indonesia-ua-161-18/

--

MORE INFORMATION from THE STRAITS TIMES about the basis for the blasphemy charge:

"Criticism mounts in Indonesia against jailing of woman for complaining about volume of mosque speaker

"Wahyudi SoeriaatmadjaIndonesia Correspondent
JAKARTA - Criticism has mounted, even among Muslims, against the jailing of an Indonesian woman of Chinese descent for complaining to a neighbour about the volume of the azan (call to prayer) from the speaker of the community mosque.

"Civil society groups and lawyers denounced the verdict as excessive and silly while the two biggest Muslim organisations in the country, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, questioned the use of the blasphemy clause against the woman.

"I do not see how saying 'azan is too loud' is an expression of hatred or hostility towards a particular group or religion," Mr Robikin Emhas, head of the legal, human rights and legislation department at Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation with more than 80 million members, was quoted as saying in a statement.

"The blasphemy clause should not be used to "bulldoze" anyone's right to express opinions and Muslims should consider such opinions as "constructive criticism in a plural society", he said...

"Meliana, 44, a Buddhist, was found guilty on Tuesday (Aug 21) of blasphemy by the Medan district court in North Sumatra and sentenced to 1½ years in prison. The mother of four is a resident of Tanjung Balai sub-district in the eastern part of the province. Her husband, a labourer at a local swallow's nest farm which supplies bird's nests to restaurants, lost his job because of her trial.

"On July 22, 2016, Meliana was speaking with the owner of a small convenience store, who was her neighbour, when she referred to the volume of the speaker at the nearby mosque, saying that it had become louder than previously...This quickly spread on social media, which then triggered riots as Muslims, offended by the remarks, went on the rampage. Several Buddhist temples were burnt in what was believed to be the worst bout of anti-Chinese violence in the country since 1998...Meliana became a victim of a mob who descended on her house...who then vandalised and burned her house...

"Dozens of people, including former Jakarta governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, have been sent to prison under Indonesia's controversial blasphemy laws, the Jakarta Post reported."

Read the rest of the news on Meliana at:
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/criticism-mounts-in-indonesia-against-jailing-of-woman-for-complaining-about-volume-of

Shine the light of goodness, justice, and compassion,

Daniel Wilcox

Write for Prisoner of Conscience Ahmed Mansoor

FROM AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL:

"On 29 May, the State Security Chamber of the Federal Appeal Court in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sentenced prominent Emirati human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor to 10 years in prison and a fine of 1,000,000 Emirati Dirham on charges including “insulting the UAE and its symbols.” He is a prisoner of conscience."

Please write a letter, send an email or call the UAE authorities to overturn this conviction, a miscarriage of justice.

Ask for the immediate release of Ahmed Mansoor.

"...he is a prisoner of conscience detained solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression, including through his human rights work;"

Ask that he might have "immediate and regular access to a lawyer of his choosing, his family, and any healthcare he may require."

Contact these two officials by 16 July, 2018:
Vice-President and Prime Minister
HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin
Rashid al-Maktoum
Prime Minister’s Office
PO Box 212000
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Fax: +971 4 330 4044
Email via web: https://uaecabinet.ae/en/contact-the-prime-minister
Twitter: @HHShkMohd
Salutation: Your Highness

Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba,
Embassy of the United Arab Emirates
3522 International Court, NW Suite 400
Washington, DC 20008
Phone: 1 202 243 2400 I Fax: 1 202 243 2432
Contact form: http://www.uae-embassy.org/contact-embassy
Salutation: Dear Ambassador

READ THE REST OF AI'S NOTICE AT:
https://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent-actions/urgent-action-update-ahmed-mansoor-sentenced-to-10-years-imprisonment-united-arab-emirates-ua-200-15/
--


Thank you for caring for human rights.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

The Nature of Religion--Best of Ways and Worst of Ways

Journalist Christopher Hitchens: “If you gave Falwell [a Christian leader] an enema, he could be buried in a matchbox.”

Hitchen also wrote that religion "poisons everything."

On the other hand,even some religious leaders realize the dangers/contradictions/oddities of their systems.

Take these jokes, such as this sharp satire from Jews themselves poking ironic fun at themselves, at the contradictory branches of Judaism:

“At an Orthodox wedding, the bride’s mother is pregnant; at a Conservative wedding, the rabbi is pregnant;

at a Reform wedding, the bride is pregnant; and at a Reconstructionist wedding, both brides are pregnant.”
from God Is Not One by Stephen Prothero, p. 271
--
Here's one from liberal versus conservative Christianity:

A Unitarian-Universalist minister walked across a road after being accosted by an irate Southern Baptist leader who had shouted at the UU leader:
"Your church is a joke! You reject all the creeds!"

Finally, the Southern Baptist ran across the road yelling sputtering,
"YOU, YOU...!"

And the Unitarian Universalist turned back and very politely said, "Yes?"
--

Religion is another one of those 'empty-bucket' words which are so semantically wiggly and slimy that it means many different things to many different people.

One way to systematize it is to distill the central focus of various religions.
(Some of the following is an adaption and expansion from a list in God Is Not One by Stephen Prothero.)

#1 Judaism: the problem is exile—solution is return
[my own view: problem is rebellion/disobedience—solution is repentance and Torah]

2. Islam: the problem is pride—solution is submission

3. Christianity: the problem is sin—solution is salvation

4. Confucianism: the problem is chaos—solution is social order/propriety

5. Hinduism: the problem is samsara cycle of reincarnation/karma/impurity/–solution is spiritual release via devotion/ritual/duty
[my own view—solution is cleansing/separateness]

6. Buddhism: the problem is suffering—solution is awakening
[my view: problem is suffering--solution is complete negation]

7. Taoism: the problem is lifelessness—solution is natural flourishing and freedom
--

8. Paganism: the problem is disconnection from nature--solution is reverence of the natural world

9. Atheism: the problem is superstition/faith/religion—solution is atheistic reason

10. Deism/Enlightenment: the problem is injustice/oppression/superstition--
solution is theistic reason and democracy

--

11. Humanism: the problem is delusion or meaninglessness--solution is affirmation of the good/worth/flourishing













12. Religious non-religious Ideology: the problem is bourgeoisie capitalism--solution is dictatorship of the proletariat
This odd animal is secularism that adopts many of the trappings and behaviors of religion including ritual, reverence of dead leaders, heresy trials for those who deviate from dogma, etc...

Prime examples: U.S.S.R. Communist Party: the preserved bodies of Lenin and Stalin lying in state in a mausoleum in Red Square based upon a religious building from humanity's past. And for over 70 years many millions of people have gone to view the two famous communist leaders of the Russian revolution, and millions have been spent on displaying and preserving the corpses.

A lesser example--civil religion in nations such as the U.S. where the American flag is treated with reverence like a sacred object and people pledge themselves to the flag, where myths are believed about their most revered dead leaders.

And the leaders are venerated with huge monuments including Washington's monumental tower and Lincoln's Memorial based upon a a Greek temple!

13. Heresy: One EXTREMELY odd fact about religion is that various aberrant versions of official religions are often closer to other religions or ideologies than the specific religion they are listed under!

For instance liberal Quakerism is far closer to Humanism than to creedal Christianity. Heck, some Quakers claim to be Pagans or Nontheists, some Jews are closer to Atheism than any religion, a few Muslims closer to Deism/Enlightenment than orthodox Islam.

And consider the bottomless chasm between many Arminiam Christians
versus
most Reformed/Augustinian Christians!

The former think that the God of Christianity infinitely loves and seeks to save every single human and that God created all humans with infinite worth, and for eternal communion and fellowship.

VERSUS

Reformed/Augustinians wno believe that the God of Christianity chooses to only loves a limited number of humans who have no choice, that all humans are conceived/born totally depraved because of God's hidden will.
And that from before the foundation of the cosmos, God foreordained most humans, billions of us, to eternal damnation/torture for his own glory.

Not a molecule moves in reality, according to Reformed Christianity, but that God moves it. God is the cause of all natural disasters, all disease, all evil.
In this sense,
the Reformed are MUCH closer to the total determinism of orthodox Islam, where whatever happens is Allah's will. And the Reformed are much closer to the versions of Atheism which believe in hard determinism than some forms of Arminiam Christianity which emphasize free will.
--

OTHERS--

Jainism: the problem is ? solution is

Sikhism: the problem is solution is

Zoroastrianism: the problem is solution is

Shintoism: the problem is solution is

Baha’i: the problem is solution is




TO BE CONTINUED--




In the LIGHT,

Daniel Wilcox



1 Some of these are adapted from GOD Is Not ONE by Stephen Prothero

Christianity and Abuse

Religion gets even worse:
Christian leader Paige Patterson, former President of the Southern Baptist Convention, and head of one of its seminaries tells a woman to accept abuse from her husband!

So she got black eyes this time.

What did Patterson then say?

Paige Patterson said, "And sure enough, he [husband] did. She came to church one morning with both eyes black.

And she was angry at me and at God and the world, for that matter. And she said, “I hope you’re happy.”

And Patterson said, “Yes ma’am, I am...I’m sorry about that, but I’m very happy.”
--

Patterson was happy because he saw the abusive husband in the back of the church!

This is so immoral and revolting--for him to tell her to accept abuse! Oh but a happy ending NOT. Contrary to what Patterson claims, the end doesn't justify the means...accept abuse so that eventually your husband will change.

We've heard this before in human relations: Waterboard (or other forms of torture) and you will rescue innocent people from terrorists...bomb hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, and you will rescue others in the future...refuse equal treatment toward others and you will be blessed by God, ETC. ad nauseam....

American Christians often go off the deep end into unethical, unjust, unequal beliefs and behaviors, BUT Patterson's speech has definitely reached an abyss, a low below low.

How hellish to state that some forms of abuse aren't that bad, and that a woman ought to submit to abuse and obey such a husband and stay in the same house with him.

This sounds like the Muslim university professor here in California who defended the Quran's statement that husbands ought to beat their wives.

When I strongly protested, he explained, ah, but the beating is only a "light" beating, not a harmful one.

Good grief. More and more religion is showing its toxic character. Of course, it has in the past...it's only repeating.

Even a little abuse is far too much!


Stand up against toxic, abusive religion...

And seek the Good, the True, and the Just,

Daniel Wilcox

Guest Post: Freedom Fighter Against Modern Slavery

from Freedom Fighter
A slaving society and an abolitionist’s crusade

by Alexis Okeowo

Photograph by Emiliano Granado

Alexis Okeowo
"Biram Dah Abeid is from the country’s traditional slave caste, the Haratin.
Two springs ago, Biram Dah Abeid arrived home in Nouakchott, the desert capital of Mauritania. At the airport, he was welcomed by hundreds of supporters, along with his wife and children.

Abeid, the founder of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement, is the most prominent antislavery activist in Mauritania, which is said to have the highest incidence of slavery in the world. It was Friday, the holiest day of the week, and Abeid, returning from a trip to Berlin and Dakar, was enraged. Recently, he had helped force the government to put a slave owner in prison, and he had learned that the man was released after less than two months.
--

In 1981, Mauritania became the last country in the world to abolish slavery, while making no provision for punishing slave owners. In 2007, under international pressure, it passed a law that allowed slaveholders to be prosecuted. Yet slavery persists there... even as the government and religious leaders deny it.

Although definitive numbers are difficult to find, the Global Slavery Index estimates that at least 140,000 people are enslaved in Mauritania, out of a population of 3.8 million. Bruce Hall, a professor of African history at Duke University, said that people endure slavelike conditions in other countries in the region, but that the problem in Mauritania is unusually severe:
“Some proximate form of slavery has continued to be a foundation of the social structure and the division of labor within households, so there are many more people who are willing to support it as an institution.”

While Abeid was travelling, a well-known imam had given a televised interview. A journalist asked whether slavery existed in Mauritania, and the imam said no. Then why, the journalist asked, had the imam recently given the journalist’s boss a slave girl as a gift? The imam simply smiled.

Mauritania is an avowedly Muslim country...Imams who defend slavery often refer to a set of interpretive texts that date back as far as the eighth century. One prominent example is a mukhtasar, or handbook of Islamic law, written by the fourteenth-century Egyptian scholar Khalil ibn Ishaq. According to its precepts, a slave cannot marry without her master’s permission, nor does she have any right to her children...

At Abeid’s public prayer...An imam spoke against slavery and inequity. Another man called for a Haiti-style slave revolt.

As they spoke, a plainclothes policeman jumped up and shouted, “Allahu Akbar! What you are saying is wrong!”

One of Abeid’s bodyguards dropped the [Islamic] books into a cardboard box and doused them in lighter fluid. The crowd was on its feet, peering at the spectacle. No one had expected this. Defacing the holy books of Islam is a crime of apostasy, punishable by death. Abeid set the books on fire."

Abeid: “These books justify selling people, they justify raping people,” he said. “We will purify the religion, the faith, and the hearts of Mauritanians.” He held up a red hardcover with intricate embossing. “What the Prophet says was hidden by these books, which are not real words from God,” he said. “These old books give a bad image of Islam. We have no choice but to take this step.”
--
By eight o’clock on the evening of the book burning, local news Web sites had begun calling Abeid a heretic. “When I went to bed, I was satisfied,” he told me. “But I had a feeling something would happen tomorrow. When I woke up, it was a war—in the media, in the mosques.” Newspapers were calling for his death.

President Aziz appeared onscreen and promised to administer the death penalty."

By Alexis Okeowo

READ the rest of this powerful ethical article by Alexis Okeowo at:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/08/freedom-fighter
--


Work for Human Rights, Equality, and Justice,

Daniel Wilcox

Stand for Taner Kilic! Please write the Government of Turkey

https://act.amnestyusa.org/page/19447/action/1

from the Amnesty International Website:
"The decision to renew the detention of Amnesty International’s Turkey Chair mere hours after a court ordered his release must be immediately reversed and Taner Kılıç set free, said Amnesty International."

“Over the last 24 hours we have borne witness to a travesty of justice of spectacular proportions. To have been granted release only to have the door to freedom so callously slammed in his face is devastating for Taner, his family and all who stand for justice in Turkey."
--AI Secretary General Salil Shetty

“This latest episode of his malicious detention has dashed the hopes of Taner and those of his wife and daughters who were waiting by the prison gates all day to welcome him into their arms.”

https://www.amnestyusa.org/press-releases/re-arrest-and-detention-of-amnesty-chair-hours-after-release-ordered-devastates-family-disgraces-justice/

“This is the latest example of the crisis in Turkey’s justice system that is ruining lives and hollowing out the right to a fair trial,” said Salil Shetty.

“By riding roughshod over justice and ignoring the overwhelming evidence of his innocence his re-detention only deepens our resolve to continue to fight on Taner’s case. One million voices have already called for his release. He should never have been arrested, and we will not rest until he is free.”

"The next court hearing has been set for June 21, 2018."

Stand for human rights! Support prisoners of conscience, especially Taner Kilic. Please write today!

Daniel Wilcox

Part 3: Why Israel and Palestine Have Failed

As I explained in Part 1, there is no easy solution to this many-thousand'd-year-old dilemma. Surely, the folly and tragedy of inhumane history, especially, the last two hundred years of failed diplomacy, war, and genocidal hatred must caution us against quick or even slow solutions to very complex situations.

How does one even begin to deal with Israeli settlers or Palestinian HAMAS—both who claim the Ultimate Reality of the Universe is exclusively on their own side, that their opposing Gods call them to kill their enemies?

How does one get two diametrically opposed killing nationalities to reconcile?

What would we do if our enemies played soccer with the decapitated head of our son, as did Palestinians with an Israeli soldier’s head in 2004 in Gaza?”!

What would we do if we were caring doctors, but while we helped the women of our enemies, they dropped large shells on our house and killed 4 of our daughters as did an Israeli tank in 2008 (I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza’s Doctor on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity by Izzeldin Abuelaish)?

To be utterly honest, even given my ethical commitments, I don’t think I could handle such horrible actions by avowed enemies. How could I seek to care for the family of the Muslim “martyr” and “hero” who snuck into our 13-year-old daughter’s bedroom and knifed her to death?!!!

Only a minority of human leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Bayard Rustin seem capable of having such a deep centering in benevolence and nonviolence that they can show caring to killers. MLK did for KKK members and other Southern racists, even though they supported bombings which killed 4 young girls, even though they fired-bombed King’s house, endangering his own family.

At present, I find it difficult to deal with several people who lied about me. I’ve sought to forgive them, but these individuals’ actions deeply harmed myself and my family, and had very bad results for years.

I admit, though I am writing this article in hope it will be one tiny blossom for peace in the Middle East, I, myself, wouldn’t know how to handle what Israelis and Palestinians go through daily—the oppression, the lying, the stealing, the cruel actions, the killing, and worst of all, the justifications for the killings...

Also, keep in mind, very ironically, that many Palestinians and Israelis are actually closer to each other than they are to their own ethnic/national governments. Did anyone see the video of Palestinian Fatah members who had their kneecaps/legs shot off by their “brothers” of HAMAS when the latter attacked them in Gaza?

The wounded Fatah members got medical attention, strangely enough, in an Israeli hospital!

And don’t forget the tragic story of the Palestinian gynecologist who helped treat Israeli women for infertility but lost 3 of his daughters, killed by Israeli soldiers!

Or what about the Israelis who agree to meet in equality with Palestinians in reconciliation groups such as the grieving parents organization, Parents Circle—Families Forum, and Musalaha, who share more in common with their “enemies” than with the Israeli government of Netanyahu?

What about the Palestinian Elias Chacour (the author of Blood Brothers and We Belong to the Land) who has founded schools for hundreds of children and teens? The schools include Muslims, Druze, Christians, and Jews all working together!

Or consider the extreme commitment to ethics, sharing, and peace of Combatants for Peace, former warriors on both the Israeli side versus the Palestinian side, who now are working together for peace and justice.

The solution of the unending crisis has been tried by at least 8 methods in the past.

What about #6 Diplomacy? We have seen over the last 50 years, political diplomacy, even at its best, is usually little more than a smoke screen for furthering one’s own national agenda. While the Israelis claim to be seeking reconciliation with Palestinians, they continue to confiscate land from Palestinians, siphon off far more than their share of water, water needed much more by the Palestinian Arabs, abuse and demean the latter, etc.

Netanyahu's goverment even destroyed a school built by Scandinavians for Palestinian children and bulldozed a orchard planted by a Palestinian family who owned their land in 1904, long before most Jewish people came from Europe and the U.S.

And while Palestinians claim they want peace with Israel, they actually continue to stock arms, and tell their own people, teach their children in their schools, that they plan for the eventual extinction of Israel. Their diplomacy is only a mask of their real intentions.

As for #7 Legal Claim, surely anyone who has dealt at all with the convoluted legal system in the United States, knows this method is by far the worst of the eight efforts at peacemaking, for trying to solve the tragedy of the Middle East.

Legality seldom if ever has to do with what is ethically good, loving, and kind.

If you think #3 Present Possession is the key, are you prepared to give up your car to the thief who stole it last week because he is now driving it?

If Chumash Indians take over your house, force you and your family off your property, claiming their ancestors lived on your land, are you prepared to accept their present possession?

Present possession for the most part is only the poisonous frosting on the cake of #4 Military Might.

The latter--Military Might is, of course, the most popular and the most successful of land decisions. If in doubt ask the Indians why they don’t control California? Or the Mexican Government?

Or why the Saudis, one of the most oppressive governments in the world, is still in power after nearly a hundred years. It’s called survival of the fittest, governments being the meanest, cruelest…

But I presume if you have come to this site, which has the longwinded name, Infinite Ocean of Light and Love, you are not among the multi-millions of humans who believe in revenge and survival of the fittest, that you don’t espouse stomping out your enemies and so do not want to hear a defense of that method. There are endless pro-military, pro-war websites and books for those who do.

Does anyone think #5 Best Use is ethically sound?

Strangely enough, many Israelis claim they get all of the land because they are better builders, farmers, scientists, etc. than Palestinians. But no doubt you know what infamous political group in the twentieth century actually espoused this doctrine before the Israelis.

It’s very strange that Jewish people would dare touch this view let alone strongly support it.

Now we come to the three best methods, but they, too, are fraught with severe problems...

TO BE CONTINUED--



In the Light of Peace, Justice, and SHARING,

Daniel Wilcox

REGARDING JERUSALEM: Missing Star and Cradle

Missing Star and Cradle

Weird Christmas Eve 40 times past
With no holly, blinking red or green lights,

No 'holy' decorations, only the gaudy glare
Of cold Jerusalem's neon theater sign;

We watched Catch 22 with our kibbutz bunch
After being frisked for bombs at the entrance.

Years explode by while politicians yet pitch
Uncradled in the maze of their doctrinal hype;

The sacred cave's still dark and unstable,
For more unwise men, so starless, misrule.


--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in Danse Macabre
and in poetry collection,
Psalms, Yawps, and Howls

Revisiting Death Boat Ethics

At times, doesn’t much of religion and politics seem like a lot of crock? Yes, and so it did through most of history, though few humans realized it. And, even now, not much has changed. Billions still rush pell-mell into religious and political debacles and horrors. Abyss after abyss.

The current slaughter, such as the one in an Egyptian mosque 2 days ago, usually involves devout Muslims killing devout Muslims, a very delusionary, destructive life-stance Speaking historically, however, most worldviews have engaged in destruction, including the killing of children.

And then there are the modern views which also justify killing for the good.
A prominent one is Integral Theory, a secular version of Hindu philosophy.
Consider the books of its religious thinker Ken Wilber. At first, Wilbur's
modern synthesis sounds positive. His writing is lucid, and he makes plenty
of insightful points in the Vision and his other books.

Wilbur shows the fusion of a vast amount of learning and much creativity, and has a light-hearted sense of humor as well.
His Integral Theory seeks to combine modern psychology, spirituality, and science into an integrated whole. No small undertaking!

BUT Integral Theory is a modern re-envisioning of "death boat ethics."

What of stopping massacres? According to Wilber, killing is necessary that the nations of the world stop tyrants if they are killing unarmed civilians. Yet at the same time, Wilbur claims that it is really God, in the Hindu sense, who is using the tyrants to do the slaughtering. Furthermore, Wilbur emphasizes that war is necessary.

According to Integral Theory, it is God who brought about 9/11, slaughtering the helpless civilians in the Twin Towers.
See, God, is playing both sides of the fence. See, God is both good guy and bad guy.
From Wilbur: "Totally insignificant, infinitely significant--no difference, truly. Atoms and Gods are all the same, here in the world of One Taste; the smallest insult is equal to the greatest; I am happy beyond description with every act of torture, I am sad beyond compare with every act of goodness."
No, I don’t get it. I don’t see that at all.

But, of course, this is only another horrific version of the hard determinism of Augustinianism, Reformed Christianity, Islamic theology, and modern Atheistic determinism.

The only difference is Wilbur promotes his philosophy with vivid secular prose and throws a few sacred bones to spiritually inclined humans.

Then Wilbur begins to argue for his “Life Boat ethics.” According to him, NOT all humans can live on this earth; so we higher ones must decide which lesser humans—people of less value--
to cast over the sides to their deaths.

This is according to his “depth and span” ethical system. We should/must throw out lesser people from the Life Boat to their deaths! (from Wilber’s Kosmic Consciousness Interview tapes)

Here we have the fallacious view that the “end justifies the means.” It is from such ethical systems that so much of the horrific tragedies and mass slaughters of the 19th and 20th centuries came about.

Haven’t you noticed that when the “end justifies the means," it is always to the advantage of the killing nation or ideology, never for the enemies?

If other countries torture, that is horribly wrong, but if we do it, well, it’s not really torture, and, besides, the end justifies the means for us.

If someone else lies, how wrong, but, of course, if we lie, it is necessary. Yes, Wilber defends some forms of lying! As do most religious and nontheistic humans.

And then, his views get really weird, definitely not of the puritanical Gandhi sort: For Wilber says that it’s okay for husbands and wives to have sex with individual outside of their marriage in an "open marriage”!
(Ken Wilber website)

Furthermore, he seems to agree with another author that Jesus may have had sex with Mary Magdalene.
(“The Meaning of Mary Magdalene” by Cynthia Bourgeault and Ken Wiber, kenwilber.com)

These “Life Boat” ethics are really anti-life. They go against the moral views of Jesus and Gandhi and Thich Nhat Hanh and Abdul Ghaffar Khan and many other ethical leaders.

It’s time to realize that all such “Life Boat” ethical systems are really moral death boats.

Of course, according to Wilber most of the humans who oppose his system are lowly “oranges” on his rating scale of human development. What is an “orange”? Don’t ask; it’s not good; a large number of stages down below Wilber’s own advanced spiritual trans-human stage.

Well, at least it’s better for us to be “orange” rather than being “red.” Reds are even worse.

Later, Wilber points out that we do need to include the lesser valued humans, up to a point, (unless we have already bombed/executed them, of course).

And besides, according to him, they will be reincarnated.

Doesn’t this sound a bit like the designations of humans in the highly satiric novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley? Or George Orwell's very bitter fable, Animal Farm?

What about Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, Thich Nhat Hanh, Kurt Vonnegut, and others who emphasize that humans ought to learn to show benevolence their enemies?

No, Wilber emphasizes. On the contrary, he thinks that even in a thousand years humankind probably won't overcome the need to war.

In his novel, he has one character say “turning the other cheek is exactly what you don’t want to do with pre-orange memes.”

But Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, in contrast, reached out to the marginalized “less integral” humans, to their political enemies, even to terrorists.

But as mentioned above, Wilber emphasizes that it is all humans’ duty to kill.
Like in the Hindu religious classic, the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna doesn’t want to kill his relatives in war, but the God Krishna tells him it is his duty to go into battle and kill his relatives.

So the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria are justified and so are other wars which our particular nation thinks we ought to fight out of duty.

Again, the end justifies the means.

Are we to forget about the nonviolent ethics of Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, and Palestinian Eli Chacour?

Jesus dealt with the powerful immoral Roman Empire, with ruthless Roman soldiers who crucified thousands of Jewish individuals, yet Jesus didn't become a zealot and slit Roman throats saying they hadn’t reached his level of spiritual development.

So have many other spiritual leaders down through history, going against the dominant human way of slaughter.

In contrast, Ken Wilber’s view (as expressed by his characters at wilber.shambhala.com and in an extended interview in Kosmic Consciousness by Sounds True) is that nonviolence only works when your nation’s enemies are, basically, nice people.

Also, Wilber emphasizes that humans shouldn’t live by nonviolence because, not only does peace-living not work, but “your death doesn’t even buy you good karma, but the karma of the coward”!!! (wilber.shambhala.com).

Wilber claims if we don’t kill in war, then we are responsible for what the enemy does! So were the Jewish people of Europe responsible for what the Nazis did? Etc.?

And what makes this all the more confusing is that Wilber has one of his characters later say that God is actually ‘behind’ all such human evil:

"Precisely because I am not this, not that, I am fully this, fully that. Beyond nature, I am nature; beyond God, I am God; beyond the Kosmos altogether, I am the Kosmos in its every gesture. Where there is pain, I am there; where there is love, I am present; where there is death, I breathe easily; where there is suffering, I move unconstrained."

"On September 11, 2001, I attacked me in a distant part of the galaxy on an unremarkable planet in a speck of dust in the corner of manifestation, all of which are wrinkles in the fold of what I am. And none of which affects me in the slightest, and therefore I am totally undone, I cry endlessly, the sadness is infinite, the despair dwarfs galaxies, my heart weeps monsoons, I can't breathe in this torture."

"Totally insignificant, infinitely significant--no difference, truly. Atoms and Gods are all the same, here in the world of One Taste; the smallest insult is equal to the greatest; I am happy beyond description with every act of torture, I am sad beyond compare with every act of goodness."

"I delight in seeing pain, I despise seeing love. Do those words confuse you? Are you still caught in those opposites? Must I believe the dualistic nonsense that the world takes as real? Victims and murderers, good and evil, innocence and guilt, love and hatred? What dream walkers we all are!”
(Ken Wilber Website)

Wilber’s God is the One behind all the evil (as well as the good)!

Yet Ken Wilber thinks the “God” of Christian Fundamentalism is a “nightmare”!
(Page 155)

Whew!

Think about it: Somehow in Wilber’s philosophy humans need to be executed and bombed, but
behind all those horrendous evil actions is really Ultimate Reality playing:-(!

“until I decided to play this round of hide and seek, and get lost in the objects of my own creation.” (Page 204)

Finally, Wilber states, "Well, it does if you use the W-C Lattice...
Begin using IOS and suddenly it all starts to make sense, at least enough to climb out of the nightmare of fundamentalism…”
from The Integral Vision by philosopher Ken Wilber (pages 147 and 155)

The devil in the “Integral Vision” is hidden in the ethical details. Wilber’s worldview turns out to be much worse than the fundamentalist Christianity he thinks is a “nightmare.” His own philosophical dream makes even less compassionate sense.

How can such a brilliant, knowledgeable, insightful individual be so deceived?

Some ethical issues are so difficult, so ambiguous that morally concerned individuals may disagree.
For example, I could agree to disagree with Wilber’s strong support for execution.

His adamant support for capital punishment doesn’t seem to square with his own spiritual philosophy, but every ethical system has its conundrums. And, besides, capital punishment is a tough, ambiguous issue.

However, Wilber’s attitude is very troubling. When asked if he thought that criminals guilty of murder should be helped to turn from their actions, to change ethically, he said that he didn’t think it was worth society’s effort to help them.

And besides, with reincarnation, the criminals would be reincarnated anyway, so it’s time to “recycle” them. (Ken Wilber’s answer in Kosmic Consciousness tapes)

Again, here is displayed a tragic, uncaring attitude that has often clung like dung to the belief of reincarnation in the past, where the doctrine contributes to the problem of human evil rather than encourages humans to try and solve unjust systems and to help those who do wrong.

Wilbur's view is, Why help the low class, low caste? Why help criminals? Why help the poor? They are all paying for bad karma!

Those humans did something wrong in their past lives. Or since ‘they’ do evil now; why help them? They’ll be back soon with another life.

That’s definitely not the way of the Light. Jesus showed compassion for all the lost, even for criminals and terrorists. While no one should be excused for murder, (like often happens in U.S. courts today, where intentional murderers sometimes get off with only serving as little as 4 years in prison), mercy to help is vital.

All of us need to keep in mind that something like 80% of criminals in prison were abused as children. As Thich Nhat Hanh so wisely pointed out, how do we know that we wouldn't be like the individuals we condemn if we had grown up in their abusive environment?

Though their evil actions as adults are inexcusable, and they do need to be separated from society to prevent harm to others, surely these morally deformed individuals (some of whom had their arms burned by their mother’s cigarettes or were bashed in the face, or sexually abused, etc.)--surely, they do deserve to be rescued.

Hopefully, they will choose to change. At least that is the philosophy of psychologist Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis and other forms of human hope and creative change.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox