World Problem Solvers

World Problem Solvers

We are a group of neighbors who sit together most weekday mornings, bloviate, cogitate, and ruminate about the past, present, and future. All told, we can say, without being challenged, that we have "been there, done that, know how, and can do."

13June2023

We have been meeting for over two years and, frankly, the world is still in a mess. Today Trump was indicted for his removal of classified documents from the White House. Biden has been kowtowing to the Woke crowd. Putin is continuing his barbaric invasion of Ukraine. The left and right are no closer together. Rick Warren has been kicked out of the Southern Baptists because he endorsed women clergy.

 

With all of the unrest and disagreement around us, we can still sit together, discuss, agree, and disagree; but still be friends and neighbors. That, my comrades, is the way the world should operate.

 

PASS IT ON!!

14June2023

 Takeaway for today: Get your chips off your shoulders before you get on the porch.

 

There were 3 sparrows in the barnyard feasting on a cow pie. The sparrows got their fill and flew up to the pump handle.  After resting for a while the first sparrow flew off and kaboom!! -- blew all to smithereens. 

The second sparrow flew off the pump handle and kabooom!! -- blew up. Same thing for the 3rd sparrow. And the moral of the story is -- Don't fly off the handle if you're full of crap.

PASS IT ON!!

Theoretical Construct of Heaven

I just read “Proof of Heaven” by Eben Alexander and found it both intriguing and thought provoking. The book takes us to the boundary that separates the creator from His creatures and brings together the ethereal and the eternal. The question the book begs is, “Do we go to heaven or are we from heaven and destined to return?”

The kabbalists of ancient times thought that spirits existed with 10 characteristics called sefirot which were divided into male and female components and sent to earth to inhabit two individuals. If those two recipients were lucky enough to meet, then they became “soul mates” who returned to heaven at the end of their earthly existence. The author recognized his deceased sister as his hostess in his heavenly journey but would have undoubtedly been very close to her had she been alive on earth.

Dr. Alexander was able to experience the ethereal because he was essentially brain dead for 7 days. That suggests that the many people who claim to have achieved a higher plane of spirituality have done so by isolating their inner being from the sensory input of their body and everything external to it. That suggests that some of those mystics, clairvoyants, and holy people who claim union with the spirits may actual achieve transcendence through suppression of all sensation.

It suggests that at the core of our being is a link to our creator. I have often felt that we are formed much like an egg. Our core is a life form upon which is built a physical body with all of its pains, pleasures, and distractions. On top of that we construct our mind which is much like a hard, impregnable shell. Using that analogy, we don’t often connect with that core inner being until something happens to crack the shell and break that surrounding body, leaving only the yoke sack intact. If we were able to connect with our inner being and maintain our outer being in a form able to comprehend and communicate, then we might know more about our connection to the spirit world.

One truth that is undeniable is that there is more that we do not know than there is that we do. One conclusion that scientists have agreed upon is that we can only measure a tiny percentage of the matter that is needed in order to make the universe from descending into chaos. Existence should accumulate entropy but it doesn’t. The only explanation for maintaining more energy than we should is that there is something permeating space which would account for the order that we see. Scientists have dubbed it dark matter.

If we were to back away from our attempts to objectively analyze and quantify nature and just ask ourselves how we would go about measuring that which is, then we might come to some different conclusions. We would have to divide what is into three broad categories: first what we can experience like the range from nanotechnology to the planets and stars, second what we cannot see on the levels of atoms and subatomic particles, and third the universes beyond the reaches of sight and time. If we were to examine the first category, we would conclude that we could measure mass, time, location, temperature, and derivatives thereof like velocity, energy, potential, etc. But then there would be other variables that also can be measured like rotation, color reflected, color absorbed, whether it is alive, is it intelligent, can it think, can it move on its own, is its existence finite, etc. As you can see there are many ways of measuring something that exists.

Many of those parameters that go beyond the units of mass, energy, space, and time convey information about being. Much of the information given out contains both energy and information, e.g. the light originating from an object is propagating by way of energy that also contains information (frequency). Though a matter of conjecture, the photon of light is oscillating between states of matter, electricity, and magnetism; and to top it off there is a velocity vector inherent in its propagation. Imagine that lowly photon moving across the universe, travelling at 186,000 miles per second; passing other photons from other sources above, below, and to both sides; and doing that for millions of years until it reaches our eye.

Results

I went to the hospital this morning to sit with an elderly gentleman from our church who was having a lymphoma removed. He still had the tubes attached and was a bid groggy.  A student nurse came in to check his bandages and I heard him mutter something to her. She replied, “I’m only a student and not supposed to do anything but check your bandages and certainly not going to check to see if your testicles are black.”

My friend repeated his request and again the young nurse started to protest but then said, “Alright, I will check to see if your testicles are black.” She lifted the sheets and pulled up his gown. She gently lifted his manhood in one hand and closely examined his testicles with her other hand. I was curious and pulled my chair a bit closer to the bed.

With a voice louder and clearer my friend said, “Miss, come closer.” She move up the bed to hear him. “Young lady, thank you very much for caring, but all I wanted to know was, ‘Are my test results back?’”

It pays to listen!

Terrorism or Self-Actualization?

A few years ago I was asked to give an impromptu lecture to a group as part of a university interview. I randomly chose the topic of “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”. I asked the group to imagine themselves as consultants asked to motivate members of an organization called SAMAH. I then took the group through the theory put forth by Abraham Maslow that said, in essence, that a person is motivated by needs, which, when satisfied, ceased to be a motivator. He created a hierarchy of needs which was later expanded to 5 levels: survival, security, socialization, self-esteem, and ultimately self-actualization.

The audience was then led through scenarios that showed them that the person who was worried about food, clothing, and shelter was not very likely to be motivated by a safe environment. As a matter of fact he would probably engage in risky, unsafe activities in order to provide that much needed survival. That is precisely why the very poor are willing to steal to survive. Hunger is a potent motivator for much of the world.

Because our fictitious SAMAH organization has grander designs, they make sure that their members are adequately provided for with housing and an income. Security is then provided for the members of SAMAH with armed guards on every street corner. If you are a member of SAMAH you feel well protected by the organization; as a matter of fact you feel so comfortable that you begin to hang out with the members and consider them your friends. You now have reached a level that you are really feeling good about yourself and your self-esteem is peaking.

It is at that point, where the SAMAH member feels he has really arrived in the organization that he is asked to really leave his mark on the world. Ideas of public adoration and honor begin floating in his head along with suggestions that God has called him for a profound task. That call for self-actualization gives the person the ultimate call for purpose in living – or dying. After all everything else has been taken care of; what more is there to achieve? HAMAS has obviously used this strategy successfully in Israel and we see the same suicide bomber mentality emerging elsewhere and we have to ask ourselves if the same strategy is being used to produce those terrorists?

We have to note the response of Israel to the attacks carried out by terrorists. When it is rockets being fired they retaliate with rockets but when it is a self-destructing individual, they stop the borders to workers and blockade the supply of the necessities of life. The result is often an outcry for humanitarian aid while the leaders of HAMAS sit back and smile, knowing that others meeting the basic needs of their members will allow grooming others to achieve self-actualization. HAMAS proclaims itself as a humanitarian NGO that it is – in part. However, I would submit that the larger part of the organization is intent upon motivating self-actualization, otherwise known as terrorism.

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The 2012 Election -- Some Thoughts

The 2012 election promises to be the most divisive election seen in America since the Civil War. Some people have even gone so far as to suggest that a Civil War could erupt if President Obama is reelected (Tom Head, county judge, Lubbock, TX August 23, 2012). The passion that is being fueled by irresponsible rabble rousers is threatening to undermine our principles of civil discourse. When we begin to govern on the basis of emotion instead of logic then we will truly be doomed.

I believe that Obama sees himself as a “World Citizen” more than an American. I suspect that a great amount of his anti-military stance comes from his deep seated hatred of American “imperialism”. His black and white (no pun intended) view of the world separates the haves and have-nots into oppressors and oppressed. Obama believes that if you don’t have wealth it must be because somebody took it away from you. He discounts initiative and hard work as avenues to achievement.

The only work he ever did was as a community activist – fighting to get what he felt the underprivileged in Chicago deserved. Having worked in Chicago he soon realized that “government benefits” could be exchanged for votes. Those votes resulted in power and in turn voters were rewarded with token improvements. The “Chicago style” party leaders realize it is advantageous to suppress the underprivileged so that their vote will elect the party and, in turn, be rewarded with token advancement.

The flames are also being fueled by the resurgence of “Objectivism”, made popular by the novel, Atlas Shrugged. The problem that was foreseen by Ayn Rand is that the token pot is drying up. Without opportunity for those with initiative to create wealth for themselves then they surely are not going to labor to create wealth for others. That was the downfall of Communism and the fallacy of Socialism. Those systems worked when the needs were considered minor and the achievers were willing to give up a small portion of their earnings to benefit those not achieving. The Marxist philosophy of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” does not work. Even the bible recognizes this aspect of human nature and puts a tithe at 10%. God surely realized the human condition and knew that we could give a tenth of our surplus without resenting it. Obama would ask for the inversion of that since his reasoning is that those who have achieved did so at the expense of others.

Obama’s claim that the successful businessman got there with the government’s help is consistent with his thinking. We agree that the government which we have developed for the common good and the infrastructure maintained for the common good is worthy of our tax support. However, the idea that the non-supporting portion of society, whose votes are rewarded with tokens, is deserving of a free ride on the backs of those productive elements of society is frankly, un-American.