FILLOSSOFEE – Messages from a

Grandfather By Robert Gately

Copyright © 2014

Robert Gately All rights

reserved

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief

quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSMy wife and editor, Lois

Charles, my insane brother-in-law, for editing my first draft

To all my children and grand-children whose appearances have lead roles in my stage of existence.

DEDICATION

To my grandchildren

Courtney Joseph

Amanda Robert Jeremy James Joey

Jessica Kristopher

Kyle

And my great-grandchildren Leah

Anthony Rylan

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Table of Contents

Chapter One - In Search of the Truth

Chapter Two - What It Is To Be Human: Capital Punishment and Other Musings

Chapter Three - God, god, and Other Matters, such as Death and Hell

Chapter Four - What is Good, and Why Are We Here

Chapter Five - Musings on Things We’ll Never Understand; Free Will; The New Golden Rule;

Trolley Problem; Separation of Church and State

Chapter Six - To Kill a Mockingbird, and Other Tidbits such as Gun Control, Humbug to the

Rich, Abortion, etc.

Chapter Seven - When Do You Know the Dream Has Died?

Chapter Eight - “The Worst Form of Inequality is to Try to Make the Unequal Things Equal.” -

Aristotle

Chapter Nine - Notes on Negative Projection and Forgiveness

Chapter Ten - Reincarnation: Fact or Fiction

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Preface to FILLOSSOFEE

A person’s character and integrity shouldn’t be measured on what they do when things are

going well, but rather they should be measured during times when things are going wrong.

I have long felt my children and grandchildren indulge in social networking in a way that

degrades rather than enhances their mental and social skills. I’m not poo-pooing social

networking. Far be for me to grate against one of the wonders of the Common Era. Social

networking, I have come to the conclusion, if handled with moderation, it is a good thing. I

already have egg on my face because I opposed the internet in the beginning. I was resistant to it

because I have a substantial reference library and I was experiencing its obsoleteness as the

internet provide more extensive querying capability than my paper-library did. I loved my

thesauruses and dictionaries and … my historical and science books. But once I tapped into the

ability to find what I needed to know whenever I wanted it, I gladly embraced the new medium. I

google every chance I get and the vernacular of the phrase ‘google it’ has replaced words like

‘look it up in the dictionary’ or ‘what does the encyclopedia say’. When there’s two spellings for

a word, I google both words and pick the one that has the most returns. Wikipedia has its

problems, but I use it repeatedly. I have a Webster dictionary icon and I pay my bills whenever I

can on-line. The internet is a wonder and I love it. I’ve been modernized in that sense.

But, for crying out loud, one of my grand-daughters’ text messaging for the month is 6000 texts

on the average. The worst month was 13,000 texts. That’s an average of 433 a day for a 30 day

month period. Assuming 20 seconds is spent on each text, that’s almost 2½ hours a day on

texting, assuming she’s quick fast and abrupt. ‘Abrupt’ is the key word, since miscues and

misunderstandings account for most of the conflicts associated with this type of social

networking. But 2½ hours is a bit much, and that’s not including other networking processes like

emailing and phone calls. Not to pick on my one grand-daughter, other family members are a bit

the same, although not as prolific. I approached other family members and asked them if they

knew who Copernicus was or if The Calculus had any meaning in their lives. One person

answered ‘huh’? However, if I asked, they could give me a half hour dissertation on who the

Kardashians are. In fact, I have asked, and the best I can tell is the Kardashians are famous for

being famous. Ug!

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It matters to me why I do things and if I shrug my shoulders because I’m reacting rather than

having a ‘reason’ for my actions, then I’m prone to making mistakes. If apathy is a way of life,

then I’ll be making a lot of mistakes without the learning process that goes along with it. This

lack of industry and lack of knowledge of history and sciences with my progeny is a product of

our culture today, I believe. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not a fuddy-duddy. I’ve gotten

myself in trouble many times with my grandchildren’s parents by exploring human behavior. I

taught my great-granddaughter, for example, when we were at the check-out line in a grocery

store to yell out, “Hey, people, we’re gonna eat tonight.” And I was reprimanded when I got her

to go to the counter at a drug store and tell the person who was waiting on line that “I’m looking

for a suitable host.” My worst offense came when my daughter was acting like a child in front of

my two 5-year-old grandchildren and I taught the youngsters to shake their butts at her while

yelling out, “Na-na, na na-na.” Childish? Perhaps. I was exploring with them, and it was

certainly funny at the time. But my grandson didn’t have the wisdom to curb his enthusiasm and

he couldn’t stop doing it. He did it every chance he got, which put me in the dog house … again.

Our two cultures are clashing, and I feel a bit responsible for it. To give you an example, I read

something the other day that might explain it a bit. There’s two ways of looking at things, and

I’ll give the expedited version. It’s the story about the grasshopper and the ant. My culture, or

my version of it, explains how the grasshopper sees the ant working hard in the heat of summer

every day, busy building his house and finding supplies to keep him alive during the winter. The

grasshopper laughs at the ant because he thinks him a fool and continues to play the summer

away. When the winter comes, the ant is warm and eats what he wants. The grasshopper, ill

prepared, has no shelter and freezes to death.

In today’s version of the story, the grasshopper sees the ant working hard in the heat of summer

every day, busy building his house and finding supplies to keep him alive during the winter. The

grasshopper laughs at the ant because he thinks him a fool and continues to play the summer

away. When the winter comes, the ant is warm and eats what he wants. The grasshopper calls a

press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed

while others are cold and starving. He gets the sympathy he’s looking for and receives

‘entitlement’ packages to keep him warm and well fed.

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Now, cynicism is not my way of life, and certainly the moral of the story is NOT to look for

entitlements, but rather I should be responsible for myself. Perhaps I haven’t been a good role

model in this respect. Mistakes are to be made in life and this lack of exploring that my children

seem to have has led me to writing this book. It is not intended to make up for my lack of

guidance, but to highlight the need to ‘think for yourself’ and, yes, ‘be responsible for yourself’,

especially your ideas. We usually think, speak and act, in that order. The adage, ‘think before

you speak’ is a testament to who we are. We may, for example, be so in tune with our beliefs

because we have thought out every angle, every consideration or possibility, and discussed it

fully with our mentors, so when the moment arises when we must act we, seemingly, act

spontaneously, but with precision. If this is the case, then, okay, we’re in tune with our beliefs.

But most of the time we don’t do that. Hopefully, this book will help in turning that around.

Please know I found it quite hard to compartmentalize my ideas. For example, the last chapter is

on reincarnation but I also talk about it in the ‘free-will’ section because it needed to be

addressed there as well. So, please don’t think I’m all over the map without a rudder. Also, some

of these topics and the way I present them are too advanced at your age for some of you. So, I

wait until you get older … and wiser, and hope you find joy in my journey. I start by talking

about the search for truth. Hopefully, this will lead us into seeking the hard-to-reach conclusions

in life like ‘who is God?’ and ‘what is our place in the universe?’ Or I ask practical questions

like, ‘is killing another human being wrong?’ I explore exclusions, if any, and if I do have

exceptions like ‘it’s okay to kill in self-defense’, that doesn’t mean I can’t attain the absolute

about other things in life.

We all opine about everything under the sun, and it’s important we push our psyches to the limit,

or to conclusions that ultimately define us. On important matters in public dispute, we vote and

come to a mass conclusion like, for example, on capital punishment. The fact is the search for

truth is what matters. I must actively seek to find. One might say I should just open my eyes.

Simple? Yes, but true. I might add, we should be asking the right questions.

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Anyway, this book is intended to be a journey in which mistakes are to be embraced, not

avoided. We avoid dangerous acts, but explore the universe. Some say we’ll blow ourselves up

in the process. I say, we’ll come to an understanding of not only who we are, but why we are

here, and we might save ourselves in the process.

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CHAPTER ONE

IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH:

A true believer asks God: “Dear God, what is the meaning of life?” And God’s response is:

“Have you tried googling it?”

Our technology has really come a long way since I was born. I sometimes feel all there is to

know is available on the internet and all the reference sites out there in cyberspace. There are so

many tools and apps, it’s amazing. In fact, right now I’m using a speech-recognition software as

a means of writing. We’ve come a long way since I first used a manual typewriter with a handy

bottle of liquid ‘white out’ next to my machine. Yet, with all the information available to us at

our fingertips, it is unlikely that any of us will become Mr. Know-it-alls in anything. We might

become experts on how to find things using a search engine, which is okay by me. Our journeys

of discovery should be all about the learning experience - the seeking, finding, and enjoying the

exhilarating moment when we’ve discovered something for the first time. It’s like enjoying a

goal we’ve just made in soccer after running and kicking the ball down the field and having it

land in the net because of precision passing. We’ve earned it. So, we should enjoy it.

Okay, so maybe I won’t learn all there is to know about any topic, but that’s okay. In fact, that

should be the number one rule I learn going into this journey of seeking the truth about things. I

had a discussion about this with a friend the other day and he asked ‘What’s the sense of taking

the journey if you’ll never know everything about anything?’ Of course, that’s a rhetorical

question and all I can tell you is what I told him: It’s not about learning everything; it’s about

learning something each step of the way. I get chills when I learn things for the first time. It’s a

childlike experience that I never want to give up. And I hope you can feel the same way. I don’t

know where you’ll be or how old you are when you finally read this – heck, I don’t know where

I’ll be - alive, dead, or on a speed-of-light journey to Alpha Centauri. If I’m around and you have

questions, I’ll gladly answer them, or we can sit down and just philosophize. I’d love that.

A lot of times I’ve gained a perspective on life the hard way, and that’s an age-old process I hope

it never goes away. You know, the method of trial and error; learning from the failures; picking

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myself up after goofing and generating a renewed spirit and determination to succeed. And to be

honest, it’s easier to fail today because of misinformation on the information highway. Not that

using the internet is bad, it’s not. It’s a great source of information – both accurate and not so

truthful. Whether we’re a Wikipedia fan or get ‘facts’ the old fashion way through books,

magazines, or newspapers, we must sift through sound bites, some of which cater to personal

needs rather than a higher standard of seeking the truth. We have outright scams and

misinformation that make or break politicians, or sway us in what we buy, or who we love even.

I think today, more than any other time in history we have to ‘not’ react rashly to new

information in our search for truth. And I hope you read this book before you’re too entrenched

in this world, because seeking the truth – the absolute truth – is a worthwhile journey of the mind

even with all the risks of being misinformed. It’s a journey best taken without preconceptions,

but I know that is not possible. Bias rules our mind and causes us to overlook the obvious. I

know this book is a hodgepodge of musings of a grandfather, but sprinkled in, here and there, are

sign posts where you might want to stop and take some time to digest. You don’t have to agree

with me. In fact you might already have anchored your thoughts in a contrary way – and that’s

okay. Just take your time because, don’t forget, this is a journey that’s going to take a lifetime.

Oh, by the way, if you read names or references you’re not familiar with, google them. On-line

learning can be fun. While searching for information about the earth the other day, I found out

the Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing at a rate of approximately 17 milliseconds per hundred

years, which has the effect of lengthening our days, imperceptibly. In fact it happens so slowly

that it could be as much as 140 million years before the length of a day will have increased to 25

hours. And our moon, as a percentage of its size to the earth, makes it the largest satellite of any

planet in our solar system. In real terms, however, it is only the fifth largest natural satellite. And

the Earth is the only planet not named after a god. The other seven planets in our solar system are

all named after Roman gods or goddesses. And of all the planets in our solar system, the Earth

has the greatest density. Antarctica contains about 70 percent of Earth's fresh water and 90

percent of its ice. And it’s the coldest place on earth at recorded temperatures of 128.6 degrees

Fahrenheit. And if you want to lose weight, just go to Hudson Bay in Canada because the earth’s

gravity is less there than anywhere else on earth because it has less land mass in that part of the

planet thanks both to retreating glaciers on the surface and swirling magma deep in the core. And

get this, there’s more gold in seawater than you can imagine. There’s about 13 billionths of a

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gram in each liter of seawater. And there’s enough undissolved gold on the sea floor to put close

to $200,000 in the pocket of every person on earth.

Speaking of the oceans, here’s some food for thought. The pacific basin has half the free water

on Earth and could hold all of the continents of the world. And just yesterday I learned the

largest single living thing (not counting reefs constructed of multiple polyps) was a mushroom

fungus in Oregon that grew to 2,200 acres. Pretty cool, huh? I could go on, but my point is, if we

would spend more time on digging into fun facts and less time on social networking we would

learn more and have less people conflicts.

I have to tell you, though; I used to pride myself on having reference books that tap into the soul

of the universe. In fact, twenty years ago I bragged about having the greatest private reference

library around, but it’s nothing compared to what I have at my fingertips on the internet today,

and I’m sure 20 years from now what you’ll have in cyberspace will be tons better than what we

have today. So, I use the internet in my search for truth and justice and, interestingly, the same

old tested philosophies that were written down in parchments and cuneiforms eons ago. They are

all there if you google it. Those old ideas still ring true today and, hopefully, they’ll be just as

true when you’re my age, and more accessible.

One thing that comes to mind is a parable I read 35 years ago which has the same powerful truth

for me today as it did then when I read it back then. In the gnostic gospels Jesus was reported to

have said “Let one who seeks not stop seeking until one finds. When one finds, one will be

disturbed. When one is disturbed, one will be amazed, and will reign over all."

Well, I hope you’re old enough to care about this, because when you fall into that moment of

discovery, and are in the presence of a great ‘ah-ha’ moment, you do feel a sense of power.

Although I do realize there is an esoteric meaning to the words, ‘will reign over all’. This

statement has meaning today as it did the handful of times when I’ve had that proverbial light

bulb going off in my brain giving me a cathartic moment, a ‘wow’ cerebral experience, a special

awareness where I felt I’ve gained an understanding of something elusive, something

magnificent that would make me a better person somehow. When you’ve gained a special truth it

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will, in some unexplained way, give you a power: the power of understanding. This is a truth as

valid today when someone who is trying to crack a DNA code, as it was back when people were

smashing wheat against rocks to make bread.

Most of the time my mind works overtime on surface bait; that is, on issues that have very little

consequence, and requires very little effort on my part to opine, as if I have a handle on the truth

of the matter. Yet, I must free myself from the technical garb that inhibits my philosophical

mind. What I mean by that is, it’s fun to be at pool-side or among people who like to

philosophize about things I don’t normally talk about, like the meaning of life. Do I have a soul,

and if I do, what is it? I think I fair well delving into topics where my opinion is as good as

anyone else’s. I won’t be graded on my failure to come up with a correct answer because there

are no ‘correct’ answers, just musings that fall into the general area of possibilities. The profound

truth about life is as obscure as knowing what Jesus did when he was a tweenie. Still, I love

those great reveal moments where everything seems so clear and understandable. I don’t get

them often, but when I do it’s precisely at these moments I have to be careful. These cathartic

flashes can be dangerous if I rush to embrace this new ‘truth’ as a categorical absolute with no

room for improvement or changes. I have a tendency to do that; to force these new discoveries

into patented road blocks in moving further along in my philosophical awareness of things. It’s

as if I have found the ‘truth’ and nothing else exists. Great feeling when I’m proven right. But

there are times these news discoveries, these absolute truths I’ve latched on to, have led me to

mindlessly follow a narrow path that requires compromise. Let’s say I live by the truth “I shall

not lie to anyone, anytime, anywhere.” This is a tough one, I know. Impossible to follow,

actually. So, I have to water down the high standards to make it more manageable. For example,

I might argue that white lies might tend to stabilize a relationship, or an event. In time of war, it’s

perfectly acceptable to lie or to deceive the enemy, right? The ‘win at any costs’ allows us to set

aside our principles for the time being.

But living a lie in peacetime tends to destroy, even if it’s a teensy lie. Your mother might ask you

how she looks in her dress. You say, ‘wonderful, beautiful’, even though she looks terrible in it.

She buys the dress and most everyone who sees her in it thinks to themselves … the worst. She,

in turn, gets embarrassed. So, do we lie to save someone’s feelings in the moment, or do we

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become diplomatic in how we tell the truth? I opt for the latter. “Hey, mom. Don’t buy that dress.

There’s other dresses that compliment you better.”

How about a lies of omission where you know but you don’t say anything for fear of the

repercussions? Let’s take an example where a girl, let’s call her Jill, has this boyfriend, and let’s

call him Jack. Jill pays the wrong kind of attention to another boy, let’s call him James. Jill is

very quiet and discrete about this and she tells a ‘white’ lie to Jack in that she doesn’t ‘say’

anything to Jack because she doesn’t want to hurt him. But this affair becomes more frequent

and intense and eats away at Jill’s character, and morals. She spends money on James, money

she was saving to buy Jack a birthday present. She sees less of Jack because of the attention she

is giving to James, and Jack finally finds out about ‘this other guy’ and breaks up with Jill. She

becomes depressed, loses weight, and flunks her history test because she can’t concentrate, and

looks into the mirror one day and sees a broken girl – a Dorian Grey kind of character that

looms over her like a dark shadow. (If you don’t know who Dorian Grey is, see the movie or

read the book by Oscar Wilde.) Anyway, if Jill is honest with herself, she might determine her

moral fortitude is in the early stages of decline. It might even be worse. She probably failed the

test of honesty ages ago creating the genesis of a series of lies and deceitful behavior that has

led her to her current- day dreadful deeds where she finds it extremely difficult to change. So,

to avoid that problem of moral decline you have to have the courage to be honest in all things at

all times, or be a diplomat in the way we say or do things. If you make mistakes, and you’ll

make plenty of them, brush yourself off, learn from them, and start over. To do or be otherwise

will create a path where your destination is a dark and dreary station where you don’t want to

be. And if you find yourself on that path to nowhere, disengage and start anew. The beauty of

being a human is that you can change at any time. It may not be easy, but find a mentor that

can help you on the way until you become strong where you find yourself capable of being a

mentor to someone else.

TOPIC: ABSOLUTE TRUTHS

&&&&&

Absolute truths are very hard to define, sometimes, and impossible to achieve even if you do

define it, like our example of being totally honest in all things. Absolute truth, whose veracity is

absolute, is unattainable. Yet, it is important to make the effort to attain it anyway. It’s not the

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destination that creates our dignity or integrity, it’s the journey. This sounds semantically

induced, so let me continue.

Let’s take another example that has more substance. Let’s say an absolute truth that killing

another human being is morally wrong. I might say, ‘Okay, I’ll buy into that’, so I go on my

journey and the first road bump I hit is the idea of killing someone in self-defense. I might

believe if we’re taking a stroll down the street and we get mugged, I feel okay taking out my

pistol and killing the mugger who is waving a knife in front of us demanding our money. I don’t

think twice of it, and yet – and here’s the paradox – I feel my high standard that killing another is

wrong has not been violated, and society would back me on that because it sanctions killing in

self-defense.

What do I do if I stand my ground and believe that killing another human being is categorically

wrong and there are no exceptions, but society disagrees, as in capital punishment, for example?

Do I hold onto my truth and keep my mouth shut just because society, or the majority, believes

in the exception to an established truth? Or do I act on my fillossofee about not taking another

life, and oppose capital punishment, and be motivated to help society’s change its views. I might

form a picket line, for example, in front of the state capital building, or hand out pamphlets

stating why it’s wrong. Or, I may do nothing and just casually point out my leanings at barbeque

parties whenever the opportunity arises. Maybe in drips and drabs over time I, and people like

me, might change the conscience of an entire society. Maybe. I doubt it. The point is, I believe

seeking the truth should be a way of life, whether I believe I can attain an absolute truth or not,

or change the public’s view or not. My search has nothing to do with established norms. My

search helps define me as a human being, and what I stand for.

All of us embark on a journey of enlightenment in one way or another. We’re the only specie on

earth doing it. It’s in our best interest to make the effort to gain the best possible perspective on

things during this lifetime, and not just when we’ve had three cups of coffee, or five shots of

whisky, or when we lose a loved one when our fillossofees are tested. We adopt a standard not

because it’s convenient, but because it’s the right thing to do. Seeking the truth about living

standards, and having a philosophy about life concerning those standards, makes me accountable

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for my actions. Truths are not, necessarily, embedded in rules of government or churches,

although those establishments may certainly influence my definitions. We have standards simply

because they guide us in everything we do and say (and think). When the wind is blowing in our

face, we may have a hard time putting one foot in front of the other. But it’s during those ‘damn-

if-you-do-and-damned-if-you-don’t’ moments when our principles about how to live our lives

are tested. And during those moments our actions define us. Hopefully, we have mentors we can

go to. But that’s not always possible. That’s why I say it’s important to embark on journey of

enlightenment and know and understand our principles on a host of issues because we may have

to stand alone in such times, and if we don’t know or have the fortitude to do the right thing

under dire circumstances, our actions may have serious consequences. A friend of mine, for

example, was faced with such a dilemma recently. He made a mistake 20 years ago when he was

a teenager and was caught and convicted of armed robbery. It was something he regretted, and he

paid for his mistake and has lived an exemplary life since. But, recently, he went to a 7-11 store

with a couple of guys who he thought were friends and, as he was getting himself a Slurpee, one

of the ‘friends’ pulled a knife on the owner and robbed him. A great commotion ensued and his

friends ran out. Instead of staying put, he ran out the door in panic as well. He was later stopped

by the police and arrested for armed robbery, and is now serving a five-year sentence because

this was considered his second offense even though the video surveillance tapes showed him

quite surprised and taken in by the events. But, in panic, he ran. When his moment of truth

arrived he didn’t have the moral fortitude or courage to face the consequences and stay put until

the police arrived. He said he was afraid what his ‘friend’ would do to him if he stayed and faced

the music. ‘Honor among Thieves’ overrode his personal honor to do the right thing.

This is why I’m saying it’s important to think about the absolute truths in life and come to

closure on such things like ‘stealing is wrong’ and know the exceptions if there are any. In my

friend’s case, in that moment, that instant when fear clouded his judgment, when the peer

pressure to do the opposite was too great, he made a bad choice. This, my dears, is where I say

fear is healthy, but panic is deadly. You can embrace the fear, digest it and spit it out. And then,

of course, you do the right thing. If you panic it’s almost impossible to act rationally. It’s like

jumping into a tornado. It spins you around and spits you out and you’re like a worn dish rag

afterwards.

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I maintain that having an ‘absolute truth’ established in your mind about principles like stealing

and killing, need to be well thought out before an occasion comes your way where you don’t

have time to think. In such times you just have to ‘know’ what the right thing to do is. It’s like

knowing what you’re going to do if someone is being bullied in front of you even though your

health and welfare is at stake if you defend the defenseless. Worse, imagine a soldier who

believes killing another human being is wrong, kills his first human being in war when he has

never killed before. Worse still, imagine this same soldier has his enemy in his sites and the

enemy appears defenseless. Here, he might be allowed the luxury to have that moment with

himself to debate whether he should pull the trigger or not. But on another day he may not have

that luxury. Imagine further, a soldier is in this situation because his father was a soldier, and his

grandfather was a soldier, and he is trying to please them but, unlike them, he doesn’t believe

killing people in war is right, yet there he is on the battlefield anyway where ‘killed or be killed’

leads the list in the army’s operation manual. So, he pulls the trigger anyway even though he’s

categorically against killing another human being. And maybe this is the first time he’s

compromised on such a high principle and he continues killing other people as long as he’s in the

war and each time it becomes easier and easier until his principle, his absolute truth, is a motto

not to live by, but one that is just a topic of conversation in a philosophy class or a backyard

barbecue. War has changed him.

War can be a metaphor for life. Once we compromise, it’s very hard to turn back and start over.

We don’t always have such dramatic situations that compromise our principles, assuming we

have the principles guiding us in our daily lives in the first place. Most of us do, but most of our

principles are watered down versions of something that started out in our lives as bigger or better

ideals – hard to reach goals. That’s the reason I put ‘in search for the truth’ as the first chapter, so

that we can think about such things and get to know our humanity better.

No one likes being put into compromising situations like our war example. In less demonstrative

circumstances I am dismayed at my own reluctance to do the right thing, like at a store when the

teller gives me the wrong change in my favor, I sometimes say nothing; or like when I’m quiet

when I see someone being verbally bullied; or I might download a movie for free on the internet

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without thinking twice about it. So, I limit my conflicts by having exceptions to the rule. I might

say, for example, a company and its executives have fleeced the public in their gluttonous drive

for profits, so it’s okay to ‘steal’ a few bits and bauds. Or I might say a person being harassed has

a mouth and he can speak up for himself and that I’m not my brother’s keeper. But I ask you to

reconsider that statement. We are our brothers’ keepers to a certain extent. Consider, for a

moment, if a dictator quiets a community by bombing it with a chemical weapon. Do we not

admit this is the kind of moment when we should be ‘big brothers’ to the defenseless? Should we

not offer some kind of resistance? It’s hard determining how far we should go under dire

circumstances, but we must at least understand our humanity and avoid inaction when our

principles demand action. To paraphrase Edmond Burke, evil prevails when good men do

nothing.

TOPIC: CONTINUE THE SEARCH

&&&&&

If I’m lucky, I philosophize about life’s principles on worthwhile standards that meet the test of

time. I say, if I’m lucky, because I could be born into a world where principles are drilled into

me at an early age and the idea of thinking for myself is not an option. Fundamentalist and

jihadists are two movements that come to mind. I’m expected and instructed to believe in a

certain way and to behave in a certain way; my nirvana depends on it. But let’s say I’m lucky

enough to have the freedom to deviate from my beliefs taught to me at an early age based on my

own findings. If I follow the dictates of my parents, I may just be riding a rudderless ship in a

journey of life spouting off my idiocies and, like my ancestors, I may quite frequently be in a

contest with people who believe a point of philosophy is won by the person who yells the

loudest, or speaks the most. I know that’s a bit unfair, but I do owe it to myself to pay attention

to the details, else I’ll get swallowed up in this confounding drudgery of point-counter-point (i.e.,

life), and I end up discussing (far be it for me to argue) things by merit, not as one who has the

one-up-man-ship in keeping score of who is winning, but one who is concerned about improving

the quality of life. So, I go about the business of thinking about life’s important matters that

demand the most energetic resources of my body, mind and soul. At first I must analyze my

belief structure - the rights and wrongs of doing this or that. Like I said, most of the time this

belief structure is ingrained in me, or handed off to me at an early age. In such matters, a

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subliminal process takes over when I speak, act and think in a subconscious or Freudian way.

That is, I’m so attuned to my belief structure that I speak before I think because I’ve already

gone through the thought processes a hundred times and have come to conclusions ages ago, or

maybe yesterday, and my thoughts are ready to cross my lips without the need to think it out. For

example, I may be a Christian and an Atheist says to me in passing, Christ is a fictional figure,

and I immediately voice my opinion without thinking, not because I haven’t thought about it, but

because I have definite thoughts that are rigid and I become defensive and, possibly,

evangelistic. I quickly summon years of study, or worship, without consciously taking a moment

to really think of what I am about to say, and I spout off biblical facts and traditional innuendoes

to support my position. That is, I have a philosophy of life I’ve ingrained in my soul that’s so

acute in its focus that my consciousness operates in a robotic, thoughtless manner. Time, in this

respect, is an open worm-hole that has little bearing in the ‘thought’ processes and, at this

moment, I have summoned both parts of my brain in an instant to hammer home my ‘principle’,

which is my absolute truth on the matter. Now, that’s the way absolute truths are supposed to

work. It’s one of the biggest markers in what makes us human. We are able to have higher

principles in life, fully thought out and driven into our subconscious and ready to be summoned

at a moment’s notice. We go to war, sometimes, just to prove our point. But God-forbid if we’re

wrong. And that’s why it’s important to go through the point-counter-point scenarios in our

mind, take the time to think before we speak, and keep our ‘absolute truth’ in our philosophic

tool box as a principle that is always a work-in-progress. For me, sometimes, that process may

take decades, or maybe even a lifetime, because when I was born my job description only said,

“expect change”.

The journey of seeking the truth is a wonderful journey and at times I might get too rigid in a

belief structure, use facts to support an untenable position, and hold onto my truth like they’re

oak trees that don’t bend and only break in the face of extreme pressure, and when it does break,

I break. I should hold onto my principles like I’m holding onto a willow tree where there’s room

to sway when change leads me to a more enlightened plateau of realty – a clearer design of the

universe and/or human behavior. I give myself room to think. It’s like going from Newtonian

physics to Relativity, where tweaking the processes allows us to march forward to a better

understanding of the ‘ultimate’ or absolute truths of life. A willow tree, after all, is one of the

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most resilient life-forms in the world. Its roots are one of the strongest and it will not fail me

when there’s turbulence because it bends with the wind. However, its roots spread far beyond

their canopies, and their aggressive root system damage pavements and other structures around

them. So, if we can gain anything in this analogy, if we hold on to our truths and we can weather

the storm, there is probably great value in our beliefs, but we may have to take stock of the

damage in doing so and have to tweak our process (beliefs) after the storm. It’s best, possibly, to

follow a road paved with questions. As Colin Firth, actor in Woody Allen’s movie “Magic in

Moonlight” once said in an interview to a New York Times reporter, “We must at least

understand that certainty is to be questioned.” Actually, he was referring to Woody Allen, not

‘we’, but the point is well taken. Certainty is to be questioned because time (e.g., culture)

corrupts it, and like iron the embedded truths we and our forefathers have blindly followed may

need rust repair.

So, beware, children, of what we are taught. Most of the time we inherit valuable lessons from

our caregivers and, hopefully, you have learned a few from me. Other times, not so much. Case

in point: I was in the service in 1965 and asked a comrade why he hated the Black Race so much.

He didn’t hesitate in saying not to judge him because he was taught by his parents to hate

African Americans. This is one of the events in my life that opened my eyes to the need of

having a philosophy of life base on truth, which may not have links to our parents or caregivers.

For the most part, what we are taught has value, but in the case of my comrade in the Navy, he

was led astray. Hate is never an option for a truth seeker. It blinds, stifles, constipates and causes

the gears of philosophical progress to come to a grinding halt.

Hopefully, my search for truth moves me closer to knowing our human nature. And I know the

boundaries of human nature can be quite disturbing and quite wonderful depending on which end

of the behavioral spectrum I’m looking at. If I look to history I become so confused to learn

we’ve committed atrocities in the name of “God” or “truth”, and I wonder how greed, lust and

other deadly ‘sins’ have taken us on these despicable, disturbing journeys to nowhere, and then I

see opposite virtues that have glorified our natures, also in the name of ‘God’ and ‘truth’. Did

those in history seek truth first and then find God? Or was the reverse true; that is, did they adopt

a God-platform and then searched for the truth. The Crusades and Jihads are done in the name of

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God, and the atrocities of war, as in WWII, were done with the forced banner of seeking the

Truth (e.g., Hitler was trying to prove the Arian race was superior). Not great moments in our

human development in those cases.

So, how can TRUTH be attainable if we, as a people, are perception-bound with a hundred

different views that lead us astray sometimes? How do we police ourselves? History has shown

us that if we don’t want to make the same mistake twice, we do it five or six times just to make

sure we don’t want to do it twice. The Pollyanna in me wants to believe that we can understand

and respect ourselves to the point where we can avoid those atrocities in our history. Absolute

truth may not be attainable, but I will continue my search because that’s the only way to find

enlightenment.

TOPIC: THE IMPORTANCE OF TRUTH

&&&&&

I’ve heard it said that truth is singular and any version of it is untruth. Given our five senses and

their capacity to perceive in error, and given our true natures to want things a certain way, it’s

hard to imagine I can ever fully attain a truth about any one topic or issue without exposing my

human vulnerabilities. I suppose I can on some issues. That is, I guess there are some truths that

are black and white. Is there a God, for example? If I don’t ask for qualities of God, it requires

either a yes or no answer. There have always been rough discussions between the atheist and

fundamentalist, so it’s not surprising that people on the yes side rarely agree with people on the

‘no’ side. However, it surprises me at times that rarely do people on the ‘yes’ side agree with

other people on the ‘yes’ side. There’s simply too many flavors of religion. Some Catholics, for

example, laugh at ‘Jehovah Witnesses’ and wish they would go away. But I don’t think a true

philosopher would ask ‘is there a God’, but rather ‘who’ or ‘what’ is God.

There’s another chapter that delves into the issue of the divine, so I won’t elaborate too much

here except to ask how do I put my pitiful mind around a worthwhile point in a conflicted

democratic and despotic world where one half says we must respect other’s opinions and

religions while the other half live with single beliefs and restricted freedoms? As a matter of

discourse, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is what I think and believe and, hopefully, any

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differences with anyone won’t cause disharmony on this planet. And, I believe, to provide or

seek harmony in this world is why we’re here. The reasons for living is to provide or seek to

provide harmony if I can. I’ll repeat that: the reason I’m here is to provide or seek to provide

harmony in this world. The paradox is allowing others the same freedoms without causing

disharmony even if those beliefs or ideas run contrary to my hard-earned, soulful values and

dogmas. Oh, sometimes I do believe IGORANCE is bliss. But to be ignorant is to be in darkness

in our finest hour. And I’ve heard it said that only those who have been deprived of freedom

have the barest inkling of what it really is. Interestingly, the most peaceful of people find it

necessary to die to teach people that truth.

&&&&&

TOPIC: I WAS BROUGHT UP CATHOLIC AND…

History teaches us about human behavior, and one of the interesting hand-me-downs from

antiquity is the idea that the masses can’t handle the truth, especially religious ones. We can’t be

trusted to interpret things correctly. Messages are often hidden between the lines. A parable is a

good example which has a tendency to be obscure with inventive word-play.

In the Book of Thomas it says, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save

you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you [will] kill you." I guess

I’ll take back my comment about ignorance is bliss. There are several translations, each slightly

different, confounding the meaning of this passage. But I interpret this to be saying … seek the

truth, for if you find it and bring it with you to the table at the end of time, or any time, it will

save you. I don’t think it matters if what I bring to the table is the best apple pie ever made. It’s

impossible to know that, anyway. If it’s good, doesn’t make me sick, and allows me to live

another day, then I eat it. I don’t think I am capable of grasping everything there is to know

about any (complicated) topic. And yes, I do misinterpret and, as a consequence, disharmony

evolves. Then I adjust my course and move on because the force, the goal, the journey, is to

seek, isn’t it? Of course, as The Book of Thomas also explains, when I have those glorious ‘ah-

ha’ moments, “at first I will be disturbed, but then I will be amazed.”

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I was brought up Catholic, and in those early years of indoctrination I was told what to believe.

Those “holy cow” moments, although infrequent, came to me like lightning bolts. Learning the

normal dogma or religious precepts was like learning the multiplication tables. The flash cards

told me what to think and it became a repetitive annunciation of beliefs by those who came

before me. The Apostle’s Creed is a good example. I won’t go into the creed because that’s a

whole religious thing that would bring little benefit. Let me just say that these teachings, which I

call instructional belief, are very hard to shake even when contrary information feeds into the

mainstay. Oftentimes, when facts or truthful information passes my way, I may not even

recognize it as worthwhile embracing because the repetitious dogmas I have adopted are so

ingrained into my subconscious that they keep me from learning anything. My belief structure

when I was younger was entirely religious; Catholic, specifically. So, when something non-

Catholic was spoken or brought to my attention, let’s say reincarnation, for example, I didn’t

give it another thought and dismissed it without further examination. I was too young to buck the

establishment, although I did have my moments of clarity, but back then these new ideas weren’t

anything I wanted to think about, and I certainly didn’t talk about it.

When I was 21 I read Edgar Cayce on reincarnation and I didn’t get past the first ten pages

before I became so disturbed that I threw the book against the wall. The content of what I read

rang with obvious contradictions to my religious upbringing, but it also made incredible sense.

And because of the fact that it made sense I was threatened and angry at the subliminal idea that

my life was founded on misinformation handed down to me by people who gained their

perspective on life by others who were spoon-fed misinformation by people who were also

spoon-fed misinformation, and so on down the line. This was a dictatorial approach that was a

far cry from the Gnostic beliefs of ‘seek and you’ll find’ philosophy. We can blame that, I

suppose, on Constantine who was the dictator that the clergy at the time cow-towed to in order to

survive. He was not in favor of people thinking for themselves, by the way, which would, and

did, lead to beau coup disputes. The council of Nicea, for all practical purposes, did away with

any Christian hopes to think for one’s self, and the Gnostics, the seekers of truth through

knowledge, were pushed out of the limelight once and for all. And for all those who came

afterwards, a ‘shut-up-and-believe-what-we-tell-you-to-believe’ way of life commenced. My

initial ‘feeling’ when I read Cayce’ was that this book had to be a profane work of the devil. I

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was disturbed. Then, almost as quickly, I was amazed. I immediately picked up the book that I

threw across the room, and continued reading.

As a child I was full of curiosity and questions. I philosophized about things the best way a child

could. But after reading Cayce, my life was never the same, because that began a new life of

seeking the truth in earnest. In this brief moment of unrest, my mind percolated with questions

and new ideas. It was a kind of unrest that permeated my psyche. I began thinking for myself,

and what a magnificent journey I began. And rocky, I might add. But always fruitful. It’s

somewhat of a paradox to have a sense of freedom knowing that you’ll never know the whole

truth and nothing but the truth, but making mistakes become part of the process, not something to

avoid. When I search for answers, there are times when I learn things which are so disturbing a

type of flight or fight syndrome takes over. For most of the time, the path of discovery requires

me to crawl on the ground a little bit further, wallow in uncertainty for a little while longer, but I

keep at it and soon, as I follow a path of knowledge, I stand up and become amazed at our

progress and fulfillment. Most of the time, I don’t want to flee a moment of controversy and I

stand and fight. Well, that’s how I’d love it to be. The fact is, I must be careful, because it’s the

journey, don’t forget, that is filled with pot-holes. It’s a journey of discovery. The paradox is

when I have that ‘ah-ha’ moment, I never want to stop searching. Like eternity, the journey will

never end even though I think I have found the finish line. It’s like opening a door, and a most

beautiful light shines in my face, whisking me away in an endorphin-like pilgrimage into the

unknown. The truth, in a way, allows me to marvel at my ignorance, and I become humbled.

Reborn.

This apparent contradiction that the truth leads us to other searches is worth exploring because

there is nothing more dangerous than someone, or a group of people, who think the journey in

seeking the truth is over once they have attained the ‘faith’ that they have all the ‘facts’, and all

those who oppose their point of view should be punished in some way. There is nothing more

frustrating than to hear someone espouse that I am going to hell for the way I ‘think’. Ug!

&&&&&

TOPIC: ON BEING THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE (OR THE SUBJECT OF CHANGE)

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It’s hard to offer convincing evidence to push forward the premise that absolute truth exists in

any area of human existence (or knowledge) given our propensity for compromise and respect

we have for our freedoms to believe what we want, although compromises are sometimes won

on the battlefield or after harrowing debates. If we were ants building a pyramid, or a group of

bees out collecting honey-goods for the day, our disputes or differences would be non-existent.

Failures would be met with drones walking over our bodies or, if we fell and couldn’t do our

assigned task, we might be kicked it to the side (or maybe eaten). They would assault, not assist.

Not exactly the way we do things today in our social democratic society where entitlements are

the way we deal with weaknesses. Actually, that’s not exactly true. Insects do have integrity of

sorts. I say that because I remember one day years ago, when I was mowing the lawn and got too

close to a hornets’ nest, one of the winged soldiers thought I got too close to the hive and

attacked me. So, I got a garbage can with lid that hugged or slipped over the top of the garbage

can. I went out to the tree at night, cut the hive off the limb and the hive fell into the garbage can.

I closed the lid and thought that was that. The next day, I saw the lip of the lid bulging out and

when I lifted it, four dead hornet bodies fell to the grown and everyone in the hive were gone.

Queen and all. That means those four soldiers sacrificed their lives for the common good of the

hive. Amazing.

As a human I have established coalitions with others, not as robotic as the hornets, but

calculating and having a lot to do with my conscience. So, it’s pretentious, at times at least, to

seek absolutes when I respect and honor these coalitions. Semantics always seem to get in the

way, or exceptions to a rule stymie my endeavors to come to ‘absolute’ conclusions. Case in

point; here’s a possible absolute truth: killing another human being is wrong. A good one, I

think. One that we should explore and strive towards, right? But we have exceptions like capital

punishment, self-defense, war, etc. We develop a higher conscience and a way living but

exceptions seem to get in the way of our journey to seek the higher ground. Still, we try, or we

should seek those absolutes and advise ourselves to be content with the practical fallout, which

are the exceptions. At an early age in grammar school I basically learned that truths all have

exceptions. It was just a matter of time that I entertained the thought ‘what makes my exception

better than yours?’ And over time, through the murky shadows of pool-side debates, I have

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extended the question to ask, ‘what was the use of seeking ‘absolute truths’ or philosophies of

life at all if people concocted and sanctioned exceptions to meet the intellectual or emotional

needs of themselves or society? Capital punishment? Self-defense” Jihads” and later, Abortions?

Are we just bound by the desire to live a practical life, or are we bound by higher values that

govern our psyche? Are we just too lazy to do the search? I was confused early on because my

only exceptions to the rule of killing another human being was killing in self-defense and in war.

I remember trying to find peace in my search, but I found myself at odds with people around me.

We have the ability to accept new beliefs, or discard old ones. Most of us are flexible enough to

do that because we accept the concept of majority rules, and with that acceptance we change.

Most of us do. History has shown us that not all of us adapt to change very well. It’s worth

exploring history to find out what happens in our journey of seeking the truth if we are not

flexible to change. The collateral damage can be quite severe. Let’s take a look at an example in

science.

There was a time in our history where most of the civilized world believed the earth was the

center of the universe and everything that existed revolved around it. In a matter of observation,

the Dark Ages started from the fall of the Roman Empire to the 1300’s (or so). It’s considered a

time when people were intellectually non-progressive. Although the creative mind prospered in

the art world (painting, sculpture and writing) in the Renaissance that followed, that period of

time was the Dark Age for certain sciences. It was a time where religious forces governed

virtually all aspects of life.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, the seat of western religious beliefs and scientific centers

were in Italy, following the religious dictates of the Vatican. During these times, scholars in Italy

were afraid of divulging too much of their knowledge publicly for fear of excommunication or

worse. Much worse. People were put to death for heresy for espousing views that were …

unholy. The Roman Inquisition was started in 1542 by Pope Paul III mainly to keep the integrity

of the faith. People were punished for their wandering beliefs including how the planets and the

sun roamed the solar system. Although many already believed that a static earth was not

possible, most believed God worked in perfect circles and that man lived in the center of that

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circle, or universe, and all matter revolved around him in perfect symmetry and harmony. Then,

along came Copernicus who firmly believed that the earth was NOT the center of the universe

but instead revolved around the sun and stated so in his work De revolutionibus orbium

coelestium, which was published in 1543 when he was on his death bed, conveniently

distributing his views without fear of reprisals, I might add. Still, the church maintained their

authority over the people, and everyone had to believe the earth was the orbital center of all

celestial bodies.

About 50 years after Copernicus’ death, the Inquisition arrested Giordano Bruno, a Venetian, on

charges that his scientific view was heresy as to the way God really worked in the universe and

beyond. Eventually, he was burned at the stake for his religious vis a vis scientific beliefs, in the

Square of the Flowers, in downtown Rome, on February 16, 1600, for the crime of thinking.

As a quick side, as late as 1889, when freethinkers erected a statue of Bruno in the same

flowered square where he was murdered by the Catholic Church, they were condemned by Pope

Leo XIII. And in 1942, Cardinal Mercati claimed the church was right because Bruno deserved

it. Since then the Vatican has been silent on the matter.[1]

Truth, in matters of religious dogma, was dispensed by the clergy and could not to be tampered

with by scientific facts. If we go further back in history, we can see how all this got started.

When the Church of Rome and the Roman Empire were united by the Emperor Constantine in

the 4th century (ruled 306-337AD), this caused an unholy union of church and state where they

set out to eradicate pagan superstitions, although church leaders did cater to Constantine’s pagan

views by allowing his belief in the sun god to flourish. As Marytruth.com notes: “History readily

records that Constantine was a sun-worshiper. In one decree he declared, ‘On the venerable Day

of the Sun he let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be

closed (March 7, 321)’. He made this decree in honor of the sun after his supposed conversion to

Christianity! Constantine, even after his "conversion," remained a pagan.

Constantine sought to unite his kingdom’s pagan and Christian worshipers in order to promote

stability and ensure that his empire lasted. The easiest way to bring harmony would be to blend

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sun worship and Christianity. History shows that the Church of Rome did not object; indeed, it

had been engaging in the practice for nearly two centuries![2] Interestingly, even in Copernicus’

treatise, the sun was the center of the universe.

Anyway, some believe that the church allowed Constantine to order a day of rest on “Sunday” in

order to squeeze out the Gnostics. And the religious victors furthered their status with the

emperor by emphasizing the trinity (Council of Nicea – AD 325), catering to his belief in

multiple gods.

In order to keep the faith in the minds and hearts of the citizens at that time, the clergy thought

nothing of burning books by the millions. A few centuries after Constantine, libraries had no

more than a few hundred books in Christendom, most of which advanced fictitious pontificates

and little known saints.

But, as John Murphy (writer for The Secular Web) points out, “Knowledge seeped back into

Europe, thanks to the Moors with their love of learning, and the Irish monks who would copy

any book they could get their hands on, whether the pope liked it or not. By the 9th century the

popes knew the Bible was in error - the world was not flat, as the Bible claimed (Bible reference:

flat discs having pillars and edges), but refused to admit it. They knew the Greeks were right -

the earth was spherical just like Aristarchus of Samos said in the 2nd century BCE (Before the

Common Era). Those who knew kept it quiet until 1453, when Copernicus noised it about before

the Vatican could muzzle him.”

So, back in the BC days, we have some facts discovered by the Greeks, maybe not absolute

truths, but pretty damn close to what we believe today. Then we disembarked from the truth

shortly thereafter, for religious reasons mostly, until the elephant in the room was exposed by

Copernicus 1600 years later, which only made the elephant bigger until Galileo came along a

century later and pointed his telescopes to the sky and noticed circular moons and planets.

But before we go to Galileo, let’s finish taking a look at the Dominican monk, Giordano Bruno,

who removed his priestly tunics in favor of becoming a truth-seeker. He not only proved that

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Copernicus was on the right path, but went well beyond the Polish astronomer by saying our sun

was just one star on a galactic journey just like millions of other far-away stars. He surmised that

the universe housed millions of stars many of which had planets revolving around it just like

ours.

Bruno was charged as a heretic by the Catholic Church, not only for espousing these scientific

beliefs, but also for claiming that the clergy had no right to use violence in attempting to convert

disbelievers. Sound familiar in today’s world where radicals target infidels for believing in

contrary doctrines? Anyway, the Catholic Church couldn’t go with the flow and they locked

Bruno up for 7 years in prison(s). He was offered freedom, if he would recant, but he scoffed at

the very idea, and told the bishops and priests who condemned him to death, "Perchance your

fear in passing judgment on me is greater than mine in receiving it." Decades later, Galileo

would accept the same offer.[3]

The church destroyed so much knowledge that it took Western civilization almost 1700 years to

arrive where the pagan Greeks were, in 300 BCE. Why do we know of Copernicus and Galileo

who mistakenly left the sun the center of the universe, but not Bruno, who saw the infinite?

Those who control the present control the past. That's why.[4]

If we take another quick detour, we’ll see that Hitler was a Roman Catholic, but was never

excommunicated for his crimes against humanity, yet Martin Luther was excommunicated for

translating the Bible into German. An interesting tidbit. It makes me think that our American

forefathers had a corner on wisdom when they believed and instituted in the constitution the

separation of church and state.

Anyway, back to the historic journey. It’s interesting to note that even protestant leaders, like

Martin Luther, joined the Catholic Church in condemning Copernicus - the man who moved the

earth around the sun, and helped the boisterous clergy win the day. So, the earth remained flat for

another century. Then, along came Galileo who used his telescope and followed individual dark

spots around the sun and came to the conclusion that the sun rotated about its axis in twenty-

seven-plus days. These studies came at a price. The sun damaged his eyes and eventually he

26

went blind. But before that happened, he saw little dots of light in the telescope, that is, the far-

away stars, and little globes that moved quite fast around the sun; that is, the planets. He

surmised from this data that the stars were much farther away than the planets and, thusly, the

universe was incredibly big. He saw the amazing moons of Jupiter moving around it, not the

earth, and observed the phases of Venus, similar to our own moon, which explained that the

planets reflected sunlight, all of which further explained the Copernican system, albeit a half a

century after Copernicus published his book.

Galileo caused great consternation with the clergy who were still refusing to change their minds

about man being the center of the universe even while the light of truth shown in their faces. He

elevated Copernicus’ theory to the truth of the day by ‘seeing’ it through a telescope. But his old-

fashioned opponents took their case to Pope Pius V and persuaded him to silence Galileo. For

fear of reprisals, and remembering what happened to Bruno, Galileo remained quiet until 1632

when he thought the Pope at the time, Urban VIII, was friendly enough, so he published his

masterpiece, Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, which integrated his thoughts on the

Copernican system. But it didn’t exactly go the way he planned. With Bruno fresh on his mind,

Galileo was forced to renounce his views in favor of the contemporary Ptolemaic system, and

agreed to recite psalms each week for three years. And as the legend goes, after disinheriting his

views in front of his opponents, he rose from his knees and muttered "Eppur si muove!" ("And

yet it moves," referring to Earth.).

So, there you have it. Truth, or a version of it, which had begun with Copernicus, had been

opposed for nearly a century at the time of Galileo's trial. The religious résistance ultimately

failed. Fortunately, at least in Western Europe, the forces of the Renaissance and Reformation

obliterated the temporal hold that the Catholic Church had on the minds of its constituents,

although there were a few groups who remained loyal to antiquity. In fact Harvard, in the year of

its founding (1636), stayed firmly committed to the Ptolemaic theory (i.e., geocentrism where

Earth is at the orbital center of all celestial bodies). Hmm. And the price they paid? Well, maybe

Harvard didn’t pay a big price, fortunately, but Italy’s hold on the world, once the seat of

knowledge, became little more than a springboard for others to hook up with ex-patriots living

elsewhere in their search of knowledge in environments less restrictive. Soon Germany, France

27

and England led the intellectual way and names like Newton, Pasteur, Laplace, Wallace, Darwin,

Einstein and many more became the well-known intellects of their times. Italy, by contrast,

contributed little in science compared to these others. And the church, needless to say, lost

millions of followers who clamored for reform.

Truth – we are disturbed at first brush. And that was evident with the Vatican. As their history

has showed us, resistance to change, in the light of the truth, can be devastating. The Vatican was

certainly not ‘amazed’ and couldn’t change as truth came floating into their sanctuaries, and they

paid the price of losing the leadership both in the religious and scientific communities.

Sometimes we go to war, fight our neighbors, and spend gads of money to silence this truth. We

crucify those who bring us the good news. And sometimes, after we get over being disturbed, we

embrace the feeling of amazement and we hold on to the new-found truth so tightly we are

blinded with certainty of their veracity. We enter into that ‘bizarro world’ where we stiff-arm

new information for fear of losing our insight. The accuser becomes the accused, so to speak.

It didn’t take too much stiff-arming to make others believe that Copernicus was not ‘exactly’

right. He proposed that the Sun was the center of the universe and that globes revolved around it

in circles, not elliptical patterns, but we can credit those advances to the opening of the minds of

the lay community who, henceforward, ruled the pathway to discovery, not the stifling minds of

the clergy. The greatest minds of the time worked freely towards understanding the universe in

full: light, gravitation, electricity, the atom. Once the light of truth was let in, what could stop it

from progressing and being refined? There was no subject that was taboo … Medicine,

astrology, geology, the universe, the mind itself. The calculus and other mathematical tools were

found and used in the final say of what was and wasn’t. If I travel 60 miles an hour towards

another vehicle which is coming towards me at 30 miles an hour, we collide at a force of 90

miles an hour. Right? Simple. Physical. In matters of most physical properties, intellectuals

scoured the universe and brought in all discoveries and bundled it under one brand name called

Newtonian Physics. It became the mother ship whose engine would guide us to all future

discoveries of the known universe and beyond. We had found the temple called Truth, and all the

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disciples were surveying the land to bring in their findings. Alas, we arrived at TRUTH in

science.

Or had we?

Not exactly. Now, I’m going to talk about something where my knowledge base is lacking, but

it’s interesting enough I’m willing to stick my neck out. Here is where a little bit of knowledge is

dangerous, so forgive me if I’m not ‘exactly’ correct in my statements. It’s about what Einstein

did. He broke away from the Newtonian reliance on space and time and allowed us to see that

there is another temple of knowledge, a little removed, perhaps, but on the same trunk as

Newtonian physics; it was just on a different branch. And with Darwin and evolution, we can say

the same thing, but we can also track its progress and see a great parallelism with the resistance

to heliocentric model that was developed as a result of Copernicus’ work. Another truth, if you

will. Certainly, Einstein gave us a better understanding of light and how gravitation distorts it,

and curved space, and time, but he also gave us bizarre concept of what happens to us when we

travel at extremely high speeds, such as the speed of light, not that we’ll ever attain it, because

travelling at that speed would causes us to be infinitely heavy and we would need an infinite

source to push us then. Not only that, but our biological clocks would slow down to zero

compared to those who are not moving. Actually, no one is really stationary. We are all moving

in the sense that the earth is spinning on its axis and is moving in an elliptical pattern around the

sun which is moving in circular-like pattern in the lower quadrant of the galaxy which is moving

to who knows where in the universe, and so on and so forth. But for practical purposes, let’s not

consider the earth’s movement in the axis/solar system/universe which would have little effect

on our thought exercise anyway.

If we did approach the speed of light in our travels, we wouldn’t notice the time difference while

it was happening. For example, if I left my pregnant wife on earth and zoomed out to the nearest

star at near the speed of light, stay there for a couple of months and zoomed back again, I would

have aged a few months when I came back to meet our 9 year old son for the first time. I don’t

pretend to understand it. Additionally, Einstein said that the speed of light is the same for all

observers, regardless of their motion relative to the source of the light. That flies contrary to

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Newtonian physics, for sure. And how could my biological clock approach zero to a stationary

observer – wouldn’t I be frozen in time? Can’t be done. Doesn’t make sense. Yet, I accept its

truth, and the experiments that proved it. For example, a while back they put an atomic clock on

top of the Empire State Building and a second one in an elevator at the bottom. They

synchronized the clocks and hit the ‘up’ button, and when the traveling clock arrived at the top,

they found it to be slower by the exact amount they calculated in Einstein’s prediction formula.

Amazing.

To have such an un-Newtonian thought is confusing, I admit, but not to the point of non-

acceptance. I don’t want to get into Relativity, mainly because I really don’t fully understand it –

I know just enough to be dangerous - but I just wanted to bring up the fact that Truth, Absolute

Truth, is hard to come by, if at all, even in science. And on the journey to seek the truth when the

new discoveries provide new insights, we must be willing to change our path or pay the

consequences like the Catholic Church and Italy did. It might not be as severe as losing our

position in the world, but it could have lasting, negative consequences. Questions abound and if

history has taught us anything, people in search of the truth need to be open minded because

there’s always someone coming right behind us with spoiler information. . It’s like a sports

record. It’s a beacon; an accomplishment that everyone knows will be broken someday by

someone else who will attain a new level of achievement.

My questions in science are elementary and common because I’m not a scientist. But, strangely,

I sometimes stay up at night at the joy of thinking about the new frontiers of science. For

example, if the universe is expanding, where is it expanding to? Could we be just a particle of

dust that is swelling on the shoulder of a giant in another dimension? That’s my brother’s theory,

but he doesn’t plan on proving it in this lifetime.

&&&&&

TOPIC: PERCEPTION IS TO KNOWLEDGE AS KNOWLEDGE IS TO TRUTH.

We all strive to know things. Knowledge has a lot to do with the perception, and if I have

knowledge that doesn’t necessarily mean I know the truth because not everyone perceives things

the way I do and, in some instances, our minds are made up before we even begin the journey

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and we don’t want to confuse the truth with the facts. We possess facts, and it doesn’t take much

to think we know the truth. I know this sounds like I’m talking in circles, but my point is we

have to define things when we investigate the truth. We need to use meaningful words to express

thoughts. It’s like saying life is good. We get away with that statement a lot, but what does that

mean? What’s the definition of ‘good’. And what do we mean about life. In that statement, does

it mean we’re financially okay? Our children are healthy and wise? Is that good? I say life

sometimes has its good moments, and sometimes not. Ask me that question right after my

mother died or right after I won the million dollar lottery and I’ll give you two different answers.

I can and do say life is good, but at the same time it’s hard. If I’m clear about my objectives in

life, that is I’m here to create harmony in this world, then I’m at relative peace and life is a

relative joy. These are vague concepts that convey good feelings which may not be the same in

everyone given the same perception and understanding of words. Or I may be clinically

depressed for one reason or another, and I’d rather have my pinkie cut off than live another day

with the malady. Another person may feel the same way all their lives and have learned how to

function with the malady. Still, perception is a key to our life’s wonderments, and it should be

understood that it does not take ‘someone in the know’ to answer such questions as ‘is life

good?’

Perception is something that could lead to truth, but sometimes it doesn’t. Most times perception

embodies a mixture of facts and fiction. For me, I say perception is: a) 1/3 truth, b) 1/3 lies, and

c) 1/3 distortion. It’s easy to perceive that there are 365 days in the year and this is true if we

consider adding a day every four years. But even then the statement is not exactly true. A year is

slightly less than 365 ¼ days and, as Wikipedia explains, “Over a period of four centuries, the

accumulated error of adding a leap day every four years amounts to about three extra days.” So,

the truth is hidden in the facts, but we can merrily go along and let our descendants worry about

the recalibration of our Gregorian calendar 400 years from now. The point here is we think we

know fully when we don’t. Oftentimes it doesn’t matter if we don’t know the ‘exact’ truth

because for all practical purposes it doesn’t affect our lives. But the point is it could, or in the

case of the Gregorian calendar it most certainly will - eventually.

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Now, I could be in the 16th century thinking I’m the center of the universe, or today I can

worship a god who wants all infidels dead, or 50 years ago I could be praying for my brother’s

soul because he ate meat on Friday (back in those days it was a mortal sin to eat meat on

Fridays). Or, I may believe high tide will come in at 7:25 tonight, and the effect of the Moon’s

pull will always be the same every 28 days but, in fact, the moon is receding away from us at the

rate of 1.48 inches per year, which happens to be about the same speed our fingernails grow. Of

course, you might say, in case of the moon, ‘big deal’ because it would take a billion years for

the moons’ recession to have a significant effect on us. Besides, the Sun would be in its death

throes by that time and would have ballooned into a swollen giant and our oceans would have

long since vaporized. This all might be true but, for the moment, we’re not talking about effects.

We’re talking about how we perceive life according to our pursuits of ‘truth’. Not knowing may

be bliss, and not asking important questions may be not have practical consequences, but

sometimes it does, and I ask you – is it better to be born and live a life in a dungeon, as in Plato’s

The Allegory of the Cave, where knowledge is gotten from the shadows on a wall and we

become comfortable with what we know, or see, which is nothing but obscurities, or is it better

to know what those shadows represent? Perception. Facts. Truth. Do they matter?

As Plato explains, a philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave. For example, let’s

say back in ancient times a boy was born in prison because his mother was a crook, which

automatically made him one (so much for justice back in those days). So, he grows up and

knows nothing else of the outside world except for the shadows on a dungeon wall which are

cast by people walking outside 12 feet above him. He can’t see what’s making the shadows and

he becomes accustomed and happy with his life of obscurity. Then, one day, after his mother

dies, he is released and sees the outside world for the first time with all its color and complexity.

The world is quite terrifying to him since darkness, fogginess and shadows on the wall was all he

has seen in his entire life. I might ask, ‘has his mother taught him about the things she knows?

Has she prepared him well to be in search of truths so that he’ll embrace the remarkable universe

in all its splendor and chaos and be amazed at what he sees?’ If she hasn’t, or if she’s a radical,

for example, God help the world outside. And God help him. Of course, as the real world is

revealed to him, he has the option to run back into the dungeon to the comfortable reality of

knowing only the shadows of the dungeon world because that’s where he feels safe. The

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dungeon is the only world he knows and he takes comfort in it. But we know better, don’t we?

We don’t want him not to take the path of least resistance because we ‘know’ things he doesn’t.

And because we know what’s best for him, or we think we do, and we want him to take the

challenge.

But isn’t that exactly what we do sometimes? We’re confronted with new, disturbing truth and

we do nothing, ask no questions and listen to no one who might alter the perception of my here-

and-now reality. I progress in this world of chaos until I become used to it. I can be a

fundamentalist in a world of change. Not knowing becomes comfortable, and I don’t risk being

uprooted, and kibitz with only the people who think similarly as me. I could be so comfortable

with my cerebral void that I climb to the mountain tops and yell out the truth of my

misinformation. I defend it like some people defend their freedoms. I might even carry AK-47s

and force other people to believe the way I do. March into temples and shoot everyone I see

because they perceive differently than I do. Even though I’m in the dark, I claim to be the one in

the know and we do battle. My facts equal truth.

Anyway, the trouble with us humans is once we believe we have seen or felt the truth, we hang

onto it like our eternal spirits will perish if we don’t. What was once a posteriori knowledge

remains anchored in our truth tables even when new evidence comes in showing us a truer

perspective. How many of us, for example, still believe Pluto is a planet?

TOPIC: SORTING OUT THE TRUTH

&&&&&

Continuing with my train of thought of my last entry; sometimes we collect tidbits of

information like we collect baseball cards. They are nice to have, and we put them on the shelf

and forget about them. That’s how I treat facts and knowledge, sort of, if I don’t have a primary

goal of seeking the truth of a particular issue. For me, the more I seek, the more questions I have

it seems. It would be awfully nice if I could put a stake in the ground and say, this is it. I’m done

searching. It’s too exhausting. And sometimes it is. Sometimes I dig the wrong hole, and I have

to dig another, and each time I dig, I get a surprise and move on to another dig. This wonderful

universe seems to expand each time I discover something new, or possibly even re-discover

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something I’ve forgotten. Certainly, my knowledge of human nature expands as I find new

friends, get jilted by old ones. Perhaps, when I’m done in this part of my journey, I “will have

learned that life is verily a dream and God is the dreamer, dreaming us (me).[5]

Hopefully, that’s not true. I like to believe there’s more to life than being a product of a dream. I

seem to be at my happiest when I’m trying to learn, or write, or teach. There is an old saying in

science that "The more I know, the more I learn I don't know", and to a large degree that is true.

The gnostic writers tell us to seek an answer and don't give up and you will find one. “However,

when you do, you will be astonished to learn that the answer you seek is not an end in and of

itself; it only leads you to ten more questions; seek those answers; for each answer there is ten

more questions and on and on and on. Eventually, you will get it (ha) -- there is no end to

questions, to life …”[6] What a shame the Gnostics did not become a sect in the early church.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all

its contents. We live in a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it

was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have

hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open

up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go

mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark

age."

H. P. Lovecraft from The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

&&&&&

TOPIC: DO WE LAMINATE OUR BELIEFS WITH FAITH TO PROTECT US FROM THE

FACTS AND THE TRUTH?

Some of us believe in things we can’t observe and laminate it with faith to protect it from facts

and the truth that are usually staring us in the face. And, usually, the things we strongly believe

in help us cope with our frailties and mistakes of nature and ourselves. But sometimes this is not

the case. Observe any religious fanatic in the ‘know’ and one can see where knowing, or thinking

we know, can be lethal as in Jihads and the Crusades. Knowledge, in this case, has nothing to do

with the truth. If it does, it’s only by forced coincidence. It has everything to do with control. We

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control our children and how they think, presumably to mold their behavior. We try and control

the people around us to fit into our personal schema whether it is husband to wife, or neighbor to

neighbor. I see those shadows on the wall and we sit with those who have similar ideas as to

what is causing them. We pontificate and relish in our sea of words that lead us to nowhere in

particular until one day we stumble on something truly magnificent, not necessarily by design,

but by accident. We are stunned and there comes a point when we know we’ll never be able to

go back to the way we were.

And when that day happens we find ourselves precariously perched on a pedestal of truth where

one false move will have us plunging into the folly of ‘what-ifs’ and ‘yeah, buts’ indulging in

desperation and doubting ourselves and what we know. We are like scientists looking through a

keyhole and see a bedroom. There to the left we see a window and we try our best to explain the

outside world while, at an angle, our gaze takes in the trees and the birds and the effects of the

wind outside that window. From inside we inspect the outside and become gurus and know-it-

alls when specs of truth fall our way. A rattle on the window from the wind, a chirp of a bird, a

rustling of the leaves have us all scudding about predicting and pontificating. We see, we hear

and we build philosophies around our observations and our discoveries become a way of life,

sometimes. We write papers. Seek awards. Generations go by and these truths become encased

in a picture where the dots are connected by some person we don’t know but who is, reportedly,

in the know, a cleric perhaps, who claimed special insights. Although some of us can take a bit

of information and stretch it into a 10-minute conversation piece, we rely on those gurus who

opine at the CNN and FOX News channels who know how to add a little smoke and mirrors to

impress the multitude.

Seeking truth is a human trait. We have a need to seek and find and come to a reasonable closure

on things that effect human existence. But how accurate can our observations be if we are color

blind, in a way. Depending on how well we observe, and taking into account the astuteness of the

observer, we may approach absolute truth, and point in the direction where the ultimate may be

found. Creationists’ point of view, or people who believed in spontaneous generation of life

through a creator, were the predominate view of biological law until Darwin came along. But I

submit Darwin’s views only allow us to truly understand how vulnerable we are in our inability

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to perceive the real world in its full wonder and color. In truth, we can approach reality only by

making assumptions that have to lead us to the conclusion that the ultimate possessions of all the

facts are unattainable.

I’m going to use the lake analogy (Peter D. Ouspensky) to aid us in our understanding of this

point. Imagine two dimensional beings living on top of a lake. They can only perceive length and

width. Now imagine that I, a three dimensional creature, enter the lake. At first my two legs

appear to these creatures as two circles. Amazed at this intrusion, they take out their two-

dimensional rulers and two-dimensional Geiger counters, make measurements and write papers

with their two-dimensional pencils on what they perceive. To confuse matters for them, I crouch

into the lake and let the water reach my waistline. Now these two-dimensional creatures see the

two circles vanish in favor of one large circle representing my oversized belly. They once again

take out their two-dimensional rulers and two-dimensional Geiger counters and develop new

theories as to what has entered their world. Some say it’s a natural phenomenon. Some predict

Armageddon. Others write fables. These predictions will go on until maybe one bright scientist,

let’s call him a two-dimensional Einstein, says, “Wait everyone. Let’s not go crazy. What we are

witnessing is the effects of another dimension. Let’s call it the third dimension.”

Well, simplistic as this is, that’s kind of what we do on a daily basis, isn’t it? We read or see or

perceive something and we extrapolate from that evidence and come up with our theories and

beliefs based on that. We observe the effects of another dimension and make our best guess as to

‘what’ is causing it.

I’ll give an example of something that’s unexplainable – to me. It happened to a family member.

Let’s keep him or her anonymous and so we’ll call her/him Jack. He’s an atheist. He believes

there’s nothing out there after death. Now, prior to meeting my wife (I was 38 years old at the

time, she was 35 when we met), she lived in a modest house in New Jersey. By all accounts

given by its occupants (Mom, daughter and son) the house was haunted at one time. The toilet

seat opened and closed by itself, as did the kitchen cabinets and the doors to the bedrooms, that

sort of thing. The doer of the motion was believed to be a conductor of a train who was

decapitated while working sometime during the early 20th Century, and who my wife called

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‘grandpa’. It seems he forgot to duck when the train passed through some tunnel on a daily route

to wherever. His spirit stayed in the house where he once lived, now occupied and owned by my

wife and her children. On one occasion my wife yelled at him for scaring a friend of hers who

was using the bathroom. Grandpa, as my wife tells it, flipped the toilet seat up and down and she

reprimanded this ghost while she was in the kitchen. Much to my wife’s surprise, a loaf of bread

came off the top of the refrigerator, hovered in the middle of the room, and shot across the

kitchen and fell harmlessly to the floor.

Days later my wife explained this event to Jack, the atheist. He laughed ‘knowing’ such a

happening was, at best, an illusion of some sort. Or someone was playing a joke, perhaps. As he

cackled in that same kitchen, another loaf of bread came off the refrigerator and, like before, shot

across the room only this time it hit him in the chest and dropped to the floor. To this day Jack

remains an atheist and hasn’t quite integrated what happened to him on that day. Now, to the best

of my knowledge this event is true, assuming I’m not being scammed by my wife and Jack. Of

course, this event, in and of itself, doesn’t prove the existence of anything except that there’s

something out there, perhaps ‘another dimension’, that can or does affect this one. In other

words, we can see the effects of a poltergeist, or ghost, or whatever, but depending on our belief

structure, we dismiss it, or analyze it until we throw our hands in the air in desperation, or study

it until we come to closure that it has some spiritual or scientific merit – maybe it’s a force in the

4th dimension. If it has some merit we get inspired and are likely to try to inspire others. We may

write about our findings, get them published in our journals, or discuss them at Universities or

backyard barbecues. It’s a fun game seeking the truth when it’s a brand new theory based on

some evidence that can’t be explained away so easy.

But sometimes what we find is not exactly what we were looking for. Let’s take a hypothetical:

we find ancient records that deal with the existence of Jesus Christ, and we find out that the

Sermon on the Mount was contrived; that there was no loaf of bread miracle, and the words on

the mount were purposely revised at the time the Gospel of Matthew was transcribed from its

original Greek to keep the rank and file in line. These current-day, true believers claim this new-

found script is a conspiracy or a plot to destroy a two-century-old religion and is a bunch of

bunkum. Some of them, if given a chance, will destroy the text because they ‘know’ it’s a lie and

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a hoax. They fear that if this text survives and proves to be authentic in some way it might

eventually affect a change in religious dogma and the way people perceive Christ. The more

likelihood it would never be challenged because our religious roots or beliefs are just too strong.

Evolution, for example, is such a theory that has survived alongside the creationist point of view,

but it took a long time to nestle in as a possible truth, and it has not changed the creationist point

of view at all. I think they’ll forever be locking horns. The Theory of Evolution is still trying to

weather the storm of biblical scrutiny and might never gain total acceptance, as I believe the

same fate would apply to our hypothetical Sermon of the Mount text. That’s why I say we

laminate our beliefs with faith to protect us from the facts and the truth. This too is a human trait.

&&&&&

TOPIC: ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS… or EENY-MEENY-MINEY-MO

It’s been said that truth, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. I guess it can be a little

disturbing when someone points out something that’s really ugly and calls it beautiful. It’s an

‘Ewww” moment, like seeing a grumpy-looking blobfish up front and personal. It’s a different

disturbing when I hear someone adept at creating hypotheticals and proving obscure points to

disinterested listeners by the backyard pool. Different because few people these days really care

about a philosophy of life or discussing facts that determine what Free Will is or if civil

disobedience is okay if it doesn't impinge on anyone else's rights, or whether we should have

capital punishment or not. I’m sad to know most of us haven’t reasoned out these issues and are

unable to discuss them to a logical end. We’re comfortable where we are, and if Joe Shmo is

getting executed Friday because he pushed his grandmother down the stairs we say, “Good. He

deserves it.” But we can’t offer an opinion on whether capital punishment is good or bad for the

society.

We may privately indulge a bit in reading popular philosophers of prior centuries like Confucius

or Plato or Aristotle, but it’s not a leisurely read and in our current information age, where

misinformation is sometimes embraced, books on philosophy are not high on the list of things to

read. We are content in the content of the Bible, or A Brief History of Time, by Stephen

Hawking, but usually our minds are stimulated by extracts on the internet through cell phones,

ipads, Mac Pros or PCs. Five-minute spurts that jolt our minds like a cup of java in the morning.

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Oh, we may pull out our kindle and quote passages in “Fifty Shades of Grey”, but try to find

someone who has even heard of Peter Singer's book on Practical Ethics, or Ray Monks’

numerous books on philosophers? We don’t go there. They are not listed as top views on

Facebook or Youtube, so we just don’t go there. Our lives are too cluttered with inconsequential

things and our minds have enough trouble keeping up with them.

I know, I know, life is tough and we don’t need to complicate it with … complicated thoughts.

But our minds are a muscle and if we don’t use it we become what we think. Lazy. Disinterested.

Or maybe were just disenchanted to the important matters that run our society. From what I can

tell we don’t seem to be interested today in following an arduous path of enlightenment when we

can flip our TVs on and can get instant information from ESPN and CNN by a push of a button,

where a surprise greets us after every commercial, or a train wreck, or such, on every channel.

The movies we watch follow the path from script to screen and have only one structure. If the

inciting incident doesn’t appear within 10% of the story, the movie doesn’t get made. We seek

instant gratification – our attention spans demand it. We look for stories that take us on quick

emotional journeys, which are great if it works, but the cerebral journey, even our non-fiction

reading, follows a formula of proven success that strives for quick emotional responses.

Commercials are structured in prescribed sound bites, and sitcoms have a structured formula that

fragments the storyline with punch lines, all arranged to accommodate for the viewers’ short

attention spans.

But let’s be fair about instant gratification. It’s the opium that drives us all, isn’t it? Some of my

greatest life-changing moments have been through books, but also television. In fact, television

was my major inspiration at an early age – a time when the world view was competing with

dogmas of the church. And today I’m old enough to believe in anything, or disbelieve

everything. To quote my own home page, “I’m usually hopeful enough to listen to anything that

sounds promising. In my gullible travels I’ve gained and lost fortunes if you tally my bank

accounts over the years, but I’ve also amassed great treasures of the heart. I want to believe in

things that are dear to me, like everyone will eventually go to heaven, and the oscillating big

bang theory is God's way of doing things. But in the end, reality is what it is regardless of what I

believe.

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“My adolescence came at a time when most of my decisions were made by flipping a coin or

going eeny-meeny-miney-mo. How charming it was when most of my mistakes were washed

away simply by saying “Do over” or "uncle". I’m dating myself, of course. But it seemed to be a

simpler time back then, until my age of innocence was rocked hard by a group of assassinations

that began with JFK. I became philosophical about the world I lived in, much in the same way a

high school football player reflects about the meaning of life after losing a championship game.

I don’t think my desire to write was born from the events of the 60's, though. That desire came a

decade before with a single event, a subtle touch of fate, the memory of which is like twisting a

kaleidoscope that jumbles things a bit before coming into focus. It happened in 5th grade when I

entered my first writing contest. It wasn't as if we had a choice. I had to read a novel and write a

one-page synopsis, which would be our writing sample for the contest. The student who wrote

the best summary would win, of course. I can’t remember the novel I read. I just remember the

feeling of self-discovery and the wonderful emotions the story provoked - an epiphany for a boy

who suddenly realized what the power of words could do to the core of a person’s soul. When I

tried to capture some of those magical feelings on paper, I felt lost, powerless to express any of

it. That's when I discovered the flap -- a brief outline from the publisher, those beautiful words

that perfectly captured the emotions and the essence of the story. For a boy trying desperately to

rise from the sleepy world of his imagination, I did a despicable thing. I used the flap in writing

the synopsis, paraphrasing as best as a fifth grader could, and submitted the paper into the

contest. As fate would have it, I won the competition. I was embarrassed, humbled at receiving

an award I didn't deserve, and I promised myself that day never to do anything like that again.

That was the beginning where that little flame began burning. I learned later it was called

passion. And so, in my quest to know the human condition, I take heed in the words of a scientist

(Einstein): "Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value." Ah, that Einstein.

He makes things so complicated sound so easy.

Getting back to the inspiration we receive from movies, a few of my life changing moments

came when watching Les Miserables, Twelve Angry Men, I Accuse, and Inherent the Wind. I can

honestly say they had as much influence on me as my grammar school teachers had. All of the

movies had a theme where people searched for truth and how that search led the hero to those

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magical moments where I just cried over the fact that one person can make a difference in this

world, and it usually stems for a well-defined principle. I received much direction in life when a

poor man stole silverware but was given a second chance when a priest cared more about the

man’s soul than he did of money. I remember crying over how one man personified justice and

stood against eleven others who were too busy to give a minority the benefit of the doubt, like

our system of justice requires. I knew as a teenage I needed to have well defined philosophies of

life, and that I could make a difference in this world even if I’m the wackiest kind of guy, like

that McMurphy character was in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.

I’m not minimizing the difficulty of having a philosophical mind when conformity rules the day.

It’s a way of life most of us follow. Sometimes it’s easier to believe truth is relative and that it

has little meaning in the long run, and should only be hoisted on the backs of philosophers as

they caress an idea at the town square. We certainly don’t want to listen to it while we’re

watching a football game or our favorite sitcom. We might get a little intellectual juice by

watching FOX news or CNN or MSNBC, but that’s only to satisfy our muse to stay in the loop

of things, not to change things. And we might even believe in George Costandza’s philosophy

that “It’s not a lie if you believe it.” Or when Sheldon Cooper (The Big Bang Theory sitcom)

insisted he knew what he was talking about: “Howard, you know me to be a very smart man.

Don’t you think that if I were wrong, I’d know it?” We laugh at these quips because in our own

Bizarro Worlds, they have a tinge of truth. Personally, I love Sheldon’s take on the rules of

Rock-Paper-Scissors: “Scissors cuts paper, paper covers rock, rock crushes lizard, lizard poisons

Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitates lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves

Spock, Spock vaporizes rock, and as it always has, rock crushes scissors.” It has no meaning in

life, but it is just funny, and makes me laugh. I would love to hear our comedic heroes give us

their convictions or opinions on matters of euthanasia, or who to vote for and why, or their

opinions on how to raise our children, or on how we should be taxed, or why it is in our bests

interests to send troops into a foreign country because, somehow, if they can make us laugh

about the things we do, we may just do the right thing.

I guess what I’m saying is a lot of us are easily persuaded at an early evening news show, or an

afternoon press conference, or even laugh at the hidden truth behind the jokes of our sitcoms, to

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form an important opinion on a philosophical topic that takes enormous depth of thinking and

requires us to go on a journey for more than a half hour to search for the facts, a journey that

sometimes lasts a lifetime … or more.

&&&&&

TOPIC: PACIFISM HAS ITS ADVANTAGES

Jesus Christ gave us a wonderful philosophy of living, which has roots in a pacifist way of life.

In a world where the ‘survival of the fittest’ and ‘might makes right’ are the natural order of

business in the animal kingdom, turning the other cheek, caution for casting the first stone, living

like a child, all provide us with wonderful, poignant, beautiful reasons to live life without

harming another soul regardless if they differ from us in race or beliefs or economic status.

These pacifist views were given to us during at a time when the tools of violence progressed

from hands and feet, to sticks and stones, to knives and swords, to hand guns and rifles. As time

rolled on we gained more sophisticated ways of killing ourselves, and less philosophical on why

we shouldn’t. Our animal instincts of drawing first blood prevailed over loving our enemies, a

human trait that satisfies something very mysterious in our psyche. Our animal instincts seem to

prevail over the more benign attributes of our nature. We only have to look to World War II and

see that the pacifist point of view crumbled under a despot who was hell bent on committing

genocide, and rooting out people and principles that were ‘different’. And the cry went out once

again: “…evil prevails when good people do nothing.”

When one talks about ‘good’ people, Mahatma Ghandi comes to mind. He’s possibly the greatest

pacifist of the modern era. A hero. He believed in the teachings of Christ, yet these philosophies

proved irrational under the weight of new tools of violence. Today, someone who is ‘hell bent’

on committing genocide has at their disposal an arsenal of weapons that can kill millions in the

blink of an eye. They can lay chemicals on an entire city in a single blast causing a slower death,

but death to all, in a matter of hours or days. Something tells me that Jesus Christ would be

giving a different message today if he were around teaching and preaching. Ghandi tried to

exercise Christ’s pacifist way during the rise of Hitler, but I don’t think he truly integrated the

human capacity of doing the obscene at the time. I just can’t imagine anyone living during mid-

20th century, when 15 million people fell victim during the holocaust and other genocide acts,

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would be so careless as to suggest that collective suicide might be the answer to such atrocities.

Should we be more like Ghandi? Does following a pacifist life allow us and others to live a

harmonious life? I believe it does, and I believe in pacifism as a way of life, but the heart-

wrenching question we should have is ‘where does our truth reside in moments of crises?’

When urgency is not applied, I normally think about doing something first, then I speak those

thoughts, and then I finally act upon them. I think, speak, and then act. That’s the natural order of

things … normally. So, not having Ghandi or Christ to lead me in the 21st Century, where sticks

and swords and stones have been replaced with rocket grenades and weapons of mass

destruction, I must train my mind to find philosophies that I can soulfully follow which the men

of my philosophical past would be proud of. I must develop a fillossofee of living. It is, as best as

I can tell, to live harmoniously with my fellow human beings and nature, and to integrate the

exceptions without flaw.

If we search for truth and see it as shadows on the wall and become content with what we’ve

found, then we’ll never reach our full potential and, in a philosophical sense, we’ll be forever

beating wheat against the rocks to make our bread.

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CHAPTER TWO

WHAT IT IS TO BE HUMAN: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND OTHER MUSINGS

TO BE HUMAN IS TO FEEL INFERIOR

Getting old is not for sissies, my cherubs. That’s a pearl of wisdom I got from my father-in-law.

But I have to admit, the older I get, the more perplexed I become about the behavior of my

fellow human beings, and especially when they use God in defense for their actions. Our need to

be right is an overpowering psychological force sometimes driven by the need for success or

superiority. Alfred Adler, a famous psychologist at the beginning of the 20th century, made

things very clear to me as far as my own personality is concerned. He primarily said we drive

for success or superiority based on feelings of inferiority or weakness. In fact, when he was

asked to

sum up his study on human nature in one sentence he simply said, “To be human is to feel

inferior.”[7]

To be human is to be so many other things, of course, but this statement rings so true, doesn’t it?

I remember many times in my life I was swallowed up in self-pity and anxiety and had a hard

time functioning because I was driven by these god-awful feelings of inadequacy. This drive for

success based on feelings of weakness was never made more apparent than when I gave my first

presentation to a large group at AT&T. I was asked to put together a presentation for my boss

and I did so getting feedback from the experts in the field. When the time came to give the

presentation, my boss got called away for a few days to do other business and I had to go to

Atlanta and give the presentation instead of him. I remember being so intimidated because I felt

the people I had to give the presentation to had more experience than I did, and knew the topic

better than I did. I got so intimidated I had diarrhea days before the performance, and was visibly

shaken while I stood up there in front of them, or at least I thought I was shaking. I had put aside

a full day to give the presentation, but I gave it with seemingly no hitches, and since no one

asked questions, it was over by 11AM. We went to lunch and I privately asked a friend of mine

why no one asked any questions. He told me because I intimidated them. What a revelation that

was! In my drive to be superior, or successful, I subconsciously forced an attitude of superiority

on them, the opposite of what I was feeling.

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There were other times in my life I remember feeling unworthy, or feeling that I was inferior in

some way to the point where I had anxiety attacks, or thought I should be smoking or have one

drink to help me feel I was one of the group. Of course, all that was bunk. In the long run it only

made me feel less of a person, and for a period of time in my life I donned a persona that was

different or opposite from what I was feeling to get through the moment, or the day. Is that

something I learned as a child? I guess it was when I give it some serious thought. Even though

the world has evolved since I first heard of Adler’s philosophy that people are driven by feelings

of inferiority, his words are timeless and still ring true, especially at the CVS counter these days.

That is to say, we’re a medicated society seeking pills to make us feel better about ourselves in

one way or another. I see it in myself and in others, especially children. I’m one of the caregivers

to my great-granddaughter, Leah. I get involved with her upbringing in that I babysit her a lot

and I have learned a few things from this experience. I have a deeper understanding, for

example, of what Adler was saying about children who will compensate for inferiority feelings

by doing inappropriate things. A child like Leah, for example (and I hope I don’t embarrass her

by saying this), might find herself tied to her caregiver in emotional and physical ways and

become almost a parasite because I, or Nana, or Leah’s mother or father, seem so big and

domineering that we overpower her. We stand there like beacons, her fist line of defense against

this great, big world of chaos. In this respect her physical and intellectual deficiencies incite

feelings of inferiority and she develops an unconscious and confusing drive to be dependent on

us which springs an eternal feeling of not ever being quite good enough to meet the challenges or

demands of the day by herself. Think of that boy in Plato’s cave example. His mother died and

he was cast out into the world with no champion to guide him along. It’s no wonder he ran back

into the cellar for the comfort of his known world.

This feeling of dependency on the adults probably accounts for a lot of rebellion in you children

as you get older and find out your parents aren’t the gods you thought they were as a child. At

times, you become disenchanted with us – and the world – as if it’s our fault the world is so

screwed up. Oh, that’s right. It is our fault. Hmm. Anyway, if you were brought up in a

functional environment, you get over this feeling quickly, or it doesn’t affect you in a negative

way, like it might if you are brought up in a dysfunctional environment where you didn’t have

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positive direction from anything or anyone else: you might retreat to your respective dungeons,

or end up in our prisons whose tenants have not dealt with their feelings very well.

In any event, getting back to Leah: if this domineering aspect of others have such an effect on

her, it’s understandable that if she is given to people who yell and argue and strut their power in

front of her, like arguing parents, or grandparents, or great-grandparents, then she might

subconsciously be driven towards a goal of superiority with no apparent sub-goals. She

experiences the negative side of human nature or issues, and she wants to get rid of them but she

doesn’t know how to go about it. She tries to solve her problems by yelling or hitting or

mimicking how she is treated, or maybe there’s a more subtle disguise of her negative feelings

where she says or does things that win her negative attention from her caregivers. Sort of like my

presentation example where, strangely, I disguise my feelings by subconsciously behaving

contrary, or in an opposite way to what I’m feeling, exploiting the very feelings I’m trying to

disguise. And, conversely, if I, or Leah’s parents, or people around her, show her love and

security and take time to cater to her wants unconditionally, or appropriately deprive her

cravings when they are unreasonable, but give her rational and consistent discipline, she’ll tend

to set goals that will be conscious and clearly understood, and not be driven by a more primal,

dysfunctional psychology that Adler says is in us all.

Leah might ask me to build a track for Thomas-the-Train, or to play hide-and-seek with her

during a time when I have my hands full and can’t drop what I’m doing. She might be at the age

where she doesn’t know how to assimilate a “wait a minute, I’m busy” answer and internalizes it

as a rejection and, for a period of time, she might give me a ‘humphy’ attitude as payment for my

inattention. If I yell at her, or she hears me yell at her nana when I want something, she learns

that yelling is a way to deal with her wants and desires. She doesn’t know how to respond when

she sees poor behavior in others, except to have negative feelings, and maybe mimic the actions

she sees from us. It must be very confusing when we scold her for the very actions she is

mimicking. My guess is she searches for a way to remove those spirits in her because she doesn’t

like feeling … ‘yukky’. She notices her caregivers yield the cold shoulder when they are angry

or sad, so she might just ignore me while she colors or works on her computer. (She’s 5 years old

as I write this and knows how to manipulate the Mac/Pro better than most adults.) Or she might

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just retreat into an emotional black hole and to ask her ‘what’s the matter’ or ‘what are you

feeling’ doesn’t help the situation because she doesn’t know what she’s feeling, or how to

express it. These feelings are all new to her and she experiments on how to avoid or remove

those terrible lumps in her throat or stomach by emotionally retreating, or by being the center of

attention, or by deflecting attention somehow by misbehaving. Thankfully, she’s a happy child,

and I’m a happy great-grandfather (and a happy grand-father as well.)

But, on the brighter side, if any of you witness me, or your parents, deal with the conditions of

life in a soft, loving way, you sense the calm and deal with it accordingly. There’s no fear. Just

love. And I love you all as best I can. And I use humor a lot to gain your trust. You’re all so

intense, sometimes. And, when any of you look into my eyes, you touch my soul. But what do I

know? I’m no Alfred Adler. I can only believe that in the long run allowing all of you the

freedom to be yourself, and explore the world in a safe way, that you will be relatively secure

and, psychologically speaking, will find that your drive towards superiority is, and will be,

defined in terms of success and social interest, and not so much because you are driven by low

self-esteem or inferiority.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m hampered by self-defense mechanisms, special interests, love, hate,

negative and/or positive projection, or a dozen other things that limit my capacity to achieve the

truth about myself and nature, and I must try to overshadow my tendencies to dominate others

(i.e. to be superior) because I ‘think’ I have the ‘ultimate truth’ of an issue. And if I don’t know

the genesis of my feelings, how am I ever going to teach you guys how to be good citizens? I

believe I must ‘show’ you that this is a personal journey, not a dictatorial one.

&&&&&

TOPIC: IMPORTANT STUFF VERSUS THE TRIVIAL

The fact I like vanilla ice cream is trivial, and has little to no meaning as to how I live or who I

am, but my beliefs about things like gun control, abortion, capital punishment do have

substantive meaning. I tend to avoid discussing such matters with anyone because, generally

speaking, people don’t want to get deep in conversation about such things because these topics

have a tendency to create disharmony in communication. If the topic is close to the heart to

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someone, and I have a contrary opinion about that topic, ill feelings, and even lost friendships,

can, and do, result. Interestingly, or rather not-so-interestingly, I’ve noticed that most of our

conversational lives surround the trivial, which is not necessarily bad, since knowing the trivial

wants and desires can be helpful on birthdays, Valentine’s Day and the like. It’s just … boring.

Still, I learned a long time ago that discussing politics, abortion or religion with family or good

friends can have collateral fallout issues such as bruised egos, or misunderstandings that don’t

get resolved. I become ‘humphed’ because I’m a conservative and my liberal friends or liberal

family members take my opinions as personal attacks on their belief structures. I may do the

same, actually. I got myself in trouble more than once. One time I thought I was being funny

with a friend when I said that when Obama visited Disney World he was excited to see Mickey

because it was nice to meet a world leader who had bigger ears than him. My friend got

extremely insulted and remained angry with me even when I told him I was quoting a joke the

president made on himself.

Discussing points of religion can be even worse. So, I structure my life by knowing who I should

opine with about recipes, or sports, or cars or the weather, and who I can talk to about abortion or

capital punishment. I’d be inclined to guess that over 95% of the time I am concerned with the

inconsequential details of my life. My point: don’t be defensive when people disagree with you

and find friends who you can discuss important matters in life with.

&&&&&

MORE IMPORTANT STUFF – AND THEIR EXCEPTIONS – AND BACK TO TRUTH:

Let’s revisit a topic that needs more review. Discussing the moral issues of taking another’s life

may not bring with it the same delight of rehashing yesterday’s football game, but that’s not an

excuse to ignore my social responsibility of having a moral stance on the matter if the subject

ever came up in conversation. So, I may agree that killing another is wrong, but upon further

discussion with you I find out you have an exception to this principle. You might say it’s okay to

kill another in self-defense, or that it’s okay to kill another in war. I might disagree and say war

itself is wrong if it kills people. Furthermore, I might say killing another in self-defense is only

good when the initial effort was to disable the person. And I might say capital punishment is

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wrong under any circumstances, and abortion is an aberration of our society. And, depending on

our passion about these things, our friendship might be strained. So, maybe it’s good that we talk

about yesterday’s game, and why I think my team is better than yours. That probably would have

less consequence, although our egos still may get bruised.

But let’s look at a couple of situations where we don’t have particular leanings one way or

another. Let’s say my life gets rocked when I’m attacked and robbed on the streets of a big city

for the twenty dollars and my cheap watch. I become outraged and have murder in my heart and

I go out and buy a gun so I’m ready next time. Or let’s say my neighbors’ boy goes to war and

finds out he enjoys killing the enemy and comes home with hate and discontent in his heart. If

we go into the difficult situations as mentioned above without knowing our bearing or, as we

have now discovered, our absolute truths, we come out confused because we don’t have a high

level philosophy to guide us. Now, granted, I may absolutely be such a liberal that I believe

killing anyone, anywhere under any condition is wrong and I hold my head high because I have

such a great absolute truth ideal that I’m living. But, then someone abducts Kyle, Leah, or any of

you, in your home while your parents are sleeping, and my fillossofees are tested to a possible

breaking point. What do I do when yesterday my persona was rooted in an untested philosophical

schema, and today’s events expose vulnerabilities of my humanity beyond yesterday’s

comprehension?

What happens if I hold on to an ‘ultimate truth’ so strongly that I don’t allow for exceptions,

based on practical standards of the day, and my beliefs are so inflexible that my moment of truth

fractures the philosophical mind? Fortunately, our society allows for exceptions and I guess I

must allow others a platform to debate for exclusions in a principle, possibly based on another

principle and, hopefully, it’s not just a lukewarm opinion that wins the day where few prosper, or

our integrity suffers. This debate could become an exercise of semantics, or rhetorical smoke and

mirrors, where the majority’s point of view wins the day, such as capital punishment. But

assuming logic wins the day, I maintain that ultimate truths, like ‘killing another human being is

wrong’, although a worthy standard to live by, cannot be sanction under any and all

circumstances, although the effort to attain that truth is a worthy path to follow. On the other side

of the coin, I agree that in most cases the majority rules, but if we think the majority is wrong we

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can then peacefully take a stand on a high ground and yell to others that hand out judicial death

sentences, that it is morally wrong to do so, and explain to the masses why it is wrong. We can

solicit our views in the public arena, or election platform, win over the hearts and minds of

society, and become the majority, and then we can change the laws. We might shout out, for

example, that 2% of the counties in the United States perform all the death sentences in the

country. Hmm. Actually, that’s an interesting tidbit worth exploring. Let’s do that now.

The New York Times reported in a 12/30/2013 article that most states in the US recognize that

“the death penalty is arbitrary, racially biased and prone to catastrophic error.” Now, I suppose

that could be the beginning and end of someone’s philosophical mental thrust on the matter, but

there’s not a word in that statement about the morality of capital punishment even if it was done

un-arbitrarily, unbiased and with precision. Still, I have to believe there is some cerebral jostling

on the matter in most States considering “All 80 death sentences in 2013 came from only about 2

percent of counties in the entire country, and all 39 executions (more than half occurred in Texas

and Florida) took place in about 1 percent of all counties and… 85% of all counties have not had

a single execution in more than 45 years.”[8] Implied in that statement is most Americans, or the

judicial systems that protect most Americans, minimally, don’t believe that capital punishment is

a deterrent to crime, and/or they believe that it weakens the principle that killing others is wrong.

I cannot believe the Eight Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishment” is a tit-for-tat principle

that is applied when the crime is also ‘cruel and unusual’. Granted, our process of justice is, in

part, supposed to protect us from criminals who have such harm on their minds, but life

imprisonment without hope of parole would suffice in matters of murder, etc., albeit it would

cost us more money to do so (e.g., the state of California has estimated that it spends at least

$50,000 per year to keep an inmate in prison.) This leads me to ask the rhetorical question; what

price should we pay for such a high standard?

Of course, there’s an inherent conflict here where we have condoned, or constitutionally applied,

an exception to this high, honorable standard. The conflict is in the application of exceptions.

The more exceptions, the less of an honorable standard it becomes. Killing in war, for example,

is also condoned, although we do have avenues where true believers to the standard can stand

their ground on principle. A conscientious objector exercises his first amendment rights until

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he’s heard in court or is incarcerated because the prevailing mood of the majority won’t tolerate

living such a high-level philosophy in time of war. We can take our hats off to that person

because of his steadfastness to his life-is-sacred principles, and he may even win his case in

court, but one would have to believe, or would want to believe, that this person should also be

repelled by capital punishment law, or abortion, or any activity that consciously takes the life of

another.

No matter what our leanings, we do preoccupy ourselves in search for righteousness. Have you

ever met someone where it was more important to be right than be happy, or kind, or quiet

enough to listen to another’s point of view without planning a rebuttal? Do be careful to have a

philosophy of life that has merit in that you have taken the time cultivate it and are able to speak

its virtues. A truth may be a constantly evolving principle that is rethought and revised based on

the changes taking place in our society. As a consequence, I do not hold onto a moral point

blindly or rigidly. I may jump into the thick of it when I hear about a man who gets 25 years in

jail for stealing a donut because his recent thievery fell under the ‘three strikes and you’re out’

law. Should I stand up and come to this man’s defense even though I fought for the passage of

the law? Should I complain about the double jeopardy law when new DNA evidence arrives a

year too late? Should I disagree with my spouse in a social situation on a point of philosophy

when I know if I do I’ll embarrass her? Promotions based on seniority – is that fair? Is

preferential treatment for minorities the only way to overcome centuries of discrimination? If I

am in a library where there are several ‘quiet’ signs, do I yell at a boisterous person for quiet? Do

I stop a man for stealing a loaf of bread because his children are hungry? Do I keep my 5-year

daughter from a bridal party because I don’t like the choice of dress my cousin picked for her?

Or do I spend most of the time complaining about things like Forrest Gump winning best picture

over Shawshank Redemption?

I pick and choose my battles, and the people I have them with. That’s only natural. But I must

know my position and not discuss or argue arbitrarily. And when push comes to shove, do I

stand by and let a person be executed without a word of defiance if I believe capital punishment

is morally wrong? I guess I must be prepared to answer no … sometimes. Most of us who can

wrap our philosophical mind around the issue, succumb to the principles of the law that are on

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the books and allow the issue to be settled in our courts simply because it is so much easier to pin

the stigma of a bad law on the backs of the unprincipled public rather than to try to change the

laws themselves. Too much effort. Too much bother. Not enough passion. But, admittedly, I’m

being somewhat spineless when I limit my platform of change on important principles to

backyard barbeque discussions or penning my musings on paper to my grandchildren. Yes, I

know I live in America, and I can take my issues to court and be heard, or I can peacefully

demonstrate and take part and even be responsible for a changing society. But I don’t. Instead, I

build my philosophical paradigms and I vote for people who believe the same as I do, and I talk

to those who will listen. I try to live by my principles, but it’s not easy sometimes. I mean, cut

me off on route 78 and if I wind up in a ditch that may test one or two of my absolute truths on

how I should live my life towards others.

To be human is also to seek an understanding about human nature. So, my search for truth as it

pertains to killing another human being, for example, the right and wrongness of such, is met

with arguments, foreign concepts, and even laziness. I might find myself at the end of a pistol

being robbed, or I might be a doctor who faces delivery complications and must choose who

shall live, the mother or the baby, and I must think on my feet quickly, and decisively, and I

might choose an action that is staunchly opposite of my beliefs that were founded under less-

trying circumstances. Still, knowing my ‘fillossofee’ has not been tested under stressful

circumstances, I’ll put a stake in the ground on the issue of the sacredness of human life and say,

let there be no capital punishment, no more wars where killing is part of battle, no self-defense

where killing is intentional, and no abortions.

Wait a second. I do have one exception. It pertains to when there are complications in the

delivery room and the doctor can’t save both the mother and the fetus; where the doctor has the

knowledge and expertise to save one or the other but not both. The doctor then, by virtue of

saving one kills the other. In other words, he makes a decision which one to kill. That’s the only

exception allowed. If you have one, I have to tell you I got my fingers in my ears and my tongue

is wagging a string of “la-las”.

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CHAPTER THREE

God, god AND OTHER MATTERS, SUCH AS DEATH AND HELL

It’s so pompous, sometimes, to talk about God as if I had something new to offer. I promised

myself when I started this project I wouldn’t have the topic of God for that reason. What could I

possibly say that’s new that hasn’t already been written about or said a thousand times. I started

and stopped a hundred times, and everything I proposed sounded so repetitious, pedantic or

downright pathetic. What the hell do I know about God? It’s like the uncertainty principle. As

soon as I think I know, something comes into my life to show me I don’t. If I opt for anything in

the cognitive universe it is wisdom - a rare commodity that transcends what people think and

know. For me, seeking wisdom has always been a work-in-progress. Nana (my wife) might call

me a ‘wise ass’ and that’s about as close to saying I have wisdom as I’m going to get, I guess.

Still, the topic of God seems too volatile, too remote, and too arduous a trip to take. I could’ve

followed Maurice Switzer’s advice: “It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a

fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.” But, I tackle this topic anyway because I feel guilty

for not having the spine to teach my children that there very well may be a divine destination we

all are heading for. So, to relieve my guilt, I cannot avoid presenting my view or thoughts in a

summary of fillossofee without presenting something about the possibility of a deity. In my

defense, I started this chapter after trying to lay some ground work about our search for the truth.

Still, our propensity towards believing in a higher power is great, so bear with me and let’s

consider this a journey we’re taking together, and see where we go with it.

I was spoon-fed dogma at a young age, during a time when I was most impressionable. I

absorbed data and god-facts and misinformation every day and placed them in cerebral pockets

like pieces on a chess board, and I maneuvered information in and out of my cerebellum trying to

make sense in a senseless world. As time went on, I replaced the pieces with new ‘facts’ that

seem more accurate and new misinformation that fulfilled a need of some sort, like eating meat

on Friday was an affront to God. That would be misinformation I would eventually toss and

make room for something more reasonable like, fighting for climate change, which is not just

some problem of the distant future, but is happening now.

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I remember in the beginning I was fearful of God and the unknown, like there was a hell where

those horned devils down there would egg me on to do bad things because they had just the spot

for me if I wasn’t a good Catholic boy. I tried to make sense out of dogma that was bombarding

me every hour of every day it seemed. I tried to accept ‘truths’ that were taught to me with

undying loyalty simply because I trusted the adults in my life had a handle on what was what in

the spiritual world.

At this early age I became philosophical about life. A little philosopher of sorts. It was religion

that was the impetus for most of my thoughts because it tended to address the extremes in my

life. The soul. Death. Heaven. Hell. And, not surprisingly, there was a dogmatic pull when I

learned the divine precepts when I was young and impressionable. The visual and visceral things

going on in the Bible, for example, had its residual power that stayed with me for a very long

time, and still does, I suppose. I had a Catholic prejudice to lean one way or the other when

scanty details or facts came my way concerning other aspects of life, whether it be science or

just general points in philosophy that helped define me as boy growing up on Long Island in the

‘50s and ‘60s. Cursing was taboo; dishonoring my parents was in violation of the 10

commandments; not genuflecting at the appropriate times was more of a social misstep – a

possible venial sin; and other bad ‘venial’ things, although frowned upon, could lead to the

more dreadful mortal

sins like eating meat on Fridays, and not going to church on Sundays.

For the life of me, at that age, I felt the statement ‘the truth shall set you free’ was a form of

irony since I thought once you’ve found God that was supposed to build character, not make you

doubt, or bite your fingernails to the flesh and beyond. And I guess I was lucky back then to pick

up on the incongruous details of a loving, vengeful God and I began to question the validity of

His anger, especially when He did things like wiping out an entire people in a flood (and

escorting them to hell as well, presumably). Yet He was also a loving God who showed

compassion for a repentant sinner and saved him from the depths of hades just for having an

examination of conscience at the last seconds of his life (e.g., the repentant thief at Christ’s

crucifixion). I can almost hear the voices of those drowning outside Noah’s Ark yelling,

“Forgive me, Lord. For I have sinned.” Why didn’t God forgive them for their sins as well? It

didn’t make sense, this two-part make-up of God’s character.54

At one time or another, or maybe constantly, we have all pondered about God and, from what I

can tell, most of us have concluded that indeed there is One. So, I think it’s important we ponder

the existence of the Devine here and make it a cerebral journey rather than a dictatorial one. And

I’ll begin by saying I could take a path of least resistance and adopt Blaise Pascal’s (1623-1662)

wager about God. He proposed a pragmatic approach for believing in a deity, arguing that the

potential benefits of believing in God are so great that being a believer, even if the assumption of

God’s existence is unlikely, is rational, especially when considering the risk is small in believing

while the rewards are great. This philosophy comes to us under the assumption that nothing is to

be gained or lost if one does believe in God even if the atheists were right all along. Of course, if

there is a God and one does not believe, one stands the great chance of losing his soul. So, since

there is nothing to lose if I am a believer, then why not believe in a God since eternal bliss is the

prize. There’s zero risk, as today’s business analyst might tell us, while the rewards are great.

Still, believing is not knowing. And knowing is part of our search. So, let’s search.

In science one of the most troubling things for me concerning the universe is the new

developments in The Big Bang Theory. I’m an oscillating Big Bang enthusiast. And I guess

before I get into it I have to explain a couple of details. There are theories on the creation of this

Universe, not the least of which is the Creationist (religious) point of view which states God

made everything from nothing, which is not exactly far-fetched if you believe, as Steven

Hawking does, in Spontaneous Creation. But before we go into a scientific search for the

beginning of things, and the ultimate fate of our universe, we do have some terms to define. A

Big Crunch ? A Big Freeze? A Big Rip? or a Big Bounce? Agh! There are so many details I do

get confused sometimes. And to be honest, I don’t know what creationists say about what

happens to the universe over time, but scientists generally believe in one thing – we are currently

suffering the effects of a Big Bang right now, so let’s define some terms so we can at least come

to some kind of closure on our fate – or the discussion of it, at least. The Big Crunch predicts that

the Universe will collapse into itself to form the greatest black hole ever. The Big Freeze says the

universe will continue to expand, dissipating the heat until there’s none left. Hence, it is also

known as the Heat Death. The Big Rip is a more dramatic version of The Big Freeze. In this

scenario, everything in the Universe will be ripped apart ... for some reason. And The Big Bang

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is a theory that the universe began with an explosion of a dense mass of matter, and is still

expanding from the force of that explosion. The common scientific belief is that we are currently

in the middle of a Big Bang, but scientists differ on where we go from here. Do we go to The Big

Freeze, Rip, Crunch or Bounce.

What makes the most sense to me is oscillating model of the Universe where everything will be

drawn back together and instead of a Big Crunch, we’ll get a Big Bounce, or another cycle of a

Big Bang. And this will go on forever. There is the Spontaneous Creation theory which could

come into play that could sustain a perpetual generation of life for eternity, but I don’t have the

mind to go into that. It has something to do with ‘a quantum fluctuation’, which I totally don’t

understand, so I’ll stick with the oscillating Big Bang Theory (BBT) and allow the Spontaneous

Creation theorists to work things out before I endorse them (it) as my life’s new philosophical

paradigm. It does not preclude, by the way, another cycle of Big Bang which can happen in a

vacuum when prescribed conditions are met and start just the way this cycle of the BB started.

That’s all I know about it – in fact, I may have not stated those details correctly, so I’ll just stop

here on continue on with my BBT.

Now, I remember years ago when I was considering the BBT as part of the plausible way of how

the universe began, I was concerned about the entropy stage where once the energies of all the

suns burned out, we would be left with dead matter, no globes of life as we know it could exists

and no hydrogen or other gases left to burn. Being brought up catholic in a Victorian way, I was

taught to believe God created the Universe from nothing. That He always was and always will

be. The Oscillating Big Bang Theory (OBBT) and the second law of thermodynamics, combined,

was emotionally attractive because energy and/or matter has existed for all time in the past and

always will exist for all time in the future, leaving open the possibility that we might be able to

understand God a little better being that He has the same eternal attributes.

The OBBT allows me to imagine The Big Crunch (the entire contents of the universe coming

back together into an unimaginably small sphere) allowing us to start all over again with an

incomprehensible explosion and releasing energy into the universe in all directions at a very fast

pace; where time starts all over again, and the life-cycle starts once again.

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Could this go on forever? I hope so. And as strange as this sounds, I see this as a romantic idea.

It explains things; maybe, as I mentioned, even God. To think the lights will finally go out eons

in the future leaving a dark void with nothing to hope for is not an option for me to think about

much, except to hope it’s false. It’s nice to think that there was a first mover (e.g., God), but

something in my bones tell me He would not have done things by going ‘puff’. If there is no

beginning and end to Him/Her, then there’s no beginning or end to the universe. There’s

something out there that will force another Big Crunch, or something that will cause another

cycle of existence. I just know it in my bones.

My love for the OBBT was put to the test recently. I do believe the universe has been expanding

as a result of the big explosion that happened approximately 14 billion years ago. How all this

matter/energy was shoved into the size of a golf ball in the first place, into a primordial soup, is

beyond my capability of understanding. It certainly gives a new meaning to the word condensed.

But I’ll go along with this theory, even though it has taken me a lifetime to accept and integrate it

into my spiritual thinking, because I’d love nothing more than to believe that all this spewing of

cosmic dust would someday come to a halt, start to collapse, congeal back to the golf ball, and

then begin the cycle all over again where a new clock starts from time zero, and a new cycle of

life begins. It has a ‘happily ever after’ feeling to it.

Anyway, recently I read a scientific article that said there’s an agreement among scientists that

there’s not enough dark matter in the universe to reverse this current expansion, and that the

outer galaxies are accelerating away from us (rather than slowing down), which lead our

scientific pundits to believe the universe will continue to stretch out isolating all matter in a

cosmic cloud where, gradually, all the lights will go out. That is so depressing to me. I have to

hold on to the idea (like I was holding onto a ‘weeping willow’) that whatever the conditions

were that caused all matter/energy to condense into a primordial golf ball to begin with will, in

time, happen again, just like it happened this time. To think this is the first and only time this

expansion has happened doesn’t make sense to me because eternity is a long time to wait for

conditions to be met for the genesis of this cycle. So, I think, this will happen again. And again.

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And again. If it happened once on the eternal scale to the left, it can happen again on the eternal

scale to the right.

Anyway, my mind is so set on this single idea that any information that detracts from this notion

(the cyclic nature of creation) is met with obstinacy on my part and a spirit to disprove it. Much

in the same way my religious friends wouldn’t want to read an article that refutes the Sermon on

the Mount, I don’t want to believe there’s death and stillness ahead of us with no hope of

resurrection and new life. So, if the OBBT is not true, I say, “Go Spontaneous Creationists”.

This leads me to the notion of where creationists, fundamentalist or radicals are coming from. In

the sense of their need to keep their beliefs intact, I can understand that sentiment because I see

what I want to see. That is, I’ll stay a romantic and believe the universe has an eternal clock (e.g.,

OBB), and I’ll wait for the indisputable proof one way or the other, but something tells me I

should be preparing myself to alter my beliefs, or wants.

&&&&&

I don’t believe we know enough about physics, the universe or biology to use our sciences to

claim whether there is a first cause or not. My gut reaction says ‘yes’ there must be a first cause

to things, but when pressed, I guess I believe the laws of nature and physics drives the universe

in which we live and they are part of the laws of God, but they do not, in and of themselves,

determine the existence of God.

As we discussed earlier, the properties we normally attribute to God is similar, if not exact, to

what we know about the nature of matter and energy. We believe in God’s eternal existence, for

example, and physics tells us the same thing about the energy/matter conversion and existence.

Einstein’s E= MC2 has told us that energy and matter are the same and the second law of

thermodynamics tells us that energy/matter has existed for all time; that is, it can neither be

created nor destroyed (one can be changed into the other, but the combined amount today cannot

change). For example, kinetic energy can be converted into heat energy (e.g. rubber spinning on

the road, etc.); matter into energy (e.g., atomic bomb, etc.); light energy into chemical energy

(e.g. photosynthesis, etc.); energy into matter (e.g., pair production – don’t ask). Imagine burning

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a piece of wood. We have changed the matter (wood) into another matter (ashes) and energy

(heat, light, etc). So, this energy and matter have co-existed for all eternity.

Disregarding the Spontaneous Creation for the moment, if the Big-Bang was a single event, then

did that ball of energy sit there for eternity churning away waiting to bubble? Nah. I don’t

believe that. I know I alluded to the idea that time started at the BB, but I’d like to lift that idea

and say that if God existed for all time (eternity before the BB), and energy/matter has existed

for all time, then whatever our explanation of God is, it has to deal with the physical fact that

matter/energy has always existed. That is about as far as I can go in trying to explain the ‘what’

of God. The end.

&&&&&

On another note, I can certainly believe in Extra-Terrestrials who, some have claimed, visited us

once and were revered as gods themselves. Whether we are talking about Enki, Ea, Ishtar or Ra,

most of these gods have attributes associated with them. This begs the question ‘what does a god

have to have in order to be … God? Do I have to believe in Him in a certain way, or believe He

has certain powers? Do I have to believe in dogmas? Does He (or She) require things from me?

If you take a poll and ask a cross-section of humans around the world to give their ideas about

God, what will the responses be? We’ll probably have as many opinions as we have flavors of

ice cream. Maybe more. Maybe a lot more. If you think about it, that’s pretty disturbing. If you

ask a Muslim ‘what is God?’ or ‘what does God want from us?’ you get different answers

depending on whether you’re a Shi’ite or Sunni or Wahhabis or Suffis, etc. Christians have the

largest number of followers. “According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life , in 2010

there were 2.18 billion Christians around the world, nearly a third of the global population.”[9]

The Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

estimated 34,000 Christian denominations in 2000. There are a lot of independent churches,

mostly in Africa, and some, maybe most, have close to, if not exactly, the same religious

doctrines. In other words, they are just independent organizations. But you have Catholics, Greek

Orthodox, Born Again Christians, Lutherans, Anglicans, Calvins, Mennonites, Baptists,

Millerites, Evangelicals, (I have to take a breath) etc., etc. all who have different dogmas, yet

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there center figure is Jesus Christ. You have Judism (Orthodox, etc.), Jews-for-Jesus, Buddists,

Hindus, Secular Humanists, Pagans, Atheists, Agnostics, etc., all of whom have a different set of

standards or dogmas. The list is many. I wonder how God feels knowing there’s such a

menagerie of beliefs, all claiming special connection to Him, with different devotions,

expectations, and demands. And in most of those cases, someone somewhere in their

organization says they have the written ‘word of God’ and special insight to His/Her methods

and procedures. Of course, that would be such scriptures as the Bible, Koran, Tora or other God-

inspired works.

A deity is such an elusive concept, unless you throw in the element of faith, where a less-cerebral

process of attaining truth is used, we’ll never come to an agreement on how we should worship

or believe, or why, or to whom. For most of us to achieve some kind of understanding of God we

need to use a priori set of standards where something is perceived as true prior to any empirical

knowledge. Beliefs are not attained through observation, but by instruction, and it has a

protective enamel (faith) which surrounds a belief shielding it from facts and the truth that are

usually staring us in the face, and contrary to some important precept of our religion. Science and

religion oftentimes are at odds with each other because of that. For example, some people believe

carbon dating cannot be used accurately to date anything before the flood (i.e., Noah).

Some of us are like politicians where we agree with the evidence when it supports our views, and

disagree when it does not, and claim foul with people for not respecting opposing views, or mock

them for changing their minds so often, or talk in hypotheticals because the data they perceive is

inconclusive. We might, for example, want to attack a politician because he is forthright, honest,

and vocal. Such a person can be disturbing to our political points of view, so we try to dismantle

his political machine when one of his parts causes a traffic jam by a bridge leading to our biggest

metropolis.

Politics aside, scientists change their minds frequently based on new facts and details as they

come in. Religious clerics rarely change their dogmatic compass because everything there is to

know is there already. Scientist’s intellect is their ship as they navigate through the treacherous

waters of detail where, hopefully, their good sense and rationale leads them to truth. Religious

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leaders already have the truth and those tenants that are not well-defined don’t need a defense

because faith shields them from the onslaught of details and facts.

I do hope in light of the new discoveries about our universe that our scientists find definitive

answers to why anything exits at all. For now I’m content in asking why we exist. Nothing

surprises me anymore. There are Event Horizons and Spontaneous Creations, which might

explain why there are wormholes, which somehow provide a short cut through time and space;

and there are quarks, which have a spin and color component that somehow define the strongest

force in the universe. But I feel strongly if creating something from nothing is a reality, then

there is a physics answer for it. Maybe there is a pinhole escape from another universe where this

BB golf ball suddenly appears every 28 billion years. Something tells me, though, that instead of

asking “Why is there something rather than nothing?” we should be asking “Was there nothing

before there was something?” If that question can be answered, I can put my oscillating Big

Bang Theory to rest.

MY LIFE AS A CATHOLIC

&&&&&

When I was younger, like 6 or 7 years old, I used to think about things like free will, life, death,

heaven, hell, and the like. I know you guys probably haven’t thought about these kinds of things.

I’m told it’s a bit unusual for a kid to dwell about free will, death and such, but considering I was

introduced to a hell at a very young age where bodies burned in an eternal fire, maybe it wasn’t

so unusual for me. Hell is a hard concept for anyone at any age to deal with. It makes adults say

funny things like, ‘Johnny, if you do that one more time, you’re going to burn in hell.’ What a

hell-of-a-thing to say to a kid.

Anyway, during my adolescence we said the rosary bedside as a family and we were quite

religious and close. That didn’t last with my parents’ abuse of alcohol, but it was the beginning

of me entering a world of wonder prompted by anxiety and truth as given to me by my catholic

captors, which consisted of my mother, father and my Aunt, who was a Sister of Charity and also

my third and seventh grade teacher in my catholic grammar school, and all of the other teachers

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who operated under the Catholic persuasion. All of them were wonderful loving and giving

people. It was actually a great learning experience. But they were very dogmatic and preachy.

Like the concept of hell, for example. I not only was taught it was a very hot place indeed, but

also it was place you’d go forever – no hope of parole - eternal damnation. These concepts

caused me to back up a bit and think about death, which got me deep into a funk. What was

death, to a seven year-old? What would happen after my demise? How does nothing feel, if

nothing exists? Is there actually a heaven … worse, a hell? How does each one of those

destinations feel?

The concepts of God, heaven and hell swirled around my head like a swarm of question marks

and exclamation points. Keep in mind, being brought up Catholic during the ‘50s was quite mind

blowing. It was sort of the end of the Victorian age of religious temperament where a ‘cat-n-

nine-tails’ was brazenly displayed in a case on a wall in the Mother Superior’s office. Or, maybe

it was just a picture of it on the wall that I remember seeing. Hmm. My mind is not so clear on

that. Not a bad deterrent, nevertheless, even though they never used it, or threatened to use it. It

just hung there for the mind to explore the possibilities of what it could do if I wasn’t good little

boy. Sitting in the Mother-Superior’s office staring at that thing was not for the timid at heart, let

me tell you.

I know it may sound like I’m complaining about my upbringing from Catholic grammar school,

but I’m not. The Sisters of Charity were wonderful people and they instilled in me a degree of

drive and passion that I could not have gotten elsewhere, even though my knuckles were

smacked plenty of times with a ruler because I wrote with my left hand, or if I became too

unruly. Actually, being a lefty, in an historical sense, was not something you wanted to be during

this time, or any time, except maybe the present. Writing with your left hand was considered

sinister or evil back then. They actually didn’t believe that, but it was a sentiment that was

probably left over from the Victorian Age. As a side, August 13 is designated International

Lefthanders Day, by Lefthanders International, to promote awareness of the inconveniences

facing left-handers in a predominantly right-handed world. It celebrates our uniqueness and

differences. As Wikipedia tells us, lefthanders comprise about seven to ten percent of the world's

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population, and many feel left-handed people are discriminated in today's society because they

are forced to use right handed tools, ride on the right side of the road, and are viewed as clumsy

and awkward. Also, left-handers are far more likely to develop schizophrenia than right-handers,

for reasons not well understood. So, my knuckles got smacked. They finally gave up by the time

I was in fourth grade.

For sure, going to Catholic grammar school taught me self-restraint to some degree. It seemed to

me I was always being disciplined though. In retrospect, it was hard to tell whether the

establishment was really that puritanical, or whether my behavior garnered the appropriate

response. I remember one winter, for example, while playing in the school yard, I threw

snowballs wildly at my fellow students. One missed and knocked off the habit (hat) of one of the

nuns. I also remembered when we marched down the hallway I jumped crazily at the drop

ceiling, until one day the tiles came tumbling down like a row of dominoes. So, I guess my

behavior needed some kind of control, even if that control was administered by my catholic

captors.

My Aunt was such a dear, and at that age I was drawn to her tenderness and love of humanity.

She seemed to be misplaced in her life’s role as a disciplinarian. She went by the name of Sister

William Mary and, somehow, she found the wherewithal to stand alone in front of 36 rowdy 12

year-olds misfits who were being brought up by Depression and World War Two survivors, and

being shaped by the introduction of the ‘devil’s music’, the glorious do-op days of ‘rock-n-roll’.

Life’s energy was spilling over in music and sports and the idea that I was going to hell if I died

with a mortal sin on my soul dominated my thoughts and spurred me on to think and believe

contrary to the dogma that was being forced on me. To this day I doubt whether my Aunt really

believed all those Puritanical doctrines, but I don’t think she was prepared for me either.

In the beginning I believed in heaven and hell, and that I would go to either one of those places

depending on whether I was good or bad here on earth. I didn’t want to go to hell, obviously. It

was such an ugly place. Burning flesh! Gnashing of teeth! It was all very controlling. It led me

to ponder over the existence of God in such a hostile environment. Most assuredly there was

enough religious fodder in school to determine that God existed, so I opted to think about what

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would the hereafter be like if there were no God; that is, if there was nothing after death. How

would that feel? I spent hours trying to feel the concept of nothing. It was like trying to go to

sleep by thinking about a thumb tack on the wall – and nothing else – just the thumbtack. Try it.

It’s hard. For me it was difficult to understand what nothing would feel like because there was

nothing to feel. More to the point, how can a child get a grasp on a blank feeling that would last

forever? It was a philosophical conundrum, but I tried, nevertheless. That time also was my first

attempt at trying to put my mind around the concept of eternity. Couldn’t do it. Probably it was a

good exercise akin to Zen, because I did get to the stage of ‘feeling’ nothing. For a few seconds

at least. Or it’s possible I might’ve fallen asleep.

Anyway, once I fully frustrated myself trying to feel that hollow void of nothing, I took to the

philosophy of what I was being taught in school; that is, about God and a heaven, and the devil

and hell. I tackled the concept of God first. All I knew about Him was what I was being told in

school: the paradox of a God being vengeful, ruthless, forever monitoring, loving and merciful at

the same time. He knows all things. And He let’s all things happen, both good and bad, because

we have Free Will. He is a he, but He loved women, and the word ‘He’, when referring to Him

should always be capitalized. I carry that rule even today. He is white. And He has long hair. He

wore sandals. He, in this case, is Jesus. And His Father was the Council of Nicea’s definition of

the first person of the Holy Trinity, and a bit of an authoritarian. I equate the Father with Allah,

Jehovah, Yahweh, Elohim, Brahman, or the less heavenly Aa in the Sumerian hierarchy of

deities.

I didn’t know God during those early years, except that He was to be feared. Still, I would

meditate on the idea of God and would find myself deep in a trance trying to feel heaven and, of

course, I couldn’t, but I felt a twinge of certainty that I had better believe in a God, a heaven and

hell, because if I didn’t I would certainly be risking an eternity of bliss if I failed the test of my

catholic captives. At this time, I never heard of Blaise Pascal, so I can’t blame him for this

concept.

For the most part, my religion pushed me towards being a good little boy and wanting to do the

things that would get me into heaven. There was a purgatory back then where, All who die in

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God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal

salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to

enter the joy of heaven.[10]

One would strive, minimally, for that place, unless I died as a martyr, or for my country, or

prematurely before the age of reason. I actually thought purgatory was a neat place to go because

here on earth mortal sins lurked around every corner I traveled. Eating meat on Friday was one

thing. Not going to church was another possible ticket to hell. In fact, there was a time I thought

anything I did contrary to the establishment would put me in the fast track to hell. But it was the

day I learned about Jesus telling the accusers of a woman who committed adultery that got me on

a philosophical journey that has lasted to this day. I remember reading “He that is without sin

among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her” and I went to bed crying at the profound

justice and mercy of that statement. The supreme mercy and love and justice that were shone in

that passage led me to think differently about death. About life. About God. It wasn’t a matter of

what would happen after death, but rather the focus shifted to the meaning of life; the majesty of

life; the holiness of life. In no short order, I developed a philosophy that not only killing another

human being was wrong, but picking an argument, striking another, casting stones at perceived

indiscretions of others, etc., etc. were behaviors that should be avoided. Boy, did that biblical

passage lead me on a lifelong journey of seeking the truth with a philosophical mind. I thank my

religious captors for that.

And I thank them for those catechism lessons where I learned “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for

a tooth?” Were they just Old Testament principals that were being replaced by Jesus Christ’s

stoic principals? If someone slaps me, should I turn the other cheek to get slapped again? If a

man so desperate as to steal my coat, I should give him my ‘cloke’ as well (my other coat)? I

should love my enemies, do good to those who hate me, bless them who curse me, and pray for

them who do me wrong and, get this, “Do unto others as you would like to have done to you.”

OMG. I was going to hell for sure.

And how can places like limbo be invented by the clergy when it isn’t even mentioned in the

Bible, and then 800 years later a Pope says “Oops!” there is no such place.”? What was I to make

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of all these rules and dogmas when my heart was filled with compassion for babies sitting in

limbo for no apparent reason except they didn’t get baptized by the people who were taking care

of them? And what should I think about the people who were ‘gnashing’ their teeth with Hitler

because they used their Free Will to eat meat on Friday, and then got hit by a truck before they

could even digest it, or confess it?

Hmm. Maybe I should explain this better. I remember sitting in second grade in Catholic

grammar school learning about the many ways I could commit a mortal sin, and the many ways I

could go to hell, that is, if I didn’t repent before I died. I was about seven at the time when it

occurred to me that I had already reached that ignominious age where I would be accountable for

my actions. I realized I was suddenly vulnerable to these rules and dogmas of my religion that I

was learning. Seven was the age of reason, the age when my errors in judgment would now

become sins; that is, I could now start collecting mortal sins and I could, if I was not careful, go

to hell for all eternity if I died without repenting or confessing. Confession was a way out, a

loophole that could spring me from that terrible fate. It occurred to me that if my love of

hamburgers got the better of me on a particular Friday, I would have to go to confession sooner

than later, because I could get hit by a truck and die and go to hell and spend an eternity of

lifetimes playing black-jack with Satan, or Hitler, or other notorious dignitaries of the past, while

my butt was burning from the heat of those infernal flames. I remember holding my hand above

a lit candle to gauge the pain that I would have to suffer. I was able to only take about a second

of pain before withdrawing my hand from the flame. That’s when I stopped sneaking beef jerkies

into my room on Fridays, and I made sure I went to bed early enough on Saturday night so I

could get a head start to go to church on Sunday mornings. But for me it was just a natural

progression to raise my hand and offer rebuttals in class, as best as a seven year old could, to

establish a possible dialogue where I might be excluded from such ridiculous rules. But no such

exonerations came and, as time went on, I simply felt all these rules were just too much to

follow.

I could tell by the groans and sighs of the teacher whenever I raised my hand that I was not a

welcome contributor in class. My enthusiasm was sometimes met with “What is it now, Robert?”

And I remember one day I asked the question that got me a humongous groan and a trip to

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Mother Superior’s office. “Why would a parent want their child to live past the age of seven,” I

asked, “if it meant that there was a possibility that their child would go to hell for all eternity?” I

remember the answer had something to do with Free Will, and God’s way, and … whatever. I

remember ‘reconciliation’ was a word used by the teacher. Of course, to me I was looking for a

definitive answer that would wash away my fear, but there wasn’t any. So, I raised another

question. “What greater love could a parent have than to euthanize their child at the age of seven

to ensure their child would go to heaven?” Of course I did not use the word ‘euthanize’; I

probably used the word ‘shoot’, ‘stab’, ‘kill’ or ‘murder’, but the point is, I got a fast road to the

principal’s office where I sat alone for few minutes staring at the cat-n-nine-tails (or a picture of

it) while the Mother Superior was being briefed as to why I was sent to her office.

It does seem strange to me today that I would raise such an idea at an early age. Stranger still, is

that point I raised back then remains with me today. If it is true that heaven exists and, more to

the point, if there is a hell, and if it were true that if a child died before reaching the age of reason

he or she would go to heaven and live for all eternity in bliss, then why risk this life if it means

you could go to hell? Life is tough, I gotta tell you. Why would anyone want to live past the age

of reason and risk going to hell? On the other side of the coin, what did I have to do to get an

eternity of heaven? I think I’d be overcompensated with such a blessing, even if I were good guy

for 70 or 80 years. I don’t know. Maybe I deserved going to the principal’s office. It was just

raising a point of philosophy. No one got that point. Even today when I raise this issue I get

looks of horror and people look at me as if I’m King Herod, or something.

SO, GETTING BACK TO GOD

&&&&&

I used to believe that since our physics’ laws teach us that energy/matter can neither be created

nor destroyed, that that was a perfect explanation of who God was/is, or rather ‘what’ he was/is:

a bundle of matter/energy in an infinite universe that somehow could make sense of Himself and

His surroundings. I just can’t imagine the ‘puff’ factor ever being a part of this congealed stuff

we live in now. Admittedly, this Spontaneous Creation Theory has me wondering a bit, but

nothing has come along definitively to give me any ‘ah-ha’ moments. And so I still believe that

any attempt to try to explain God beyond the point I’m trying now is a futile measure because no

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one in the ‘know’- that is religious people - really knows and won’t accept any kind of

explanation of what God is (in a physical sense) anyway, because they believe God is

undefinable, no if’s and’s or but’s about it, so why even try?

I propose that God is all the matter/energy that exists in the universe (and beyond) plus

something more that I can’t see or figure out. It’s not a very ambitious way of explaining Him.

Of course, most religions say God wished matter into existence on the first day of creation,

anyway, and that prevails as the most believed scenario, but that doesn’t make it true. I say that

the primordial soup couldn’t have just sat there and percolated forever– something had to be

going on before this cycle of the BB and, consequently, so did God. What that was? Hopefully,

I’ll find out after this lifetime.

IS GOD ALL-KNOWING?

&&&&&

If He is all knowing, then I say we shouldn’t be getting overly excited or concerned about His

ostensible absence during those terrible times in our lives when we feel He not only should be

present, but he should be active in changing things for the better. I submit the following baseball

game analogy. Imagine going to work when the 7th game of the baseball World Series is

playing. You set the timer to tape the game and you go to work. You tell everyone at your place

of business that you don’t want to know who wins the game because you are taping it at home

and you want to be surprised after work when you finally get to watch it. During your shift a

customer comes in and tells you who has won the 7th game of the World Series. So, you’re

discouraged, of course, but you take some consolation knowing your team has won. So, you go

home and you watch the game anyway, and you don’t get upset over the fact that your team is

behind in the score, because you know in the end your team will win based on what the customer

told you.

If there is a God, that’s how I believe it is with Him. He doesn’t get upset, like we do sometimes

when life’s conundrums get us down, because He knows the outcome, and everything is

happening according to His plan. He knows the outcome is good, and all is well with the process,

so stop being upset. Now, I can hear you thinking: “But what about hell and weeping and

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gnashing of teeth, and that kind of thing? How can those things that generate a ticket to hell be

‘good’? Shouldn’t I worry?

Let me tell you, I know in the marrow of my bones that hell does not exist, and let me explain

why. Let’s take you, for example; that is, all my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. What

wonderful children you are. Each and every one of you at one time have looked into my soul,

and I in yours, and we have found a blessed joy in there. I know for me there’s a joy I feel, a love

that goes beyond life and beyond physics, when I look at you. All I know is if I had the power to

create humans I could not have made any of you knowing you were going to hell. Of course,

under conventional thinking, you may not go to hell. But let’s assume I feel about you the way

millions of parents feel about their children, and this example could be used by them as well.

That is, I know I’m not the only one in this world who feels towards another human being the

way I passionately feel towards you. So, my question again is, “how could God have made

something as splendid as you children knowing the ultimate end would be hell for eternity?”

No way. I feel so strongly about it I can say I “know” that God couldn’t, wouldn’t and doesn’t

make human beings knowing any one of them are going to hell. This leads me to one of possibly

three conclusions. Either, first, God made you but He is not all knowing and does not know if

you are going to hell or heaven; or, second, there is no hell; or, third, the all-powerful God in our

Bible does not exist and, consequently, H(h)e didn’t make you at all. You spontaneously

appeared (lol). This third option could lead to very interesting avenues of discussion, like the

possibility that our gods are extraterrestrials who came and went a long time ago during an age

where genetic manipulation led to our first Adam and Eve and the presentation (written word) of

our creator led us to believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing deity that doesn’t really exist. Hmm.

I won’t go there because there’s an abundant supply of information and writings on the topic that

does a much better job than I could ever dream of doing. If you would like to pursue such

thoughts I recommendWorlds in Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky (1973) or Von Daniken’s

books or Zecharia Sitchin’s Earth Chronicles. Besides, their theories don’t examine who is the

God of the gods, who could be the very same God in our scriptures. Hmm. Since there’s ample

evidence that something exits (either the god with a lower or upper ‘g’) I’m eliminating the third

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possibility right off the bat; that is, there is a G(g)od, although we might disagree on his

whereabouts or powers.

So, getting back to the other two possible conclusions; the first, which says maybe God is not all-

knowing, or the second, which states there is no hell. If God was not all knowing, but knew there

was a hell. He just didn’t know whether you were going to do bad things that would make you go

there. This is the crux of it: why would He make us knowing there was even a possibility of

going there? I know in my bones He wouldn’t have taken the risk and made such wonderful

humans as you to live 75 years, or so, knowing there is a hell and that any of you could enter an

eternity (disproportionately larger than 75 years) of misery. That’s uncompassionate, unmerciful

and downright cruel. Some people say then ‘what about Free Will. We have free will, don’t we?’

I’d say yes, we do, but what’s that got to do with anything? Were we ever given the choice to

come here in the first place? If yes, did we choose to be born knowing there was a possibility that

we might wind up in an eternal pit of agony? Did we exercise our Free Will to come here? I

don’t think so. No. Free Will cannot be an argument because, if we had it, I know of no human

being who’d chose to risk coming to earth for a measly 75 years where, depending on what we

‘did’ (and in some secular circles on how we ‘think’) might mean we’d receive an exit strategy

that would take us to a place like hell where we would be residents forever. Not just 75 years but

f-o-r-e-v-e-r. No. This does not compute. If we had the choice, if we could exercise our Free

Will, we’d choose a state of nothingness, wouldn’t we? Getting back to my childhood mind

experiment on feeling ‘nothing’ compared to my experience with fire, believe me, the state of

‘nothing’ is infinitely better than an eternal anguishing state of ‘something’ excruciatingly

terrible as a burning fire. And from that point alone I’m eliminating the first possibility which

leaves us with only one selection – number two or, there is no hell.

And besides, let’s face it; putting someone like any of you into this world to risk a pittance of

time for an eternity of harm is not a very nice thing for God to do. I mean, if He did create you

knowing your destiny was hell, that’s like taking a child and letting her go into the street where

there’s cars buzzing around everywhere. That’s putting a child in harm’s way. We actually have

laws condemning such behavior. Why should I believe in a God who would do such a thing? He

wouldn’t, couldn’t, and didn’t.

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I just would like to believe that every one of us now has, or has had, someone in our lives who

loves(d) us the same way I love you guys and that means, ipso facto, there is no hell, and if there

is, it’s empty and abandoned. Now, having said that, it does explain to some degree why God

doesn’t get overly upset, or why he doesn’t make it a point to change things for the better, or stop

bad things from happening, because he knows everything is going to be okay; everything is

going as planned; that we all, at some point in the future, will be with Him breaking bread

feeling eternally blissful. All we need to know is that there is a plan and all we need to do is put

one foot in front of the other with the focus on trying to live harmoniously in this world, and

things will work out according to the Divine play. And that’s that. Oh, yeah. And ask questions.

Always be a student of life, even if you are also a teacher.

When I came to this belief, it was like a monkey was taken off my back. I couldn’t explain this

feeling I had until one day when I was holding my cat, Hootie, outside. He was a house cat and

he never went outside. Well, that’s not true. He was known to ‘escape’ to the ‘unknown’ on

occasion, but 99% of the time he was in the house. To say he was a bit skittish when abrupt

noises appeared suddenly outside is an understatement. One afternoon I took him outside and

held him tightly so he wouldn’t jump out of my embrace. A truck came by and he got all

discombobulated. I had to stroke him, pet him and tell him everything was okay. Of course, he

didn’t understand, but I did. I knew everything was okay and no harm would come to him, and I

tried calming him, and impart my knowledge that all was well with him, me and the world

around him. My stroking worked, and he calmed.

And I feel that our God is trying to tell us the same thing. “Hey, you idiots out there who claim

there’s a hell: stop it. You’re scaring the hell out of everyone.”

&&&&&

Over the years I’ve primarily have kept my views about God to myself because it just feels so

pretentious for me to pretend I have any special knowledge that no one else has, or that I can

express Him differently than anyone else. I don’t feel that way. I know I have views of God that

may be off. It may be terribly off, for that matter. I just have views which could be as good as,

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and probably as bad as, anyone else’s. But here I am, anyway, doing what I didn’t want to do. In

my defense, how can anyone write a philosophical piece and not include the topic of God. I can

basically blame you guys. I was perfectly happy keeping my thoughts to myself, then you guys

came along and I got to thinking more seriously about a deity, and why we’re here. In my life’s

journeys I’ve found no one who was particularly willing to confront the issue of God except for

pastors and priests – the clergy-types. People either believe in God, or don’t. Who or what God is

may be on people’s minds, but everyone knows we’re spitting in the wind if we try to qualify

Him. And they certainly don’t want to be lectured to by someone who has no special ‘training’

on the topic.

But I believe I’d be doing you guys an injustice by not exploring. For that matter, it’s just an

exercise, and I actually hope I have generated some interest to the point you’re willing to discuss

… issues. If you believe in God already, you already have a slew of dogmas and principles you

live by, or try to live by, and that’s fine. Please know I’m just throwing ideas out there because I

like to philosophize about such things. Something we all do, I suppose, on different topics and in

different ways. And I do realize that some topics have more of an emotional appeal than others,

and I’m not at all trying to trivialize Him or get anyone upset. Luckily, most of the citizens of the

world have scriptures that they present as truth. However, it’s been my experience they wave

their texts as a white flag of intellectual surrender. If it works for them, great, but my guess is

that some of them feel it works mainly because there’s a threat of hell hanging over their heads,

and if they don’t surrender to the dogmas, they’re doomed. How would they think, what would

they say, and what would they do differently, if there were no hell?

If you asked me that question when I was 12 years old, I would’ve told you I’d eat meat on

Fridays and, except for the fear factor, it wouldn’t’ve changed my behavior much. How I’d treat

others would be more based on human nature than biblical principles. I believe some people

think they know a lot about God and the Bible (or other scriptures) and what is true, but it’s been

my experience that, although I love talking to people in the know because there are always

opportunities for enlightenment, we all live in a kind of wonderland in a religious sense, like a

scientist looking through a keyhole of a bedroom door and trying to peer out the window of the

room from the hallway to get a better perspective of the universe. The scientist might indeed get

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a glimpse of the absolute, but it’s still a point of view, subject to the scientist’s biases, knowledge

and ability to dream the unlikely. That’s the way it is when I talk to clergy – I get their point of

view and over the years I’ve put them all together and have come to the conclusions I have based

on that input. Believing there is no hell is one of those conclusions.

Now, I’m not neglecting the fact that serious questions could be raised from my point of view,

like what about serial killers? Or genocidists like Hitler? Or anyone who you might believe those

characters deserve endless misery and unhappiness? Shouldn’t there be a hell for those guys?

Well, maybe, but I’ll deal with that more in the last chapter, and say the following for now: think

about eternity and how long it is, as a mental exercise, in an effort to understand time and

duration; once you’ve done that, think then of a person who has spent a few years of behavior

that we abhor. Now, I ask you, does a decade or two of wicked behavior garner the worst

possible punishment for an eternity? If you answer yes, then I’ll ask another question; what about

those folks who have committed marginal errors that harm no one but according to religious

doctrine they’re doomed to endless anguish? We have long been proponents to avoid cruel and

unusual punishment, and this is one of them. I’d much rather believe something else exists to

equal the scales. Maybe it’s reincarnation where a King Herod, for example, who killed hundreds

of babies in his search for Jesus, must come back as a still-born hundreds of times; or experience

crib-death; or maybe even partial birth abortion for an equal number of times, to learn that all life

is sacred, and/or killing another human being is wrong, and/or learning that kings and peasants

are equal in nature and our life’s experience is a learning ground for improving our people skills,

and to provide harmony in this world. And that these journeys we take are filters for our spirits

until we are cleansed enough to be with our Mentor.

SACRED SCRIPTURES

&&&&&

Let’s take a look at our sacred scriptures for a second – in particular, the Bible. For practical

reasons we live with the ‘knowledge’ that God exists without being able to explain what He is

except through what’s told in ‘the written Word’. Now, given that anything pertaining to God

cannot be verified with the knowledge of physics, then we must rely on faith to help us out. And,

like I said, we have as many faiths as we have flavors of ice cream, even when we have the same

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scriptures as guides. So, I’m on the verge of saying scriptures don’t provide much help since

there’s a multitude of POVs, which water down the claim that the Bible is the ‘truth’. I might be

exaggerating the number of faiths (religions) in this analogy but the point is we, as human

beings, seek absolutes. We feel comfortable when things are well defined for us.

For example, “In the beginning, God created heaven and the earth”. Barring a little syntax

difference, these are the first words in the Bible that were used to invoke a mantra in my early

catholic years of “I believe in God, the father almighty, creator of heaven and earth …” These

few words conjure a feeling of absolute truthfulness until we get into the semantics of it. Who is

God, for example? The word ‘made’ and the word ‘heaven’ all have been subject of many

debates over the centuries between scientists and theologians, and between theologians and

theologians. Throw in the fact that God created all of us and our surroundings in six days and

you have double the debates. We understand the ‘earth’, geology that is, a lot better than other

disciplines, but even the ‘truth’ about the earth is a study in progress – a never ending search

even for our most astute geologists.

“In the beginning” … ooo, I forgot about that one. Was there a beginning? Not to rehash the BB

again – I won’t go there - but if there was a start or a beginning, a beginning to what? Assuming

I got an answer, then my follow-up question would be, “What happened before that?” because

God is eternal, right? And if there was no beginning to God, then what did He do for all that time

before the beginning. He wouldn’t be twiddling his thumbs, so I have to believe the words “In

the beginning” is in reference to the beginning of this universe, or the beginning of what we

know to be the this cycle of the BB. Or maybe the author of Book of Genesis was just making a

rhetorical statement. I know I could ruffle a lot of feathers on that one.

I believe in an eternity and these questions are just part of a long journey. Our questions should

be celebrated, not humphed, especially if we get an answer to one or two of them. Since eternity

is a long interval, the ones and twos add up over time. We are in a wonderful, extravagant world

that demands us to ask wonderful and extravagant questions that will keep us on this fantastic

journey of seeking and finding the wonderful and extravagant truths. Some of our minds may not

be able to understand it, but for those who do, they should be applauded for trying.

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[1] http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/john_murphy/giordanobruno.html [2] http://www.marytruth.com/home/constantine-cover-up-and-sun-worship.aspx [3] http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/john_murphy/giordanobruno.html [4] ditto[5] http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas/gospelthomas2.html active-mystic[6] http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/thomas/gospelthomas2.html crimson731[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AInferiority_complex [8] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/30/opinion/the-slow-demise-of-capital- punishment.html?

nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131230&_r=0[9] http://christianity.about.com/od/denominations/p/christiantoday.htm [10] http://catholicism.about.com/b/2009/11/12/reader-question-does-the-church-still-believe-in-purgatory.htm[11] http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/evolut.htm

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