Can Science and Religion be partners in human exploration?

Rupert Sheldrake on YouTube

Author and Biologist Dr. Rupert Sheldrake elaborates on the antagonistic relationship between science and religion. Dr. Sheldrake argues that science, like fundamentalistic religion, has been taken captive by a materialistic dogmatic view of nature and that a new creative, cooperative paradigm is needed for science and religion to evolve our understanding of consciousness and the cosmos.

Three reasons why the BC government must stop Site C

from Andrew Weaver:


The social and environmental impacts will be devastating.

Because of the massive scale of other resource development in northeast BC, including mining, logging and oil and gas development, the Peace River Valley is one of the few remaining places in the region where Indigenous peoples can still practice their cultures and traditions. Flooding the Peace River Valley will have a devastating impact on First Nations hunting, fishing and the gathering of berries and plant medicines. These are activities that are central to Indigenous identity and which continue to play a crucial role in the health and sustenance of Dunne-Zaa and Cree families in northeast BC. The government-appointed environmental impact assessment concluded that the impacts would be severe, permanent and irreversible. This is in addition to the destruction of grave and numerous cultural sites dating back hundreds and thousands of years, as well as the loss of small farms that have been maintained for generations.


There’s no justification for this needless destruction.
The province needs to invest in the long term needs of the people of northeast BC where social services and infrastructure have been neglected for too long. The SIte C dam is simply not the way to do it. On November 1, a government-appointed economic review concluded that even with the money already spent on Site C, continued construction offers little or no financial benefit to the province when compared with other, less destructive alternatives. Furthermore, in some scenarios, halting Site C could actually mean a considerable saving for the province, freeing up potential for more sustain investments in the province's future. Either way, it's clear that the destruction of Indigenous land and livelihoods is unnecessary and that the province could benefit Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike through a new strategy for energy conservation and development.

Completing the Site C dam would be a blow to reconciliation with First Nations.

There’s good reason why international human rights standards, including the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, require the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples on serious decisions such as resource development on their territories. History tells us that if Indigenous peoples don’t have a real seat at the table, their rights will be swept aside. This is exactly what happened with the approval of the Site C dam. The federal and provincial governments have acknowledged that they never even considered whether the dam was compatible with their Treaty obligations, despite the many serious concerns expressed by Treaty 8 First Nations. Approval of the project under these circumstances was unjust. Allowing the decision to stand would be a further injustice. In contrast, stopping Site C is an important opportunity to send a message to all British Columbians and all Canadians that the lives, cultures and economies of First Nations matter.

Advent Calendar 2017

I am working on this year's advent calendar, starting December 1st, like last year's but with new readings and inspirations. Some posts from last year will be used again, but mostly I will be scouring the universe for new ideas and quotes.

Students of Machiavelli have had more air time than they deserve, and December is a good month to get re-acquainted with our hopes and support for humanity. 

It has been my experience that most people like to help others, love to give gifts and find it painful to witness others in distress. Thank you for being one of them.

Humanity, Wealth and Social Justice

In 2017, 112 were killed and 531 wounded in mass shootings in America, according to a chart published by Mother Jones and Times Magazine. (Deadliest Mass Shooting US History). The chart covers 35 years and in 1982 only 8 were killed and 3 wounded. 

Why is it important to record this? Probably because the NRA and US Government refuse to ban guns no matter how many news headlines make us feel unsafe. And the proliferation of social media where anyone with a connection to internet can broadcast their favourite theories - like this one, needs some facts for the balance.

Also because numbers seem to have authority over general perceptions.

But what does it mean for the future of our species? 

We are not about to become extinct - there are 7.6 billion of us on this planet. I can imagine (unkindly) some folks in their well funded think tanks congratulating the murderers for killing off some of the population without them having to pay for it. The victims of mass killing are usually poor and unknown. Not that war killed off rich white men - the front lines were filled with working men and boys. Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Japan, Europe - the dead were mostly from the unknown mass.

And I haven't even mentioned the deaths from drug addiction, alcohol, cancer victims, diabetics, and those killed on the job.

Looking at it this way you can see why there might be a resistance to medicare for everyone, or safe work site legislation, or welfare, or investigations into food safety, or affordable homes.  You can see how effective capitalism has become in convincing the masses that we get what we deserve, and how easy it is to justify anyone's worth through economics.

Our political and social habits that value some for what they own or what they do has fallen to discredit humanity by broadcasting articles that show us in madness and despair, along with entertainment glorifying infantile rage, cruelty and violence. It's all a steady diet of blood and guts on screens and a mindless quest for getting to the top and shaming those that fail.

This is not a meritocracy or a democracy, and although many of us in the West have it much better than our ancestors did - every one  must ask what we are winning and losing and who is responsible for making the world better, if not all of us.

Remembrance Day

Is it a lie to think young boys

sent to the front lines

were willing to sacrifice

their un-lived lives to win

something they didn’t plan?

Was it assumed for them?

Barked out by the pecking order

with the rules. No options

once you joined the army.

You were a prop for the gun

and you couldn’t even choose

where or when to shit.

You who just learned how to shave

started out honourable

and found comradery among the others

who feared the white feather

from the village wives.

If being a man means living up

to others’ expectations

with your young scrubbed face

your limbs looking for love

your mind questioning

the fraction of a unit

you have become

for some other purpose

never revealed to you

- does it mean you proved it?

I want you to know

even though it’s too late

that I love you, and

your virgin heart.

Becoming Unstoppable - the story

"They set up think tanks, sponsored and captured academic departments, brought journalists and editors into their meetings, and managed to insert advisers into key political departments. They knew that, when Keynesian social democracy was broadly accepted by parties across the political spectrum, that they had no chance of immediate success. But they were patient. Across the course of 30 years, they built their networks, refined their arguments, and brought more and more people into their orbit. They knew that when an economic or political crisis came along, they would be ready to go. As Milton Friedman remarked, “when the time came that you had to change … there was an alternative ready there to be picked up”. George Monbiot.

"They" in the paragraph above were the architects of neoliberalism - rich influential families and corporations who sought to dominate the world. Perhaps they were afraid that our high standards of living, our science and our education would make ruling classes redundant. Perhaps they were afraid that education would make us wise to manipulation.

So television quickly switched from a means of educating the masses to a platform for propaganda, to instil fear and dissatisfaction. A meta-narrative of the hero defending us from "nefarious forces working against the interests of humanity" that is played over and over again with different places and names.

But how can order be restored if our own natures have been replaced with symbols and toys?

We consume everything from new ideas about diet, health, happiness and home - what it is and what it "should be".

Over and over we are being told what is good for us, what we must keep re-learning - because we are not capable of knowing ourselves.

We learned to survive and thrive long before media and technology.

"We have an inherent tendency to look out for danger. The violent and destructive behaviour of the few is more salient in our minds than the altruistic and cooperative behaviour of the many."

All of nature including humanity is crying out for our attention. We could turn the TV off and begin to trust our own curiosity.

Pornography and Power

When I went to Secondary school in the UK, there was an incident  that remains vivid in my mind.  A popular boy in our class rummaged through the bag of a girl and found a sanitary napkin. He hoisted it up as a prize and tossed to another boy who tossed it to another.  It went around the classroom like this for a minute or two.  The girl who owned it was red with embarrassment. It was as though she was to blame for this.  She desperately tried to reach it, to snatch it from the laughing boys making sport of her menstrual cycle.

This event symbolizes so much about the values of patriarchy - values that have taken fifty years for me to understand.

The first is to blame the victim.  At the time it was clear to me that the embarrassment was not hers to own - it was the boys who shamefully took something from her and threw it around.

In a society where males win medals for killing more children than women can give birth to, life is merely a resource. Giving birth, menstruating, rape, assault, domestic abuse are symbols of male dominance. Hunger, pain, reflection or feelings do not count in patriarchal society. It is the record of crusading warriors and their killing that counts, that defines history and the future.

The world of family, love, nurture, comfort and compassion belongs only to the reality of the conquered and the prey.

This sounds really extreme and men who love and care for others will not agree with this. 

So what is it about the power that drives civilization, the laws and the institutions we rely on to survive that makes our lived experiences irrelevant?  What is it about this time where patriarchy stumbles into mindless brutality, that makes it so difficult to be honest about those feelings we suppress? What is it about victims of bullying and rape that they must be publicly shamed for what others do to them? How have we allowed justice and morality to be so diluted that arguments become contests between two sides fighting to win the argument without fixing the problem?

Zosia Bielski writes that we need "Concrete measures for enacting cultural and institutional change – conversations more complicated than hashtagged confessions. From the ground up, we need to start with schools imparting deeper knowledge to young minds about consent, empathy, entitlement, bodily autonomy and bystander behaviour."  We Owe Sexual Abuse Survivors More Than Me Too. Globe and Mail Opinion, October 17, 2017.