Wow! A real religion debate

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Salvation versus Grace. Both are defended by the Bible – Grace especially by Father Brown on PBS when he’s hearing confession from a murderer. The idea of Grace traces back to Cyrus The Great, King of Persia from 559-530 BC.

Cyrus was the leader of the Achaemenid Empire that overtook the Babylonians. There were four powerful kings with rule over the Jews during their captivity including Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius, and finally, Cyrus the Great. The first three kings chose to assimilate the cultures they conquered into their customs, their culture, and their ways of life, but Cyrus, instead, as leader of the Medo-Persians, chose to allow various cultural and religious groups to return to and maintain their own identities – an unusual act of Grace.

The Old Testament makes note of this in Ezra 1-4. The Jewish perspective was that God had banished the Jews for misbehavior but through Cyrus, had permitted the banished Jews to return. An act of Grace on God’s part as well as Cyrus II.

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Salvation relates to the narrative of God’s redemptive actions throughout human history, culminating in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as depicted in the Bible. Here is a fun word for readers: Heilsgeschichte. It is the theological term that describes God’s plan to save humanity from sin and its consequences.

Since everyone has sinned, everyone eventually will face the death penalty. Since the wages of sin is death, salvation is the paycheck issued by God that people receive for what they have earned. Death is what we all have earned by our deeds. Consequently, when all of us die, we want God to grant us salvation because of the good deeds we have performed to compensate for our sins. Historically, Judgment Day was the third day after death, as was the case with Jesus and also a popular tradition begun in Ancient Persia. In the case of Father Brown’s murderer, that murderer has a lot of work to do to gain salvation. Grace only lets him try again.

Ancient Mariner

Judgment Day

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Everyone talks about the day when Jesus will return to gather his deserving flock. Most of today’s Christians have a ‘good deed’ savings account to make sure they will be included. But mariner has a suggestion: you may need to read the Gospel Matthew and most of Gospel Luke to find out who gets to go and who doesn’t. Let’s take a simple test: In the Bible (Matt. 5:3-10) are ten types of people who will be saved on Judgment Day. Let’s see if any of us are in there. Hmm . . . Well, mariner doesn’t see a lot of names. Better check out the parables in Matthew and Luke to see what we need to do to get a ride to heaven.

Another issue that gets in the way of a trip out of here on Judgment Day is recognizing what the gift is. For example, many, many folks believe the gift is a piece of paper with a picture of an American President on it and heaven is a lot like Orlando Beach.

A third issue is that Christianity is a part time job. Many Christians give up Sunday morning to go to church when they actually wanted to sleep late (note that in the savings account). A fewer number give a meaningful amount participating in charities and even fewer participate in helping develop community participation. Well, at least there’s free coffee and donuts before the service.

Strip away thousands of years of accumulated Christian literature, politics, economics and social change. What is left is what Jesus wanted: God is the power of love. God’s love steers our life day in and day out. When we live our lives by using God’s power to love, Jesus said we are sitting at the right hand of God.

Given Jesus’s words, no Judgment Day is needed. Live by God’s love and you are experiencing the Promised Land. No waiting! Take a short trip this afternoon.

Which word does not belong in this list?

Caring
Sharing
Compassionate
Convenient
Sympathy
Empathy

Ancient Mariner

Tuvalu

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A fascinating report in the AOL news strip gives an insight into the future of nationalism. Within this century, the Island nation of Tuvalu (9 coral atolls in the Pacific) is about to go under the ocean and completely disappear. The nation of Tuvalu already has set up political relationships with Australia and New Zealand that will allow Tuvalu citizens to live in these partner nations but sustain a Tuvalu political structure complete with its own voting rights and a shared economy.

Mariner has been struggling to find a transitional model for nations moving into the future of international economy and having to share sustainable agricultural regions; already national boundaries are of dwindling importance because of the Internet.

But Tuvalu has not taken the path of economic conversion. Rather, they have invented a new way to sustain nationality via social identification and a political structure that doesn’t need its own territory to exist. Their national model much more clearly defines how nationalism will transition to globalism. It is a truly insightful article that has broadened mariner’s thoughts about the future.

A quick and pleasant read with an extremely insightful perception of the future. See:

https://www.aol.com/disappearing-island-nation-plans-exist-152004992.html

Ancient Mariner

 

The deep side of knots

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As mariner is wont to do, he fills empty time exploring the world of abstruse subjects. If one wants to get lost in a giant maze with no exit, check out quantum mechanics; or perhaps the process by which ions chase each other around to manage human bodies – all the pictures look like my granddaughter’s bead bracelets. In mathematics, there is a popular puzzle that asks for the shortest path to visit all the stops in an extended trip. Don’t try it, you’ll miss your flight.

A recent article about knot mathematics stirred his interest. He didn’t know a person had to know equations to tie knots. He was a Boy Scout and remembers learning to tie a dozen or so knots that made using knots a handy tool. He ties his shoes and dress ties – except bow ties; he uses the well known square knot and its petulant brother the granny knot for just about everything else. The bowline knot is supposed to never slip. The only use he had for it was as an emergency dog leash. Mariner remembers his grandmother tying a magic knot on a piece of thread just by rubbing two fingers together – voila! a sturdy knot to sew buttons.

It turns out that ‘knot theory’ is an important part of the science of topology – how stuff aggregates and disseminates. For example, when looking at a knot, is it just another example of that same knot somewhere else or is it truly a genuine one-of-a-kind knot? Knot tying is important to the study of things like DNA, chemical reactions and astronomic physics.

Mariner is in knots trying to figure out how to end this post so the reader can finish it at:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-knot-theory-discovery-overturns-long-held-mathematical-assumption/?_kx=HnWBlzyruBWdZk8zZJGqG9mGrSNMZd2cfq-kdkdOWgOqhVgSL-mWKHsx1HZSrrCW.WEer5A

Ancient Mariner

Jobs threatened by AI

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On the CBS website, mariner found a detailed analysis of what types of jobs may be most threatened by automation. An easy way to understand the impact is to consider how the Internet has changed the reader’s shopping habits – what ever happened to malls?

Impact from GPT4 [Pre-trained software capable of dialogue and creative writing – including songs]

Customer services representatives
Accountants and auditors
Software developers
Secretaries and administrative assistants

Overall

Computer programmers
Financial managers
Accountants and auditors
Sales representatives (wholesale and manufacturing)

Automation

General and operations managers
Accountants and auditors
Receptionists and information clerks

Augmentation

Chief Executives
Maintenance and repair workers
Registered Nurses
Computer Systems managers

Mariner would offer an outlook if he could – no one can. We are in a fog without a map and must confront dysfunctional government, unbridled corporate behavior, tendency toward war as a solution and a dissatisfied planet..

Armageddon proceeds

Ancient Mariner

The new job market

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There seems to be increasing news coverage about the job market, especially when comparing past, present and future markets as presented by government figures. The presumption from the White House is that the tariffs will restrict foreign manufacture and allow US manufacturing to grow substantially.

On the other hand, banking, investment and private institutions don’t feel as secure about the effect of the tariffs. They speak to the influence of ChatGPT already in the marketplace which is affecting employment today. In mariner’s local newspaper he reads that a nearby river town’s pubic library plans to replace a desk librarian with a bot that can check in and check out materials. When McDonald’s is forced to modify products and prices in order to sustain sales, something must be afoot.

Further, the public has an innate feeling that one had better be frugal – an attitude that contributes to recession. It’s likely that the persistent news coverage is about closing branches and even closing large stores so they can reinvent their fiscal model.

The White House is doing everything it can to bolster financial reports – even to the extent of disassembling the Federal Reserve so the interest rate can be lowered.

While it is true that the giant manufacturers and retail powerhouses can respond to the tariff situation by offering more jobs, that seems not to represent the closing of many shops and small industries because of the new market, tax regulations and AI.

It appears the economy will be dancing on thin ice for the next year or two. One can hope for a new approach after the midterms. Amos insists that mariner mention the collapsing US influence in world markets.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

A genuine news ‘capsule’

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Greetings readers, noting a change in weather patterns in the Midwest. In this morning’s email, mariner found an unusually brief but profound news wrap up from the Associated Press:

“In the news today: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization – led by Russia, China, and India – could emerge as a challenge to America’s global leadership; a major landslide has become one of the deadliest natural disasters in Sudan’s history; and the legal impacts of President Donald Trump sending National Guard troops into US cities. Also, scientists are helping a red-legged frog return to Southern California.”¹

It would be difficult to describe as briefly as written so many global issues of such great importance and diversity. Even a little known frog species speaks of the massive extinction occurring around the planet

• The SCO meeting of the Eastern World speaks to an evolution-like rotation of global dominance. The West’s supremacy began to emerge in the Victorian Era starting in the mid 1800s and emerged a century later as the leading political, philosophical, economic and social leaders of the world . It took an age of colonial economics, two world wars and the wealth that only a rich country sitting on the richest continent in the world could provide to finalize the shift from the eastern nations to the Western Alliance.

The winds of change suggest the next evolution is beginning. As with every other evolution, it is accelerated as new technology, new economics and shifting global issues have come together.

• The disaster in Sudan is only the latest example in a long list of planetary effects caused by multiple-century movement of the Solar System, especially expedited by global warming. There are disappearing ice shelves at both poles, platonic shifts loosened by a warming planet and severe undercutting of commercial farming and availability of potable water as a warmer atmosphere begins to reshape global weather patterns. Add in the effects on global economy caused by rising oceans.

• Then there is Donald. The American citizen has proven that something isn’t right with the nation because he was, in fact, elected by them. It is noteworthy that a terrible, dictatorial leader is part of the evolutionary shifts in world power from Ivan the Terrible (1547-1584) to Adolf Hitler to Putin to Donald – plus a dozen or so in smaller nations. Their job is to destroy the old system so transformations can begin anew in the new age of electronics, diminishing wealth, overpopulation and international difficulties – after the dictators disappear.

• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” by Elizabeth Kolbert, was published in 2014. Through detailed research of current and recent disappearances of every kind of creature driven into extinction by a changing world shaped almost single handed by humans, 16,000 species have disappeared. Very important but hardly noticed is that the rate of extinction is increasing.

Historians and scientists have the audacity to create their own age: the Anthropocene Age. Is this world situation something to be proud of?

Ancient Mariner

We need a culture map

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Every generation has its own lifestyles, a combination of habits, behavioral perceptions and historical benchmarks. For example, how many of us use pen and paper to write long letters? How many of us realize how much of a cultural shift is represented by Rosie the Riveter, the icon representing a shift of women in the workforce from 12 million to 20 million by 1944. Walk through the years with Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald, Molly Bee, Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Nat King Cole, Peter, Paul and Mary, ABBA and Taylor Swift; how many of us have a microwave? How many years did it take to shift from calf-length skirts to black stretch pants?

And within just one generation, who stills types their letters on a typewriter? In fact, who still writes letters (200 words) to family members? Facebook takes care of letters today. Everything, every person from childhood to today is linked to you and vice versa. Want to know what’s happening with Uncle John? Facebook has it all. Just push a button and say, “Handle it”.

There is no avoidance of the fact that in the four most recent generations, each generation is living in a different world. Not just the normal generational shift that occurs as we age but so different that if, indeed, the world were a stage, a different show would be showing for each generation.

From the Silent Generation (1928-1945) to Generation Z (1997-2010), the entire planet has moved from an atmosphere of ‘war makes power’ where the west won control as the world’s political, social and scientific leaders, to an atmosphere of a planet falling short of resources, disruptive climate and causing economic stress to the point that it is a common opinion to stop raising beef because of its cost both to producers and to the environment.

Industrially, in just 75 years technology has moved human behavior to an unknown experience – promoting television in the 1940s to smartphones today. A central force that modifies human behavior is the Internet – a science which remains unbridled today and already evidences different behavioral values in human society.;

Metaphorically, we live on a world with no compass, no directional indicators, no rationality. We are encased in a fog. We have boarded a carnival ride about which we know nothing. Times are changing like they never have in living history.

Our emergency pack should include the basics: community participation; family allegiance and support; eliminate debt by living more frugally; be aware of resource management (less CO2 and avoiding plastic are big issues now); avoid depending on disruptive leaders who promise quick solutions – there are no quick solutions. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is broke and the climate is becoming more boisterous – have an alternative planned.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Handle it, handle it

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Does the reader remember the TV show Carter Country (aired in the 1970s)? One of the characters was a chubby character named Mayor Burnside who managed all his duties by saying “Handle it, handle it” . Well, it turns out that in the very near future, we all will handle life like Mayor Burnside.

Axios published an article today that describes how, in the very near future, we will take care of life’s decisions and personal communications simply by saying to our computer, “Handle it”. Here is an excerpt from the article:

The big picture: As AI agents improve and multiply, bots representing individuals will interact with bots representing companies, and human use of the open web will continue to decline.

  • My bot will talk to your bot — but you and I will probably talk a lot less. . . .

Take one of the most basic things we do today — buying stuff online.

  • We’re used to a world in which you click around, check products and prices from different vendors — maybe with help from a comparison service or website. While prices can fluctuate and algorithms sometimes play a role, as on Amazon or Uber, the purchase decision remains firmly in human hands.
  • But AI-driven e-commerce means that vendors are going to start rapidly changing their prices based on your identity and other variables — not, just say, once a day but by the microsecond, and differently for each customer.
  • Ransomware gangs are already deploying chatbots to negotiate with their victims, as Axios has reported.
  • Next up: Victims of ransomware attacks will let AI agents handle their response to the attacks — leaving all the people involved free to relax on the beach, assuming there’s any money left in their bank accounts.
  • To see the easy-to-read article, here is the link:

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-ai-plus-051cd187-147a-4a85-b588-008f8c056657.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioslogin&stream=top

Markets like Walmart, Amazon and surprisingly, small markets on eBay, already are constructing buy-sell software that does not require direct authorization from you, the buyer. One service like this that the reader may be familiar with is automated purchase which is authorized by the reader once then is taken care of by computers. Another service already on its way to not bothering the reader unnecessarily is medical tests and appointments which often will appear automatically in your patient portal.

Beyond the scope of the article, alter ego Guru says this form of automation is bound to lead to corporatism, where, instead of capitalism and socialism, ‘governments’ also will be run in a similar fashion. Politicians will simply say, “Handle it, handle it” and corporate, human-independent computers will make policy decisions. Note that computers will be owned by corporations.

Great article!

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

 

Ode to Nature

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Mariner is pleased that in addition to his three alter egos, he has a wife who is the world’s best poet but doesn’t make any money because she refuses to publish her excellent works. Nevertheless, she is willing to share with mariner’s audience:

A Poem for Dr. Poulter

Dr. Poulter taught botany my freshman year of college

I went to class three days a week,

I paid attention, took notes

Passed tests

And now I can remember zylem and phloem

and little else.

I am not a scientist as I walk through these woods

I can not name the trees or wildflowers

But I do not think he failed in his teaching.

I remember that he talked about the trees

He noticed on his walk across campus,

I remember his delight in plants, in learning,

And in teaching.

I think he would be pleased that I remember him

When I walk in the woods

Drinking in the beauty of the morning,

Surrounded by green leaves

Yearning toward the sun

Full of zylem and phloem

Whatever that is.

 

MKM  8-19-2025