Timothy Wilken, MD
writes: I have been doing a lot of reading and thinking about God
recently. What is the role of God in Humanity’s future?

It would seem
that any serious inquiry into that question must start with a
definition of God. …

Humanity has used the term God to represent
‘that’ in universe that is larger than ourselves. We have used the term
God to represent ‘that’ which is the source of Universe — ‘that’ which
is the source of Heaven and Earth — ‘that’ which is the source of Life
and Humanity. I make no argument against the existence of God. I am in
full belief that there exists ‘that’ in universe that is larger than
ourselves. I am in full belief that there is a ‘source’. And I also
call that source God.

Let us agree then that the source of Universe —
the source of Heaven and Earth — the source of Life and Humanity — is
God.

This agreement does not require that we describe God in anyway.

This definition seems
quite positive to me. Life’s power is to create syntropy. This ability
to ever increase order, organization, pattern, and form is a defining
characteristic of life. Life evolves towards ever-increasing syntropy —
ever increasing order — ever increasing organization, form, pattern,
and heterogeneity. …

And so perhaps God is that which pulls us
towards ONENESS–that which pulls us to be the best we can be. This
seems an appropriate concept of God for a Future Positive. (06/03/08)
more…

James Howard Kunstler writes: This meme, which has been the mantra among supposed political
“progressives” for years now, was reignited over the weekend with the
publication of a memoir by former Bush press secretary Scott McLellan
claiming that President Bush and his cronies wove a spell of lies to
get a war in Iraq underway. This is the narrative that Americans tell
themselves to prove that, if it weren’t for bad leaders, we would be a
morally upright nation.

I don’t think so. And, remember, I
write the following as a registered Democrat (and an Obama voter in my
primary state). Warning: many readers are not going to like this.

The chanters of this mantra seem to forget what the 9/11/01 attack on US targets represented:
a grievous act which in any other moment of history and any other place
on earth would have been construed as an act of war. Roughly three
thousand people were killed, many choosing to jump out the windows of
skyscrapers to avoid roasting to death.

Setting aside the
crank theories (which I’ve always regarded as utter paranoid nonsense)
that the attacks were somehow orchestrated by the US government itself,
it became clear quickly that the nineteen airplane hijackers were Arab
nationals, mostly from Saudi Arabia. It also became clear that their
acts were not directly sponsored by any legitimate Arab government, but
rather by a trans-national Islamic extremist network. So the question
for the US, after the morning of 9/11/01, was: what to do about this act?

Well, the first response, weeks later, was a US attack on the
supposed headquarters of the the trans-national Islamic extremist
network (which came to be known as al Qaeda, “The base”) in
Afghanistan. The rather robust campaign necessitated the occupation of
this threadbare nation, but it failed to accomplish its chief aim,
which was to capture the charismatic leader and financial sponsor of
the 9/11 attack, the Saudi Arabian rogue millionaire fanatic Osama bin
Laden. It did accomplish its other chief aim: to evict the extremist
Taliban government from control of the capital, Kabul. (06/02/08)
more…