THIS I BELIEVE, CLASSICAL*
Richard Allen Hart, PhD 6 Dec 1930—(12 Jan 2024)
Who, what, where is God? Our current situation is the result of four stages: the Creation, the single cell, biological evolution, and cultural evolution. It is an ever-changing mix of all four.
Evolution is not continuing as it always has. With short term reserves (glucose and fat, cash and savings, education and research), optimize one action until the environment is exhausted.
Preparing for the future is more important than recreating the past. For the first time in a history of over 4 billion years life is making conscious predictions and is directing evolution. .
The potential for life is being found throughout the universe. The basic stuff making up genes is now found to be self-assembling. With a large enough brain mass, consciousness appears.
Brains produce and sort spontaneous ideas. Creative brains ask questions. Questions demand answers: real and imaginary. Love (caring) and charity. God and hope. Friends and enemies.
The environment allows and limits biological (material) and political (immaterial) cycles. The “educated” can entertain an idea without needing to own it and needing to destroy all others (the natural brute-force animal-level of thinking and acting that life is now surpassing).
What is appropriate changes with time. This applies to English moths and to cultural customs. The dark moths hiding on tree bark became lighter when burning coal was banned in England.
The 2,000-year-old core teachings of Jesus remain as cultural customs adjust to industrial and political developments. They provide a common need including hope.
Grandma anticipated living with Jesus as she now does. The changes from small country to mega-churches fascinated her. The Cooperative Baptist splitting from the Southern Baptist and back distressed her. Important things are strongly tied to our childhood and our schooling.
Humans act on their beliefs. Each task and level of organization requires its own application of basic rules in three flavors: Guess (immediate), believe (individual), and know (factual).
Beliefs are polarized toward the past (religions and politics), knowing the facts, toward the future. The “educated” see little conflict in new revelations of the continuing creation. Strongly held beliefs are real to the believer. This is a continuous source of highly resistant conflict.
The history of human nature shows that church and state can be independent or any combination. Their environments may serve different purposes best when separated. Both require well “educated”, active, learners to balance highly trained and skilled participants.
A belief in God and a belief in the United States of America Constitution are both made of the same stuff that is of little consequence until acted upon; made real. Paul placed mankind on a positive path acceptable to a patient God. The Constitution and Bible place us above animals. The time has come to act that way or suffer greatly.
[Several links and comments are still to be added when I am able.]
*Addendum
Having worked two months on "the best" videos to ground this one page essay in reality I have convinced myself it is an endless task. Each month a new unexpected event occurs that challenges rationalizations based on what is known at the time. Giant viruses, and searching gene data banks that has now uncovered yet another smaller "life" particle, may help understand the origin of life and help engineer a model of a natural living cell. A cold hard engineered cell may be resistant to the mutations that both plaque and make possible the history of life. Humans that live like animals die like animals. Believers may be forgotten but their faith lives on for better or worse in their decedents.
So today, 24 Feb 2024, I am sorting what I have in hand to post on the Internet. I need the comments as I can no longer remember what is in each citation. Out of sight, out of mind. Browse the find column on the right side of videos for a wealth of related insights.
This page is parked on this old web site as I still know how to do this. It is safe from my shaky fingers as I explore a new "nano" world. God in the bio-nano-world is a far more wondrous concept than ever imagined in the past 4,000 years. We can now "see" everything.
I learn as I write and then search for verification. I see other views and related items that hinder, confuse, or even block communication. See Wiktionary.
This page is a condensation of three one-page attempts to explain the world I have lived in the past 93 years. At times it becomes key words that unfold into endless stories when searched after logging into Wikipedia rather than Googling Google Wikipedia.
The nano-world is young and growing. A lot has changed since I last taught clasical genetics 30 years ago: Automated equipment to duplicate and sequence genes. Finding genes shared by every living organism and saved functionally and non-functionally in human chromosomes. Engineering better and even new genes which renews the discussion of god and ethics.
The nano-world is so vast that a singe research or manufacturing area can encompass a dozen disciplines and specialties. This expands the need for new tool makers and new tool users to make new fortunes and new discoveries.
Evolution with Hypertext
I have limited serious attempts to communicate with others to one page. It all started with a two-year leave with the US EPA, Denver, CO, 1978-1980. If a topic goes longer than that you either do not understand what you are doing or you're lying, in research and government work.
Several times, in the past dozen years, I have started to write something about the world that I have lived in. Each time my world has expanded by the time I finished the paper. This time a single page can be made as meaningful as a reader wishes when I use hypertext links to automated updates.
