Author Archives: skipper

Can Love Create Matter?

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Today, religious folk are having a hard time with spiritual icons. Viewing the main religions over two thousand years, it is obvious religious institutions have inserted disciplined belief systems which largely benefit continuity of the institution rather than enriching the lives of believers.

Uncountable numbers of books have been written about religion; too many have had to explain again for each historical era what the icons mean and have had to reinterpret the complex integration of spirituality and cultural morality. Now, in the Information Age, principles of religious belief are drowned in a waterfall of instant and constant speculation, experimentation, and analytical second guessing. The mariner confesses to be a part of the deluge. Even so, his motivation is to ease the angst prevalent today.

Believers of many religions are caught today without an acceptable story describing the power of faith and spirituality. On the one hand, the traditional stories are increasingly defined as myths which are not the core value but rather the value is an extended and often confusing meaning of the myths. What is the new creative force? What is the replacement story not of belief but of the powerful reality that still catches our awareness today?

A few clarifications are in order from which we may construct a modern story.

As a broad overview, there have been only three distinct forms of animals in Earth’s history: invertebrates, reptiles and mammals. Only mammals have a brain with a limbic function. The limbic is the source of emotions; emotions are required for mammals because they must manage the early lives of their offspring – therefore requiring a means of sensing the state of offspring. Emotional feelings like sympathy, empathy, and compassion, just to name a few emotions, are the means by which parental awareness is managed. We call these emotions ‘love.’ There are emotions like hate, disdain, possessiveness and many more which ignore the caring emotions – the emotions that grow sustainable life.

The creation story begins many religious histories. The element that is still very much a value today is the awareness that an event or thing is good or that it is bad. The human sense of judgment is far more sensitive than any other mammal’s – even other simians and modern dogs.

The final clarification is imagination. Only humans can perceive what a Universe is; only humans can perceive a different state of being after death and even in inspirational moments while alive; only humans can perceive a nuclear weapon….

A new story about the creative power of God can be derived from our power to create life by using love. Is the act of loving a creative power in the Universe? The old stories hold firmly to the idea that God is Love – the most powerful myth!

The cultural morality derived from love has suffered the most. Early civilizations placed human authority above the larger but less abrasive power of love. Humans drifted from the purity imagined by their religions to follow other emotions like greed, capitalism, nationalism and authoritarianism. Humans used emotions to manufacture selfish benefits rather than support the power that comes from acts of love.

The twenty-first century is a hellish scene: a troubled planet, a restless Sun, a drifting Moon – all props for an Armageddon movie. Then there is the intense greediness of all organizations from governments to corporations to religious institutions – all equating righteousness to numbers of dollars or political favoritism. Sympathy, empathy and compassion are not in control of creation and the situation demonstrates that non-love destroys.

What God looks like is not important. God doesn’t look like anything we can imagine. But what does God do? God loves. There is our doctrine. The twenty-first century needs someone to love it.

NOTES

Errata – the URL for the Atlantic magazine is www.theatlantic.com Pardon the error.

The frequency of mariner’s posts will drop a bit as the gardening season approaches. He still will send an email notice so look for an email that a new post is on the website. Anyone wanting to email the mariner please write to skipper@iowa-mariner.com

Ancient Mariner

Are You Willing to have sex to pay for Education?

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Sharyl Attkisson is an independent, somewhat conservative news journalist. She covers stories that are one step away from “Big News” stories that often are more telling than splashy headlines. Attkisson uncovered a situation affecting college students – particularly women.[1] It turns out there is a dating service that doesn’t advertise on television called “Sugar Daddy University.”

College students of both sexes (but one can imagine that the great majority are women – our daughters) who are desperate to pay their bills. Not necessarily tuition directly but fees, add-on costs, additional book fees, Lab fees, parking fees – over $800/month at New York University – etc. all of which are a pay-as-you-go economy. Students interviewed said it wasn’t really a pay for sex arrangement although if you consented, sex pays better.

What does this make our Congress? Pimps? The Congress refuses to assist any form of education or issue regulations or raise taxes to address the fact that students must pay $35 – $80 thousand dollars to obtain a college degree which, according to those who look at the future, is mandatory if our children will be eligible for decent paying jobs.

Even overlooking Congress-sanctioned prostitution, if the US has a prayer of being a leading power in twenty years, the key is education. Congress is not only immoral, it is stupid.

Friends, a 1985 Congress just won’t cut it any more. You all have your good ol’ buddy Congressmen that you’ve voted for all your life but that good ol’ boy is killing us far more than Donald is. When you vote, vote restricted only to fixing one issue; that keeps you from being distracted. And give serious consideration to the candidate’s age. Mariner is an ol’ codger himself. He knows if you grew up before students were shot and killed by the National Guard at Kent State University (1971), you have no idea what’s happening today.

Ancient Mariner

[1] See http://fullmeasure.news/news/cover-story/degree-of-debt for the full story of broken and abused budgets in colleges.

For Richer, For Poorer

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Recently, the liberal economists and the conservative economists began expressing growing concern about the same thing: inequality. Virtually every validated and respected futurist, economist, even international banks, agree about the future: money is rushing faster and faster to only three sectors: manufacture of computers/information, international corporations, and banking/investment.

Mariner could toss lots of numbers and names of countries and corporations at the reader; that would take lots of words and trying to grow reader interest in a desert of information.

Though most readers are resistant to watching mariner’s Internet references, he implores the reader, he begs the reader, he insists the reader, he respectfully requests the reader watch an episode of Forward Thinking, “For Richer, For Poorer – the Dangers of Inequality” last broadcast on Bloomberg television June 17, 2016. In your search engine type:

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-17/forward-thinking-for-richer-for-poorer

Watch it in its entirety. It is not fake news; there is no special interest agenda; it is too complicated for politicians – that doesn’t mean it is too complicated for you.

Further, check your current Atlantic magazine for a review of what Donald is doing. Mariner will let Atlantic speak about the Donald in his stead. The reader also can read the articles at www.atlantic.com.

Ancient Mariner

 

If One Loves, One Loves Alone.

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A couple of readers commented that the mariner has not written much about Donald and the Federal and state Governments. That is true. Mariner has written pointed letters to his Senators and Representative and responds to them often in behalf of Food and Water Watch. He chooses however, to avoid a horrid, depraved and broken place – a diseased Gehenna, Sheol itself. And his peers voted to place Lucifer in charge.

Even as love, compassion and Grace have no bounds, so, too, do depravity, thievery, deliberate enslavement and lust. White Man has never stopped committing genocide; it is close to wiping out an entire nation.

As to Donald, the simpleton electorate had opportunities to force him out and did not. Donald is something everyone complains about but does nothing about – just like THIRTY THOUSAND PEOPLE DYING EACH YEAR BY GUNS! The solution lies in the hands of the same flaccid electorate. God bless us everyone. Ironically, polls show 43 percent of the electorate thinks Lucifer is doing a good job. This is not mariner’s country; time to refurbish the boat…

The US Government looks more and more like the soulless oligarchy run by Vladimir. And Lucifer is leading the way.

Mariner could not help but hear today’s headline when Chief Turtle McConnell shut down Elizabeth Warren for reading Coretta King’s letter in opposition to making Jeff Sessions a judge. How dare Elizabeth impugn a blatant racist?

Mariner is not insane in his ethos, just alone.

Ancient Mariner

 

Religion Starter Kit – III

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There are a few satanic religions and a few pragmatic religions, for example, capitalism, communism, socialism, Nazism, etc. But many hundreds of standard religions have the premise that a religion is here to do some spiritual good; god in whatever form is a positive force from which followers can draw positive influence or at least perform ethical behavior.

What every devout practitioner must possess is a feeling of liberation from negativity and failure and in addition a sense of being in a singular state of being – knowing one has transcended duality if even for a microsecond. In order to move on from the Starter Kit, one must experience positive buoyancy from one’s faith. Buoyancy gives one conviction in the day-to-day tumult of duality.

The traditional religions were documented at a time when there was little scientific knowledge and mythical explanations filled the gaps. Further, cultures have come and gone and our planet spins around with a different set of issues. It is not suggested that the religions have failed; the altruistic intent is as pure and valid as it has ever been. What is required in today’s society, one of technical solutions to every issue without perseverance, without obligation to biosphere or human value – or a bond to singularity and Grace (a church word meaning basking in goodness), is a travel pack that has resonance in situational ethics and a solution backed by god’s influence – as Father Fletcher said in his book, an act of love. Religion today is executed on the run.

One of mariner’s favorite ‘executions’ is the act of benefitting another person’s life without reparation of any kind – just making it a nicer day for someone; it has a street term: pass it forward, implying that the person who benefitted from your execution will execute one of their own. Note that both of you had a liberating experience.

Returning religion to society, however, is a large challenge. The past election illustrates clearly that the common citizen does not possess the confidence, the religiously reasoned morality, the unbiased ability to judge duality, or any obligation to the singularity intrinsic in our planet and our own species. These absences are of the spirit of life, not technology or the importance of machine rules.

Just the disorder for religion to repair!

Continuously use the measuring sticks like divining rods to find good duality and avoid reinforcing bad duality. A simple phrase is “two wrongs don’t make a right.” There are eight measuring sticks:

  • Is this event, thought or motive good duality or bad duality?
  • How much of god’s singularity is present?
  • How much beauty?
  • How much love?
  • How much order?
  • How much truth?
  • How much empathy?
  • How much compassion?

Some steering suggestions: Don’t fall into the trap of compensating for negative duality; one will end up fixing situations with more negatives and machine rules. Stick to using positive duality and acts of god to enhance the good things that need help. Joseph Campbell, another favorite of mariner, said the arc of life, the path of the hero, flows from negative circumstances (negative duality) into achievement (positive duality) and ultimately into a state of perfection (singularity).

Good luck.

Ancient Mariner

Why a Starter Kit is attempted.

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As mariner suspected, suggesting the definition of pieces that together comprise a base for religious practice is challenged by many who have unique beliefs already in place. Mariner has no business disturbing established religious practices. He attempted this complex issue because in our current global state our ethics, morals, scruples, whatever one would choose to call them, are in disarray. Global society operates entirely under a moral base that humans can change whenever they desire. The difficulty is identical to people desiring, quite sincerely, to lose weight and improve their physical condition. Why is it that perhaps only one person in 1,000 or even 10,000 achieves the goal and the rest fail? The one achiever believed the rules were beyond modification and were mandated.

The shift from a singular, untouchable source of rule began with the book ‘Situation Ethics’ written by the priest Joseph Fletcher in 1966. His intent was to say no written or believed set of rules can be the source of faith; only love, the actual act of love qualifies as a measure of faith. His point was that written material or habitual behavior was not qualified to represent God – only love was authorized to do that – only an act of love could represent God. Fletcher said only love could be exercised best in a situational event.

Needless to say, readers picked up on the idea of an ethic that is relative to the situation but overlooked the hard part: loving God’s world, especially God’s people; to emphasize again, the act of loving. Several religious leaders and theologians took up the cause of situational ethics as a means of fine tuning moral behavior but that was not Fletcher’s intent.

Fifty-one years later, situational decision making prevails but the love part hasn’t been around for years. In fact, as an influence on general society, even religious institutions look more like dried figs – believing participants notwithstanding.

The first part of the Starter Kit tried to share some principles about how belief in a perfect entity works. Perfect entities can’t change. One would think they could change like a chameleon but in fact, a perfect being is perfect – nothing is able to change or perfectness would not have been. The mariner also spoke of seeking a non-anthropomorphic perfection; humans after all, are not perfect.

But it is from an ethical source that cannot be changed by any human or any participant in the state of duality that our instructions must come. Like the one successful person who achieved weight loss, believed in the unchangeable principle; to be true to their ethic they couldn’t change if they wanted to change.

The last part of the Starter Kit will be posted in a few days. Perhaps by then the reader will find a divine source of wisdom in which to root their stable and righteous morals. Perhaps like Fletcher you will be able to love.

Ancient Mariner

 

Religion Starter Kit – II

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Review your accomplishments.

You are aware that there is a different kind of existence than you know in your current life; your current life exists in a state of duality. The different existence is a state of perfect being, perfect in the sense that decisions are not required as in duality. There is only one experience: perfectness. Therefore, having only one experience, this existence is a singularity.

You use the word ‘god’ which is a metaphor for singularity; saying or thinking god means you are saying or thinking about the meaning or influence of singularity in your life; god is neither the manager nor an emissary – god is a word that identifies the fact that the state of singularity is on your mind. Briefly, your relationship between duality and singularity is to shape your understanding and habitual behavior in a way that improves your experience of singularity – an experience of perfection replacing the turmoil of constant duality.

This is only a starter kit. On a relative religious completeness scale the kit is similar to a flashlight with bad batteries at midnight versus the Sun at Noon.

A few ideological/theological comments to help you start thinking about the role of religion:

The naturalist and empiricist dilemma.

Humans were born into a combative, sinful world AKA born into duality. Humans are cursed to have superior brains capable of making human centric decisions. Therefore humans can violate god’s balanced creation and continually do. God’s balanced reality is constantly unbalanced by disregard for nature and the cosmos. Humans demonstrate their lack of divine morality even among themselves with wars, violent abuse and disregard for the quality of H. sapiens wellbeing.

The ritualist conflict.

Every organized religion has the ritualist conflict. In sum, god handed down rules of obedience, humans are to adhere to these rules and thereby be rescued from duality. The conflict is that to a great degree, it is the same dilemma the naturalists and empiricists have – humans keep changing god’s rules. Disciplining structures are based on negative duality AKA machine rules (machine rules are rules that have ulterior motives not related to god’s perspective on things; rules are more about the wellbeing of the machine).

The spiritualist’s and conspirator’s escape.

Spiritualism and conspiracy theories are pursued because in their hearts these folks know the rest of us don’t know what we’re doing. They avoid dualistic conflict by believing in a back door that looks like reality but is beyond their ability to alter – a kind of faux singularity.

Atheism, humanism, deism and other deniers of god – life without singularity.

Simply put for atheism, no gods exist. Repeat no gods exist. It is difficult, in the whole universe, to adopt an authoritative ethic not subject to human frailty but atheists can live with that. Humanists live by a cocktail of ideologies which include traditional religious practices and verbal commitment to holistic Grace but refuse to conjure dominance over human competence. Pantheists believe god was here for a while but left when creation was complete.

There are other ideologies but these are the most common. Before you move on in the Starter Kit, ponder these to decide what relationship seems to influence you as you put together your theology and how you may accommodate your role between duality and singularity – or not.

Your religious purpose, ethics and social behavior are built on your theology.

Ancient Mariner

 

Do we at least still love our mothers?

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In one way or another, the past three posts deal with H. sapiens’ relationship with the physical world. Other post series deal with H. sapiens’ treatment of fellow humans and some deal with how H. sapiens has allowed the machine ethic to take over theology, government, economic priority over life, and morality.

Just to highlight each subject:

Humans have started the sixth major extinction of life in the history of the planet.

Humans have destroyed the orderliness of the planet’s biosphere to the point humans will join other creatures in unnecessarily becoming extinct with them.

Humans have chemically altered the chemistry of the planet sufficiently to receive their own geologic epoch – the Anthropocene Epoch; Geologic epochs usually last two or three million years but humans ended the Holocene Epoch after just 11,500 years.

Economics continually grows more abusive to the planet population as international scope and computerization focus on an intense gathering of wealth for the few and in addition, without conscience increase the hardship on the quality of life for the rest.

Similarly, governments support corporate interests and refuse to openly and fairly care for all their citizens equally.

The measure of human worth and virtue is measured in dollars.

In sociology, a machine is any entity that is used to more easily achieve a goal. Machines can be a hammer, sunglasses, nuclear weapons, governments, organizations and prejudices. Humans have replaced religion with machines. Life according to a higher plane of existence and transcendent ethos is disappearing very rapidly. Today, it’s the machines that dictate morality.

Mariner believes this is overwhelming evidence that religion has been obliterated in the West; the East is catching up quickly. People today have lost faith in themselves which is what religion is all about. People chase the machines. It is a plastic world with no ethos, no reward for life, and no intrinsic value for achievement.

Consequently, the mariner will offer a generic religion starter kit for those who feel the absence of spiritual happiness.

 

RELIGION STARTER KIT

First, you need a god. How you envision god is very, very important. Many of you are aware that several practicing religions forbid any image of god – not even writing a name for god. There are two reasons for this: first, god has no shape; god is not a thing. God is a state of perfect being. Second, you can’t worship images, not even presumptions of images. The Jews call this Baal worship. The Christian Bible cites god in several places saying “you will have no other gods before me.” That includes pictures and words of god; they truly don’t look like god at all[1]. God is a singularity. This will have meaning in a moment.

Many religions have the same creation story where god creates a perfect world in a special location. God puts a male and most often a female at the location and they do something they aren’t supposed to do. This creation story is very important to the manner in which we utilize god in our lives. The story establishes something called ‘duality.’

Duality is a condition of existence. Everything – everything – has two or more sides or values. Examples: start and stop; top and bottom; light and dark; far and near; man and woman; good and evil, and so on. Do not try to find an exception. There is only one exception: god. In perfection, god cannot have more than one state of being. God by definition is a singularity.

Duality is our opportunity to sense more than one value for something. To move through life, we are constantly bombarded with things which require us to judge the correct value. In the area of religion, this judgment is about good or evil values; whether something is right or wrong in merit. There is an affinity between singularity and good judgments; there is a rejection of singularity when judgments are bad.

Now you must add an item to the starter kit: faith that a state of perfect being exists. You should seek feelings of perfection and what that does to your feelings of self. A hint about what perfection feels like is a transcendent sensation that lifts you above duality and is very, very peaceful. It isn’t so important that you imagine some literal moment; remember god isn’t a thing; god is a state of perfection. Further, your human desires likely do not reflect perfection – you exist in a dualistic reality. Speaking anthropomorphically, god draws you to be like god – to exist in a state of singularity. But first you need a god.

In the starter kit is a set of measuring devices which you use to measure the amount of perfection in an event, thought or motive in your life. These measuring tools are sort of like handy decision aids like a pregnancy stick or a ruler to measure legal fish or the air pressure in your tires. The scale on each of these tools has words to help with measuring:

Is this event, thought or motive good duality or bad duality? How much of god’s singularity is present? How much beauty? How much love? How much order? How much truth? How much empathy? How much compassion? This set of words determines the quality of an event that is created by humans. It is not advised that you invent your own sticks. Usually they measure bad duality. For example, common measuring sticks of bad duality are opportunism, prejudice, pride, greed and avarice. When you think about it, a state of perfection doesn’t have much that can be measured. However, all of dual reality can be measured for compliance with a state of perfection.

When you have this much of the kit assembled, it is time to practice your religion. Always carry your measuring sticks with you; your measurements will help you focus on god’s singularity and to live a happier and more satisfying life. The remaining parts of the starter kit require some seasoning on your part before you can assemble them.

Ancient Mariner

 

[1] Religion is about answering ‘why’ we exist and ‘what’ provides goodness in our lives. The mariner references old religions to help with understanding; the starter kit is quite transparent when it comes to sanctification, ritual, interpretation of goodness and what a transcendent being looks like or how it is identified. The generic identification of god is up to you. Joseph Campbell suggested that the term ‘myth’ always gets in trouble because people place their faith in the myth rather than in what the myth represents (Baal worship). Campbell said, “A myth is a metaphor for things we cannot easily explain or articulate.” So it is with the term ‘god.’ A common metaphor is “Goodness is godliness.”

A Few Small Things

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Increasingly, but now only a lightly utilized technology that soon will alter dramatically our economic theories of value, solar energy unbelievably will modify every nation’s model of what it costs to live a daily life. Put a few solar panels up in deep Africa and electricity will convert every human activity to an unexpectedly wonderful life style. Put a few panel arrays up in our backyards and the electric bill will disappear – electricity for free after installation. Electricity will be so free that home gas furnaces virtually will disappear.

Automobiles, trucks and boats already are moving toward solar. Industrial factories already are maximizing solar. The issue with solar energy is that it is provided free by our Sun. This does not sit well with fossil fuel investors. Interestingly, fossil fuel is so in charge of global economy right now that any shift to something else will cause significant disruption to world economy. It will settle out in a decade or two but the many investors who ride on fossil fuel will have to sing and dance a bit. Fortunately, both political parties are in favor of improving the US infrastructure; mariner doesn’t think the Donald party is happy about the upgrade to solar; his party is standing in oil up to their buttocks and can’t wait to remove all the Russian sanctions so Exxon, Donald and Rex can make a billion or two….

Given the displacement by free electricity of oil as an international commodity standard and further, the massive drop in the number of jobs that are dependent on the combined transportation and oil economies, does the reader think these changes will force a philosophical shift in how governments deal with work in general?

– – – –

Speaking of work, another question: Will the US finally concede to a required universal draft for a couple of years of young people to do government work? Even more necessary, how about a required universal draft for a couple of years of folks when they start retirement? The mariner ponders whether this could be a permanent solution to keep the voracious US budget under control AND confront joblessness while the culture eases into a new work concept? (Don’t tell anyone that FDR already did this to lift the US out of the Great Depression)

– – – –

The mariner worries about the abortion issue. There are valid human values about not having an abortion – there are valid human values about the right to have an abortion. The US principle of freedom to worship seems not to be a sufficient ethic to sustain the right to either one. The same applies to euthanasia although six States have begun to regulate the right to die. The mariner would be interested in new, untried solutions to abortion and euthanasia. He is NOT interested in lectures or advocacy about current opinions.

Speaking of population control, another question: sitting at seven billion people, there already are far more than the planet can support – evidenced by the quickening day each year the Earth can no longer provide replacements for what seven billion people consume.[1] When will the imbalance of wellbeing be addressed? This question must be answered long before humans reach twelve billion.

– – – –

A clear example of the opinion that governments aren’t run like businesses is visible in the manner which Donald and his cabinet are dismantling unwanted policies in the Departments. With one instruction, Global Warming no longer exists and therefore has no need of resources currently working on its policies; only one rationale exists for the Environmental Protection Agency: don’t interfere with fossil fuel. No doubt the same attitude will follow with regard to Agricultural chemicals. Department of Treasury is taking longer because Congressional jurisdiction is more direct.

Mariner opines that some lawsuits are forthcoming because one cannot run a government the same way one runs a business. The lawsuit mariner waits for with desperation is one with the word emolument in it.[2] It must be a lawsuit rather than impeachment – with this Congress?

 

REFERENCE SECTION

Mariner was browsing quote websites. It is quite entertaining and insightful as well. Try it sometime. On this occasion, he was reading Winston Churchill who has many pages of quotes. Here’s one:

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

Remember Bob Edwards? He said one of mariner’s favorites:

Now I know what a statesman is; he’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen.

Ancient Mariner

[1] See: http://www.overshootday.org/

[2] See: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/trump-could-be-in-violation-of-the-constitution-his-first-day-in-office/509810/

Too Smart

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As a creature on this planet, we weren’t supposed to be super smart. We were supposed to be the smartest primate, perhaps, but not super smart. We’ve always known it was a mistake. To be honest, as a primate, humans aren’t developed enough intellectually to mess with their biosphere. The Jewish Bible has a story about it; it is carried forward from an older version from ancient Babylon. God built his earthly garden and all that was in it obeyed God without question.

God created two last primates, a man and a woman, who were his pride and joy. In the story, a snake represents improper behavior (If we modernize the myth, the snake represents unexpected genes). The snake encourages the woman to eat a fruit she is not supposed to eat. It is the fruit of the tree of knowledge and awareness of good and evil, that is, ethics and morality on the one hand and disingenuous and immoral behavior on the other. Being aware of intellectual judgment, suddenly the two primates become super smart; they know things only God should know. God’s earthly garden is about to be trashed. Passing centuries have exposed the truth: this primate can’t handle super smartness. Super smartness must coexist with super sensitivity to orderliness – one of four words used to describe God’s presence (love, truth, beauty and order) and required to sustain God’s garden. Had the man and woman also eaten of the tree of Eternal Life in the garden, maybe human history would have been better off.

Physiologically, there is no difference between the human primate and other primates. Habitat is identical consisting of vegetation, insects and meat and similar landscape and weather. Humans behave no differently than other primates except they are a little less demonstrative than chimpanzees and more like silverbacks and gibbons. As a rough comparison, adult simian (ape branch of primate evolution) primates behave like adult humans but demonstrate the comprehension of a five-year old human.

But humans have awareness; we have judgment; we have choice; we can choose disorder.

At first, humans didn’t disturb the biosphere. About 12,000 years ago humans began tinkering with their habitat: seed casting was discovered to increase preferred vegetation; domesticating animals already was part of migrating lifestyles; weapons and tools were made of stone, antler and other natural resources. The first disturbance of the natural environment occurred when humans combined tin with copper to make bronze, then soon after discovered iron and carbon combined make steel. By 7000 BC it was de rigeuer and moral for this super smart primate to use the surface of the Earth willy-nilly for human activities. We have refined this behavior, of course, so that today it is moral to have open tin mines that cover several miles in diameter. Profit making activities like a combined energy zone in Alaska seems perfectly moral to entrepreneurs. The energy zone will cover hundreds of miles and literally destroy several major species of animals by poisoning or destroying habitat.

By human standards, this is acceptable but is it orderly? Are we disregarding the fact that this is God’s garden not ours? Which comes first, God’s intentions[1] or that of a super smart primate who cannot respect the intrinsic requirements for a garden of love, truth, beauty and order? The traditional choice between God and mammon is avoided by the super smart primate; apparently we cannot control our desire for disorder. Perhaps we should not be so smart.

Examples of human disorder abound and will not be listed here. The point is that humans have pretty much destroyed order across the planet. Nowhere, absolutely nowhere the super smart primate has gone, has touched, has tinkered with, remains orderly and functioning properly within this biosphere. But there are signs our disorderliness will not be tolerated much longer in Earth time. The super smart primate emerged six million years ago and by all measures has around 10 thousand years left before the garden will oust all primates. It could have lasted longer in an orderly garden.

Ancient Mariner

[1] Interpret laws belonging to the universe rather than to humans in any theological model that is comfortable. Mariner uses the Judeo-Christian model because it is familiar and practiced widely.