Education, Science, and Religion.

 

Education, Science, and Religion.

When I was little and on the farm, I saw more animals than people. Animals lived life reacting to what the world did with them. Farm animals waited for humans to decide their fate and wild animals did some things instinctively to help themselves. It was in Israel and we had lots of sheep. Domestic sheep seemed to have very little initiative of their own. Years later I learned the Bible and in it, there was talk about lambs or “Peter, feed my sheep.” I realized that there are two kinds of people, shepherds, and sheep. Strangely, the shepherds are not always about taking care of the sheep. Many of them are living to compete with each other and only care about the sheep as a commodity.

The humans, who are sheep, learned over a long time to fend for themselves to some degree. First, it was by developing religions that competed against each other, and lately by using science, which is the learning of how the world works. In the last five hundred years or so, our present civilization decreased its interest in religions and reinvested it in science. Sadly, the vast knowledge of spirituality was lumped into one category and found itself competing against science. People either believed in religion, even the parts that made no sense to many, or science that now often is divided against itself, as religions used to be, and still are.

Religion and science became tools in the hands of the competing shepherds and both strove to keep the sheep busy working to stay alive, with no time or means to contemplate the big picture. However, necessity and increasing population brought some great advancement to the general population, the sheep. With that came easier life, to some, and exploitation of resources that should belong to all future generations. The competing shepherds or leaders only care about winning the game they are playing now. At the same time, the common people, now exposed to science, began to assess the ongoing situation and do what only religions used to do, considering where all this is leading us. Will we even have a future in the world?

Learned people banded together and began questioning what the leaders were doing. The religions for different reasons also entered the fray. Some wished to follow the examples told in the ancient books literally, while others joined science to preserve a future for humanity. They call it stewardship of God’s gift, the world.

Science, now treated as a new religion, became the target for the leaders of some industries and big businesses. They sought to devalue its influence upon the common people. Around 1995, a new theory was popularized, advocating living in one’s own reality. Around the year 2000, we saw people denying the thing we call reality and believing something else. First, a few boys believed they were girls and vice versa, (without biological justification) creating uproar and it expanded. Fake News became a legitimate industry propelling people to fame.

It pitted science against Alternate Reality. What used to be fiction became “other people’s reality.” The “truth” became an option resting on “beliefs.” Creationism, Intelligent design, Anti-vaccination, Holocaust revisionism, Police conspiracy, Alternative medicine, No Global Warming, Flat Earth movement, and thousands of other ideas became Skeptical Movements, according to Michael Shermer author of Heaven on Earth.

Margaret Atwood tells about a child that had a monster under the bed. Nothing could convince him otherwise. She told him that if you place a cabbage at exactly this spot, the monster can’t come out. He slept wonderfully.

Between March and September in 2020, 200,000 Americans died from COVID-19 and people were not vaccinating. In Canada, there was a shortage of vaccines, so a much higher rate accepted the vaccine, saving countless lives.

 Until a short time ago, people refused to believe that there is Global Warming especially here where we sell fossil fuels. When we saw the outcome and evidence, North Americans pretended that there is nothing we can do, therefore can’t change. Now when we realize the cost of not acting, and we begin to see that money can be made on changing to clean energy, options are changing.

We are left with a new thriving industry that makes people popular by producing and selling fake news and alternate realities. Reality shows make large profits and politicians win elections by fighting against science. Newspeople ride the wave by giving the imagined realities, what they call, equal time. Logic is no longer a decisive force, but another option. The scientists that we educate and employ must waste time arguing against irrational forces, while lives and property are being destroyed.

Any of us can get a thriving platform by selling falsehoods on Social Media. If the lie we tell is what people who hide from the truth want to hear, it goes viral. Yet, the universe is going as it should. Stars follow their paths, the weather follows atmospheric conditions, viruses mutate and evolve to increase their chance of survival, and the sheep….graze and give wool, meat, and milk. The shepherds only care about the growth of their business. The few who care are drowned in the crowd of those who don’t.

As a child, I watched the sheep milling around, getting organized by a dog, and heading to the mountain to graze. At night, they came home. They never questioned the shepherd. People study the world through science and religion, attempting to improve their situation. The leaders sometimes want to help and improve, or only want to compete with other leaders. At this point, there is only one option left. Let nature reduce the herd or take control, use knowledge, and direct action in the right way.

The right way is to care for all sheep and use their united power to gain a future. We took the knowledge and we have no choice but to use it.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

Canada at war, 2021.

 

Canada at war, 2021.

My mom used to tell a story about a soul that found itself in the afterlife with everything turning to gold. It may have been an opera in Europe. It occurred to me that someone may write about people around us being condemned to exist in a Hell where everything turned into black gold or bitumen. Art influences people.

There is a pandemic going on, economic disaster looming because of supply chain issues, drought affecting food supplies, racial problems, migrant crisis, democracy failing in neighbouring countries, and now floods and fires right next to us. Hospitals full, shortage of homes, food banks stretched to limits, labour shortage, medical professionals leaving, and above all, people fighting each other over politics or how to combat the disasters. I remember myself as a child saying, mom, why is God letting bad things happen? She answered, He is not doing it; we are.

Canada was at war just a few years ago against Afghanistan on the other side of the planet. 40,000 Canadian troops were deployed, 159 died and over two billion dollars were used up. This morning I heard on the news that Canadian armed forces are being deployed in BC and saw videos of soldiers, planes, and helicopters. Not far from here, there is devastation greater than what many wars cause. Fires caused by a Heat Dome and soon after floods by an Atmospheric River, destroyed many Canadian lives. Meteorologists agree that the primary cause is global warming. The manufactured news financed by my taxes and fossil fuel industries is working overtime to dispute. We have been broadsided, and the crew is arguing if there really is a problem.

While we focused on the news from the destroyed Fraser Valley, some black-clad military force attacked the Wet’suwet’en first nation in northern BC. The gas pipeline company made a deal, ignoring the hereditary chiefs government of the nation that owns the land. They installed another government and told the nation to be happy with some jobs.

From space, you can see a blue planet that is perfect for life as we know it. On the dark side, you see lights, mostly where there is a concentrated wealthy human population. The world of humans was all dark half a century ago. Now humans harnessed sun energy stored in the ground and made life easier for the lucky few and the others wish to share in the bounty. If they all do without changing the source, they will damage the host and the game will be over. Nature is testing us.

The test is serious and failing is an option we shouldn’t even consider. It could easily become the final test. Many of us have been enjoying the good times and not doing our homework. Some are panicking while others are ignoring the writing on the wall, letting someone else handle the problems if they will. The sad reality is that we already used up the time we had to study for the test. We are facing many tests. We slept in and the car broke down. Thankfully, humans don’t normally break down in times of despair, instead, we strengthen our resolve.

I dug up an old documentary by the National Film Board of Canada.

“OUTBREAK: Anatomy of the 1885 Montreal Smallpox Epidemic”

It showed the same situation as now. People were dying, but a stubborn minority was going wild in an attempt to stop the vaccinations. Some places instituted mandatory vaccinations but a lot of damage was done. The way that pandemics work is spreading through the path of least resistance. It looks like people are getting the upper hand until close to the end when large numbers are infected spreading it out of control. At that point, it’s too late.

I tested the theory (not really) that our rights are being taken away. I tried to fly to another country. No, they will not allow me without my shots. Well, I tried a smaller test. I went to a restaurant with no pants on. They stopped me even as I was complaining about my constitutional rights. I showed them a study confirming that pants can restrict my ability to have children, and they laughed at me. How insulting. Now I realized people are more concerned with potential death than my constitutional rights or freedoms and gave up.

Next, I took aim at the supply chain problems. It must be the Lefties demanding too much pay. A kind old economist told me to look again. It is a problem with capitalism trying to be too efficient; he said. We used to store goods for sale until it was needed. Now we order what is presold and expect it to be there when we need it. Any disruption stops the flow. We have such disruption with labour he said. As long as we kept unemployment at about 5% we could always hire some desperate unemployed people. Now when we were forced to pay people to stay home or face massive bills for health care, while we also couldn’t find proper care for children, we lost that edge. Austerity and efficiency provide very little flexibility. We went overboard; I concluded.

The world is a mess, so I look again at The Pass, where I live. It was named paradise by a wise woman who now passed away. Here live older people and the average income is low. I don’t see poverty, nor great wealth. There are no signs of war. We have fewer cases of the pandemic than most places. People express their differences while helping each other regardless of opinions.

Paradise is where people share, help each other, tolerate differences, and we have it here in a mountain pass. No one is filthy rich, and no one is left behind. The local government has honour and traffic stops in the middle of the street to let you cross. I found Heaven without dying. Thank you, great creator.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

The Lord hears the cry of the poor.

 

The Lord hears the cry of the poor.

I think it was 1955. We were sitting around the kitchen table on the farm with light from the kerosene lamp. There was also a candle with a lot of wax drips around it that we could take to the bathroom. I was little playing with a little wooden truck and my parents were playing cards. It was quiet, aside from some horse noise from the barn. No electricity, telephone or a car. All that we had came from the little store in the town about a mile away. I could hear the rain on the roof and window.

This same scenario was repeated all over the world, including rural Alberta. Most people lived like that. I had been to the city a few times and knew that at night there were lights in the windows, cars in the streets, and people walking with umbrellas. For us, there was a hand-cranked World War II flashlight that I couldn’t operate yet. The stars on a clear night were outstanding. Mostly we lived as people did for thousands of years, but there was a bus twice a day and sometimes we heard a prop airplane and used to run out to see it. People read books and the occasional newspaper when it was available. Everybody did some crafts. I was wearing socks that mom knitted. Our energy footprint was tiny.

Now more than half a century passed, and the world changed a lot. Many people still use candles and lamps but we are playing with new toys. Nomads in tents have cell phones. Two of us, my wife and I, have seven computer-like devices, two vehicles and God only knows how many lightbulbs. Hardly anyone makes things by hand. I live modestly yet I possess more things than a whole town used to. Most of the “things” are made somewhere else in the world. If I had to pay someone here to make them, it would bankrupt me many times over. Mom invested a week to make my socks and now I am wearing socks I bought for a couple of bucks at a two-for-one sale. In 1955, the world had less than half the people that we have now.

The US and Canada industrialized years ago and people moved to the cities to work in “jobs” while farms and small businesses disappeared. When I entered the market, there was still a need for skilled workers, but the jobs were slowly broken into components requiring less skill. Some thirty years or so ago, a transformation occurred. It became more efficient to move our jobs to less developed countries and transport finished goods back. The less developed countries took advantage of the situation and here workers were left with less ability to make a good living.  

Soon our tradespeople no longer could make things, they mostly replaced components made in China. The high skilled people no longer could apply their skills without machines made somewhere else, and we were competing with people living in poverty in faraway lands. We elected leaders who promised more “efficiency,” and at the same time more well-paying jobs. While they flooded the market with cheaply made goods, there was no room or need for skilled highly pay workers. Only one solution remained. “Create jobs.”

How can you do that? Our automated industries hardly need most of our workers. Cheap workers for service industries are imported and our folks don’t do cheap jobs, but the economy needs their buying power to continue working. Most created jobs depend on revenues from dwindling or dangerous exploitation of natural resources or on government injection of money. We could solve the problem, but it would require withdrawing from addictions we formed. Addictions to using what we can no longer produce and selling raw materials or stored energy that we dig up.

Our other addiction is our fanatical devotion to the few amongst us who “made it”. We look at them, taking the meat and fat from our economy, by tax manipulation, admiring them, and dreaming that someday we will be them. They enjoy our admiration and risk our species’ survival to get more.

When all the manufacturing jobs were exported, the related pollution went with it. Now it gives the corporations an excuse not to curtail pollution. China and India are blamed. Fantastic schemes are named saving graces. The future generations will filter carbon out of the Earth’s atmosphere. Other possibilities are, increased production of pollutants will enable us to afford cleaning up the planet. Another, we will “promise” the poorest nations money in carbon credits for their rescue and let them burn or drown. We will promise them vaccines against a pandemic also in the same breath.

The new situation, where the world is changing thanks to the effects of pollution is creating tension at the borders. There are additional factors that make some parts of the world uninhabitable and it’s growing. People who are hardly equipped to deal with change are squeezed, often losing the traditional farms in areas that no longer can provide the necessities of life. We left them with one option, to migrate to new areas, including the more prosperous West. This creates fights and armed conflicts. Those fortunate to exist where conditions are somewhat better rise to defend their way of living. We spent more money on defending borders than on improving the situation.

Solutions are developing like Mycelium (mushroom roots) to replace plastics Perovskite (sand) Solar Cells to make electricity from windows, but we do not divert the money that keeps polluting industries to make them viable. Existing industries fight back.

I listen to my favourite hymn; The Lord Hears the Cry of the Poor, Psalms 34, and wonder. Where will He take it from here? We can’t go back to 1955. Is the Lord going to abandon us and start working on a new race that will do better than us?

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

Prophets and doomsayers.

 

Prophets and doomsayers.

In the bible, or more accurately the Old Testament, there are people called prophets. When I was a child in Israel, school trips often took us to places associated with prophets. We were used to the prophets of old being talked about as historical figures. Seeing the locations made us believe strongly that they existed and acted as they were portrayed in the scriptures. Although prophets performed several important roles, we children considered them fortune-tellers. Often they would warn kings that if some behaviours and practices didn’t change, there would be hell to pay. If the scriptures are accurate, it happened.

When I was going to university, pre-computer days, more than a few professors touched on the issue of global warming. At the time, it was so far away that we didn’t become alarmed. We knew that someday the sun will burn out, and it didn’t scare us. The idea that it will force our society to move away from burning things seemed ridiculous. Computers in our pockets were just as unbelievable. It was all Science Fiction. The invention of fire was still considered the greatest human achievement ever.

As we were discovering more oil and coal, people started debating if using natural gas wasn’t a better option. I invested in a propane vehicle and saved some money. When a few people raised the alarm, lobbyists paid by energy companies shut them down. Environmentalists said that the atmosphere is not our big toilet and oil companies answered that the world is so big that we will not see a change in our lifetime. We believed the side that fed us. I encountered many people who blame environmentalists for the loss of good jobs. I also know people who made a career in renewables.

Signs of global warming showed up and created interest and fear, especially amongst the youth and women. Women who bear children and often sacrifice themselves for future generations are more interested in forming a safe future. Fighting bravely against all odds, environmental movements gained momentum. Governments addicted to dirty energy profits pretended to be sympathetic. The UN started COPS, Climate Change Conference Of Parties. It is a big conference in which high ideals are discussed and sometimes little bits of action are taken. The underlying goal is to pacify environmental concerns while keeping the economic goals fuelled.

Generally, those who profit from dirty energy try every possible trick to prolong its use, leaving the people after us to solve the problems. Most commonly, they say that we are not ready for a change. Of course, if they took the resources from carbon energy development and applied them to clean energy, the problem would have been history. Building clean energy would provide more jobs than oil does. Research, engineering, construction, financing, all provide work. It would cause an unwanted wealth transfer that only poor people support. That is two-thirds of the human population. The silent majority has much less of a voice. India and China are saying, let us come up to your level of development and we will join you. The thin layer of air around the earth doesn’t get to vote, and the climate is noticeably changing.

Some years ago, I was reading in the Old Testament the words of some prophet. I can’t remember who. It said that at the end of days, men will abdicate their leadership responsibilities and women and children will attempt to take over. I look at COP 26 in Glasgow taking place these last two weeks. Some truths are obvious.

The poor nations most affected by global climate are not there. They don’t have COVID vaccines and are not permitted admission. Rich nations like Canada fill up the seats. Women who lately are making gains in leading countries are underrepresented. Youths who are hand chosen are not in decision-making positions. Most of them, many thousands, are outside demonstrating. Those who can make a difference, like our Prime Minister, are men wearing expensive blue suits and they control the money. I should rephrase, they promise money. The checks are not in the mail.

It seems as if COP is a forum for the pretenders. They promote the idea that they know that human civilization is in danger, but unfortunately, there is not much we can do about it, or if we do, it will take a long time. Yet, every minute that passes by is a moment closer to our doom. It is the little time that we have left to take action. It is the time that we are partying on the Titanic as it heads towards the iceberg. Their orchestra will keep playing as the ship goes down under the icy water.

In the Bible, the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah predicted the destruction of Israel and Judea. Isaiah accurately saw the end of Babylon. Others foresaw great powers turn to dust. The sad journey of the Jewish people was outlined and their return to the land of their origin was told before it materialized. Now people are expecting the second coming. It is related to the end of the world as we know it. Like the old prophesies, it offers options. Words of the Christ appear on a screen in my mind.

Mothers, don’t cry for me, cry for your children. Sorrow for women with children. Two brothers will sleep in the same bed, one will die and the other survive. Father against son and daughter against mother. There are scary revelations that I have not read in many years. Remembrance day is here and I remember scenes from movies about the great wars. If and when the temperature of the ocean rises and the water will flood the lowlands, it will be worse than what I can imagine. I see thousands of kids in Glasgow marching with banners, warning the world leaders, pleading for their future. The entire picture fills up with smoke from huge chimneys. A clock is ticking, showing that there is still little time. Money drifting in an empty street……………….

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.