Category Archives: Religion

Yes, Virginia, there is more than Donald

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One grows tired of reacting to a failed democracy – especially when the faithful electorate hires a demolition expert to finish the job. Yet, we must be diligent; there is no second inning in this ball game. Nevertheless, the mariner must have a reprieve; who thought religion would be considered a haven?

Mariner was up late a few weeks ago browsing late night – AKA early morning – television. He stopped to watch one of those New Testament films about the life of Jesus. It was wholly graphic in nature, typical of these productions, with no nuances about philosophy, Judaism, Christianity, culture, dogma or doctrine. The kind with Jesus portrayed by a blue-eyed European with coifed hair.

Also typical was the straight-line portrayal of the best of the Synoptic Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (Admitting Matthew is mariner’s favorite gospel because it is a sociological dance between the Old Testament and the New Testament.) Poor gospel John is always denied recognition because he doesn’t tell the same story as the Synoptic Three.

PBS has an introduction to the Gospel John that is better than mariner can produce so he copied the paragraphs and inserted them below:

“John’s gospel is different from the other three in the New Testament. That fact has been recognized since the early church itself. Already by the year 200, John’s gospel was called the spiritual gospel precisely because it told the story of Jesus in symbolic ways that differ sharply at times from the other three. For example, Jesus dies on a different day in John’s gospel than in Matthew, Mark and Luke…. Whereas in the three synoptic gospels Jesus actually eats a Passover meal before he dies, in John’s gospel he doesn’t. The last supper is actually eaten before the beginning of Passover so that the sequence of events leading up to the actual crucifixion are very different for John’s gospel. And one has to look at it and say, why is the story so different? How do we account for these differences in terms of the way the story-telling developed? And the answer becomes fairly clear when we realize that Jesus has had the last supper a day before so that he’s hanging on the cross during the day of preparation before the beginning of Passover.

So here’s the scene in John’s gospel: on the day leading up to Passover, and Passover will commence at 6 o’clock with the evening meal, on the day leading up to that Passover meal is the day when all the lambs are slaughtered and everyone goes to the temple to get their lamb for the Passover meal. In Jerusalem this would have meant thousands of lambs being slaughtered all at one time. And in John’s gospel that’s the day on which Jesus is crucified. So that quite literally the dramatic scene in John’s gospel has Jesus hanging on the cross while the lambs are being slaughtered for Passover. John’s gospel is forcing us, dramatically at least, through the storytelling mode, to think of Jesus as a Passover lamb. Jesus doesn’t eat a Passover meal, Jesus is the Passover meal, at least within the Christian mind in the way that John tells the story.”

PBS did an excellent job of showing why John is less popular. Unlike Matthew, who plays ping-pong back and forth between Judaism and Christianity, John tells the gospel story in the context of the Old Testament. The reader must be familiar with both religions in order to see the spiritual differences. That being possible, the Old Testament, compiled in stages since 4000 BC, and the new New Testament being compiled as we read, have very different beliefs in God, spirituality, ethics, and doctrine.

If one of these late-night Jesus productions used John, not only would the storyline be different, the purpose of dialogue would be to articulate differences between Judaism and Christianity – which is the true motivation for John. John clearly does not intend to accept any Jewish dogma. Hence the reputation for spiritual clarity rather than historical sequencing.

That was refreshing, wasn’t it?

Ancient Mariner

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

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

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.”

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.

The Relentless Presence of Donald.

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With great resistance, mariner must turn his attention to Donald. It has become a spiritual duty. The mariner prides himself on not following policy backed by ulterior motive, hearsay rumors, unjustified gossip, fake news, inadequately thought out if not childish tweets, Facebook abuses and a campaign of empty commentary based on vapors of nothingness backed only by petty, childish name calling. In cultural reality, this makes the mariner old fashioned and increasingly irrelevant to the essence of American culture in 2017.

Mariner vets his information first by reliable sources, then by cultural valuation, then by his own twisted rationale. Mariner has the assistance of his three reliable cohorts, Chicken Little, a compulsive alter ego, Amos, a skeptic of the first order, and Guru, incapable of evaluating an opinion without tracing it out to its ultimate end – usually the end of the Earth or beyond.

All three requested a meeting yesterday to complain about Donald. Chicken Little said, “I’m afraid of him.” Amos said, “Don’t these idiots in government understand he’s a sham? Why won’t they just trash him?” Guru said, “If you value what’s left of decent human values in government and an economy that can launch any positive future, his narcissism, his identity with wealth and his fetish with gold are inadequate to make the transition.”

Well, what can the mariner say? He agreed to make Donald the subject of a post even though he believes it will be tantamount to urinating into a 100 mph gale.

– – – –

After listening to and reading all feasible news sources, reading a few relevant books, and applying his unique cultural valuation, the mariner arrived at this overarching view: Donald is a symptom, not a cause. The Christian caveat about casting the moat from one’s own eye before judging other people applies absolutely to the American citizen’s philosophy of government. “Americanism,” the spirit our founding fathers sought to underwrite freedom, democracy, liberty and prevent oppression, tyranny and populism, the mariner fears, has run its course. A civil war, four significant failures of the nation’s economy, internationalism of economy and a planet that has never balanced its global population with reality in any manner, has eroded the spirit (meaning the spirit of the individual) to the point that the US has retreated to the classic mores of the Roman Empire: leaders of any ilk make their own rules, have their own rights and privileges, are not responsible for the wellbeing of citizens except to stratify liberties to given classes; the common good is an extraction of “What’s good for me?”

This has become a nation (and an international community) that folks like Donald can thrive in. He is in his element. Ethics, morality, practicality and the job of caring and sharing left a few decades ago. Righteousness is found in “the deal.” Donald has only two platforms to sustain morality: Whatever happens, it must have an element to it that benefits him personally; second, he must glean an image of egotistical success and supremacy – even if it is only in his own mind. This second principle is a weakness that smart leaders will take advantage of in areas that truly affect morality and fairness but are of no interest to Donald. As the mariner said, among us, he is among his kind.

Debris lies all around.

Just recently, it was mentioned that the nation who fostered modern democracy ranks 27th out of 35 functioning democratic nations; out of every 100 voters, 43 don’t and 16 are denied the privilege.

The nation’s economy is at its peak and expanding as an oligarchy; out of every 100 voters, one shares in 90% of the nation’s wealth. Turned around, 99 voters share .001% of the nation’s wealth.

The cultural engine, business, aggressively moves away from any cultural responsibility; taxes are avoided to the point of hiding massive profits like pirates in places outside the world of visible commerce and salaries are at their lowest as a percentage of GNP for as long as such records have been kept.

The ethos of religiosity and the divine worth of a soul are but a skeleton, a memory of their worthiness. The driving factors of organized religion are rife with the distractions of ritual and selfishness. The individual soul is not worth saving at the expense of self-gratification or sacrifice. For every deal made by Donald, religion makes a hundred deals to avoid the responsibilities of compassion, sharing, and weaving the fabric of empathy.

So our culture has come to this in 2017. Acknowledging that a thread, a residue of graciousness still exists, our body of faith, of compassion, of industriousness, of sharing, of tempered discipline, lay on the planet’s trashed floor looking like a carcass picked over by our vulturous selves.

There is little left in man’s coffers. The mariner speaks occasionally of ‘world bounces.’ What is left to bounce to? The bread of life needs a starter but searches an empty refrigerator.

Welcome, Donald. Make us a deal.

Ancient Mariner

Totalitarianism is Here.

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In the book 1984 written by George Orwell in 1949, the evil element is totalitarianism. Orwell was afraid of the suppression of individual thought and individual expression – both empirically and emotionally. His fear came from communist movements in Spain and Russia which were using communistic (totalitarian) practices to control citizens. Orwell was afraid communism would cross the Atlantic and overwhelm democracy and capitalism. Some older readers may remember in the movie version the large screens that educated all citizens with the same information and may have noticed that everyone was wearing identical outfits.

George had the right insight about totalitarianism but the latent oppression would not come from political forces, it would come from computers.

The mariner devised a new measure of eras called a World Bounce. The World Bounce lasts about 120 years more or less. He determined this length of time based on a quick survey of large changes in global culture. (See the post, “Whither We Go,” published recently.) Using the zooming capability of 120-year chunks, we can envision some degree of context about the World’s life and times. It seems increasingly that a lot is changing or preparing to change in the culture of the world’s population. Without going into a litany, global warming, and global extinction of species, changing weather patterns, international economic imbalance, and specifically, artificial intelligence – all are forcing the hand of our political structures, our economics, and what the experience of a lifetime feels like. We are about to bounce.

The least examined force of change by the person on the street is the impact of artificial intelligence. It spawns totalitarianism. Not with evil intent, mind you, but inadvertently; the large screens of Orwell’s book are identical to what is called “Big Data”. Within a decade or two – thanks to Google, Microsoft and other data snoopers, massive databases will know all about each of us. A working term being sold right now primarily to businesses is “The Cloud.” Clouds are extremely large amounts of data accessible by an endless number of processors.

Add to this endless data computers that know how to scan, sort, merge, match, equate, and deduce Big Data; it is the same as you performing a search on Google except we don’t need you anymore. “Google” will do its own search, thank you.

One of the first functional examples of this new artificial intelligence is a program called ALICE which you load into your own computer. It has a ‘person’ who talks to you in normal conversational style. You may have seen Alex Baldwin order a new pair of socks without touching anything – just saying, “Get me a new pair of socks.” The computer responds nicely saying it will do so right away. Without input from Alex about what the socks will look like, their quality or size, ALICE already knows by searching a database with previous purchases of socks made by Alex likely collected from a credit card database.

Another ubiquitous example: ALICE, buy me a car. Again, Alice already knows your income level, credit card score, neighborhood and geographic region, the size of your family, the value of your home, the types of driving you do, what kind of gasoline you buy, what kind of car you own now and resale value. It knows this because certain companies are in the business of building as complete a profile as possible about everything and everyone. They sell access to Big Data so that sellers and buyers can do business together automatically using only computers matching requests to solutions.

Did a few of you notice how, suddenly, a few years ago it seemed that  virtually everyone bought SUVs? Car manufacturers did a marketing blitz. Now, all a car manufacturer will need do is buy an algorithm in Big Data which will steer your computer to their product given that your profile matches. If you are interested in making a choice yourself, your computer will offer only choices that fit your economic profile; you won’t be able to find that luxury car no matter how hard you search. This is an example of totalitarianism; eventually everyone will be subject to one choice.

George was fearful of this unintended effect: In the mariner’s home town for example, it appears everyone is driving the same model car, wearing the same style and manufacturer’s clothing (which by the way will carry in its fabric how long you’ve owned it) and oddly, how everyone wears the same socks. Even aware of the totalitarian effect, people still would appreciate the convenience. It’s identical today when a viewer ties themselves to Netflix or other entertainment packages: the odds are you simply will use the offerings available to you through Netflix. Note the other effect: No subscriber can see offerings that Netflix doesn’t want to carry.

Now shift this pattern of retail compliance to the morals, thoughts, philosophies and behaviors that make up your religion, political party, candidate choices for public office, individual creativity, whether you can find a different kind of job, etc. Already dating firms select candidates to be your spouse; right now you can just say, ALICE, get me a spouse….. Shades of Stepford Wives!

In following posts the mariner will address other changes likely in the coming World Bounce.

Ancient Mariner

The Role of Myth

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Seems folks are knocking myth around lately. Not so much using the word myth necessarily though some do. It’s more an evacuation of confidence on what the role of myth is and ignoring the fact that myth is a major pier in the lives of culture, religion, business and even an individual life.

Mariner has written often that religions around the world which emerged between 7000 BC and 800 AD (virtually all of them) adopted pseudo-historical principles to guide H. sapiens’ accountability to be human. A raccoon doesn’t need to learn how to behave like a good raccoon; it has no choice. Humans need instructions and acquired them by observing the effects of human behavior and the ecosystem over many thousands of years.

It was noticed that some parts of behavior were constructive, some destructive and some were beyond human influence.  Written language, when it existed, was not sophisticated enough to document esoteric, largely emotional and quizzical experiences. The best conveyance to describe these observations and solidify them as rules to live by was to tell stories – stories with melodrama and stark cause and effect just like today’s television. These stories were cultural treasures used as myths by which to live rather than instantly satisfying the same momentary emotional need we have today – without having to learn the substance behind the TV show like our ancestors did listening to their spiritual and cultural leaders.
When writing finally caught up, these stories were written down and codified. There was no reason to doubt them; it was just a more efficient way to replicate and distribute them. The power of written language enabled specialists in these stories to become political and even dictatorial. The specialists are called gods, kings, popes, imams and priests among many other glorifications.

Meanwhile, over the same millennia, culture broadened into specialties like commerce, tribal authority, standing armies, wealth, and other distortions which seemed always to evolve from mythic stories of bad human behavior. Mixed in were these powerful myths about how humans best should live; cultures set these myths aside as a reference rather than as a guide. The ‘reference’ came to be called religion.
Most of the time from about 300 AD to the present has been a continuous conflict between religion and each of the other cultural specialties, even between religious groups. Step on the sidelines for a moment to consider what exists today:
Global corporatism has its own guide focused on optimized profit which pays little heed to other cultural accountabilities; global nationalism has its own guide focused on tribal independence and authority which pays little heed to actual living conditions and ethnic equality; militarism has its own guide focused on domination which pays little heed to the value of life; economy has its own guide focused on greed which pays little heed to equality and fairness; religion has its own guide focused on superior authority which pays little heed to the mythic virtues ordained by their distant ancestors.

Back on theme, the specialties of culture are supposed to change as situations change to maintain their role in culture. Even religion for the most part, as its own cultural specialty, changes along with the other specialties. The sum of each specialty’s behavior equals the sum of the entire culture. How does one sort out the role of myth?

A myth is something one believes in as an absolute value unaffected by any other knowledge, rule, or condition. Mariner has a story he tells frequently about the woman who, when roasting a ham always cut a sizable piece off the ham before roasting it. Her young daughter was watching one day and asked, “Why do you always cut off a piece of the ham?” “Oh, I don’t know,” the mother said, “It’s how your Grandma always does it.”
On a later occasion, both of them visited Grandma. “Grandma,” said the little girl, “Why do you always cut off a piece of ham when you roast it?” Grandma replied “The pot’s too small.”
Myths shattered while you wait…

This cute story about a clean and simple myth held by the mother is useful for realizing how myths evolve over a long period of time (many modern religious stories took thousands of years to become mythic). It also is useful to highlight how dreaded scientific fact can raise havoc with a myth’s standing. Once new information reveals a fact that is subject to interpretation, the myth possibly may lose significant value.

Myths are not habits. Myths are representations of deep rooted values that guide one’s existence. A myth answers questions so ethereal that it is impossible to know self-worth without it. Why do we exist? The dominant reason in most religions is that we are here to make our reality better; we are here to make it better through intense commitment and respect for all living things. At some point, emotion becomes a bridge through art, service, and compliance. If an individual relates to the myth strongly enough, the individual is said to have faith.

Myths can be self-assumed. In the movie Fences, Actor Denzel Washington plays a poor African American (Troy) who had a severely damaged childhood. He finally leaves his abusive home at fourteen, later committing a murder and doing prison time. Upon release, Troy determines to have a ‘normal’ life and live successfully. Being damaged by his early experiences, he adopts an emotionally deficient belief that with a few rules focused on simple, superficial obligations he will be normal: always be employed, always keep food on the table and always provide cash to his wife and a roof over the family. This is an intense myth with no room for emotional reasoning. It is a myth of his own creation: it can never change, no new experience will ever change it, and if he violates it, he will turn into an absolute failure unacceptable to himself. The myth is the best he can muster to maintain personal worth.

Shoring up belief in self makes it a myth. Absolute belief makes it a myth. Troy’s unflinching adherence makes it a myth. Withstanding reality makes it a myth.

What can be learned through the mother and Troy is that the vehicle through which the mythic value is conveyed, be it a pot and a ham, or a series of acts in life, the myth need not be scientifically provable. Myths are the seeds of faith that deliver us from being a raccoon. Being a creature sensitive to esoteric values and the ability to have extensive communication and affiliation with others requires humans to know “what is the right thing to do.”

The short version of this post is to establish a set of myths that give direction to the big questions in one’s life: Why is – birth, death, love, companionship, responsibility to others including the Earth’s habitat for life itself. What does it all mean? How does one live in compliance?

Start your search with the myths behind religious parts of culture but don’t be afraid to construct your own. Mariner senses, for example, that the Marine Memorial raising the flag over Iwo Jima and the story of sacrifice in that battle has been accruing mythic value representing loyalty and commitment to the USA.

The mariner always has felt that science does an injustice to mythology when it weakens the scientific reality but does not pay homage to the true reality supported by the myth.

Ancient Mariner

The Steamroller of Culture

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On the Live Science website this week are a number of news items about the nativity in the Christmas Story.[1] The findings depict accurately the story of the nativity but are 3000 years older. It is no wonder that faith often rejects science. On the one hand, faith accepts wisdom in any form as valid and eternal. On the other hand, science depends entirely upon facts and logical assumptions based largely on facts. Over the decades, mariner has found this confrontation to be the most complex and convoluted relationship – that is of dependence on faithful beliefs in good, life-saving theological and behavioral ideas versus the forever emerging accumulation of facts, discoveries, and the pressure of changing cultures.

What is good? What is divine? What is the behavior that will save humanity? The answers to these kinds of questions require a mythic premise – one that is not influenced by human history, one that is valid beyond human behavior and abuse. This is a good way in which to secure our religious ritual; it is beyond the reach of daily life and is based on heroic goodness.

Alas, it seems science is dedicated to disassembling myths. Still, humans are created to be sensitive to forces beyond human achievement. Since the earliest times 12,000 years ago there is evidence that H. sapiens has incorporated the powers of God as part of the management of life. If one could take a snapshot every 1000 years to assess the role of God, one will find remarkable modifications in who God is and how God contributes to human quality.

God must do some fancy dancing to keep up with the latest in cultural changes. Not only does science keep changing the rules, humans keep reinventing the way humans interact and find meaning in life. Whoever thought God would have to deal with memes? How will God find a path through the electronic games, devices and preoccupation with capitalism? How will God reintroduce for the umpth time that love and respect, not possessions, is the core value to happiness and sublime life?

We know science has no interest in inculcating spiritual value; that is not its job. But given the results of science – certainly knowledge is beneficial – how do we construct a new myth that is meaningful today? How do we return divine essence to the forefront of humanity’s values?

There are fragile signs. It is a topic of conversation that we have lost, among ourselves, the soul and spirit that is required to manage our political and economic life. There are growing concerns about matters beyond our own comfort and pocketbook: the environment of an entire planet is beginning to fail. There are conversations about how to elevate this issue to daily levels of awareness in our destructive oil economy. There are so many humans on this planet that the basics of why we have an economy must change dramatically.

Unfortunately, you and I are in the generation of basic labor and sacrifice. It is we who must pull hard on the reins of a diverse and self-indulgent world. It is we who will pay the price of change in our comfort, our faith and our pocketbook. Our job is to stop further degradation for we are approaching something akin to Armageddon (largely a metaphor but nevertheless inevitable).

It has become your turn to step up and take charge.

Ancient Mariner

[1] See http://www.livescience.com/57311-5000-year-old-nativity-scene-found.html