Archive | July 2015
July 19, 2015  

”…to each according to his needs…”

The problems afflicting mankind are numerous: famine, illiteracy, disease, war, environmental issues, etc..

But these are naught but diseases, with the basic illness being disunity. A skilled physician might pay some attention to the symptoms, but must treat the disease. In this case, we might pay attention to the aforementioned plights, but rest assured; nothing will be solved until we eliminate the underlying disease of disunity. With moral education from childhood, we become fair, and with fairness and justice, unity is achieved, because we realise, we live in one world and we are one.
Until this is established, nothing will be permanently solved, even though we can eliminate world hunger using only 30 billion USD a year, (defense budget of the US alone is 737 Billion a year, and Forbes.com lists 18 people as of 2015 with fortunes over 30 billion USD). In fact, if everyone in the first world countries alone, gave 9cents a day, and that’s barely 13 percent of the world’s population, that would be 33 dollars a year and would be enough to eliminate hunger! There are loads of statistics to revel in: 85 of the richest own more than the 2 billion poorest, there is not an overpopulation since we could all fit shoulder to shoulder in part of Los Angeles, we need the wealth of 5 of the richest to eliminate illiteracy, a man in the Kalahari uses 12 litres of water a day while a man in North America uses over 18 just to brush his teeth (with the tap running) and can exceed using hundreds of litres daily(thanks to the water cycle, there is enough water to go round, but simply, POOR DISTRIBUTION, and powers that be keeping it that way), the negative impacts of charging your cell phone or eating meat are nothing compared to the environmental damage caused by fighter planes, and tanks, and artillery, yet civilians are supposed to feel guilty for using daily gadgets,  etc..the statistics show us the problem is not availability, or space, or resources, or time, or money, but rather of will! We do not have the will to help because we are not convinced WHY we should care about rainforests in Brazil when we live in Germany, or about the starving kids in Darfur while we live in Finland.
Baha’u’llah says to be as united as the fingers of one hand; as the parts of a body. One part shall not rest until the rest are at peace. Until we do this, there shall be no respite, even though we clearly have the ability to feed, clothe, educate and keep healthy every man, woman and child on earth, but yet we don’t! Simply because we are not united, and we are not united because we are not fair and we are not fair because we do not prioritise moral education.
Anyone who has effected a change did so with morality. Gandhi did not change the lives of nearly 400 million people with his law degree; he did so with his morality. Same with Mandela, or any other religious or secular civil rights advocate. Mathematically this means with a population of about 7 Billion, we need approximately 18 Gandhis to effect a change. This is feasible, but will not happen until we focus on morality.
The problems are not due to a lack of resources, but a lack of distribution (and people in power keeping it this way for obvious reasons), and the trials afflicting mankind are not limited to these symptoms; they are due to the underlying moral disease of disunity. Unite as the limbs of one body, and see the domino effect of problem-solving…
July 10, 2015  

”time-dependent bias.”

How much time must pass until one who evidently exerted little to no effort that wasn’t entirely self-serving, is practically deified?

To be honest, Alexander did little, though he is called ”The Great.”. Undefeated in major battles, conquering the known world at 25 is one way to put it. But another would be, widowing and orphaning countless, coming prepared to peoples’ lands, murdering them, pillaging, raping,burning, spreading carnage and destruction and terror, etc..all to fulfil HIS PERCEPTION of greatness. How is that different from the Mongol Empire, or Stalin, or Hitler, or sectarian violence among some religious groups? Him being younger, and undefeated, makes it more zestful and ”cooler” not more righteous or better.

As one of his generals put it upon his passing; ” yesterday the earth wasn’t large enough for him. Today, a hole in the ground will have to do.”

If enough time passes, even the worst man will be praised by simple minds. Every of the afore-mentioned figures have people today who swear allegiance to their memory. Hence borrowing a phrase from statistical analysis, ”time-dependent bias”. Though referring to placebo effect, it fits the idea of enough time passing by, causing us to give praise to characters we would shun, had they been our contemporaries.

One cannot go wrong if we give praise to righteous character and ideas and concepts. Not to people. For they shall always err…

July 10, 2015  

A moral compass…

So we hear a lot of questioning as to what is right and what is wrong. And how to know the difference. Even though truth is one, our understanding thereof evolves, and there are more ways than one to approach it. Truth is, the earth is a circular planet. It took us time to understand this. It went from being ’round’ to being ‘spherical’. Last I checked it is now ‘an oblate spheroid’. The falsehood is that it is flat. Therefore, a truth is a truth, and a falsehood is a falsehood, regardless of if and when we make the distinction, and certainly regardless of whether we recognise it or not. The earth retains its natural shape, irrespective of you and me.

Therefore, virtue, or any truth, must needs be independent of us. Though our circumstance may affect our perception, it remains independently true.

Accepting something, anything as true and/or positive,simply because we are in a society that does, has been an integral part of every societal debacle.

Succumbing to what our environment holds to be true, be it due to political/peer pressure, political correctness, the result of group-think, etc..would make it alright to engage in anti Jewish pogroms 70 years ago in Germany, own a couple of black slaves in the Americas 200 years ago, or subscribe to ‘unions’ of a bestial nature in some parts of northern India today, or paedophiliac ones in some parts of Eastern Africa, or homosexual ones in parts of Europe. Point being, geographically, and historically, humans have flawed and swayed, due to lack of a common base/an all-encompassing moral compass/a code of virtue.

My contention, which shall be referred to throughout these monographs if you will, is that nothing besides science and religion, is worthy of making up this moral compass. Science explains the technical aspect, and religion the moral one. We are speaking of unabused, and unadulterated science and religion here. For one without the other is incomplete, but together, they are the source of unending good. We cannot discredit science because two scientists had a conflict, anymore than we can religion due to so-called religious people having issues one with another. As afore-mentioned, the truth stands!

And according to these, I would be safe through time and space,throughout geography and history, knowing full well that slavery, religious prejudice, and illicit sexual practices are wrong, no matter WHERE or WHEN I may be! The fact that such firm and moral individuals always have existed, and always will, shows it is an uphill but feasible task. People like every scientist, and revolutionary, have held this attribute.

Simple people like this gent below,

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/august-landmesser

it is not okay, simply because it is accepted, or legal, or politically correct, or the norm, or society as a whole approves. Be a rock. Not a leaf. A rock stands for what is right, based on the common foundation that is made of science and religion,and no river however tumultuous can thwart its stance. A leaf sways wherever the trend blows…

God bless.