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< Back Oh the Things that You’ll Think! David Cowles Oct 16, 2025 “Our graduation parties are well-intentioned, but they prepare our young adults for a world none of them will ever experience.” We imagine we are the captains of our own ship, authors of our fate, but in fact we are mostly just living out the collective lives of others . You rail against the menace of AI, but we’ve been relying on AI for at least the last 500 years. The rapid advancement of literacy, literature and ‘library science’ created a noosphere of information that is shared broadly by adults around the world. (And BTW you were right; it is dangerous!) And it’s not just literature, far from it! The past century has witnessed an explosion in information creation, distribution and storage technology. What began with ‘Gutenberg’ has crested with Tic Tok. As a result we are immersed in an information sea that is orders of magnitude denser than our great grandparents enjoyed. Once upon a time, school children would sit down to memorize a simple poem. Now we automatically ‘memorize’ jingles, slogans, lyrics, raps, riffs, and memes, not to mention the mountains of technical information we must ingest in order to function adequately in today’s techno-world. According to philosopher and linguist Jacques Derrida, only about 3% of the things we think are actually our own thoughts. Everything else is collective wisdom (or folly) mindlessly regurgitated. And he made that determination before the advent of personal computers, smart phones, the internet or the world wide web. I shudder to think what that number might be today. All of which makes me think, of course, of Dr. Seuss; who else? For decades we’ve been sending our young men and women off into the world to the rhymes and rhythms of Oh, the Places You’ll Go . It’s an anthem of optimism, individualism, and consumerism. Our graduation parties are well-intentioned, but they prepare our young adults for a world none of them will ever experience. So, we can be forgiven if we arrive at some milestone, e.g. retirement, and look back and wonder, “What happened? Where did it all go?” Mimicking the great Seuss, I have hazarded a bit of doggerel of my own that might better prepare our youth for the world we’re leaving them. Enjoy… Oh, the Things that You'll think! Commiserations, my friend, Today’s not your day! You speak others’ theses, Whatever you say! You have brains in your hat And books in your shoes, But your research will take you Wherever they choose. You see… You're NOT on your own. They’ll decide where you go, Because they are the ones who decide ‘what’s to know’ . You’ll hear new ideas. Think 'em over with care, But expect folks to say, “Do not choose to go there! With our brains in your head and our books at your feet, you're too smart to go down just any new street.” Aren’t you? You’ll need not find new ideas to explore, Be content, be yourself (an insufferable bore)! Of course things can happen and frequently do even to people not as brainy as you. And when things do happen, don't worry, don't stew. Just go right along, Soon they’ll happen to you ! And whatever you do, they’ll say, “You are the best!” But whatever you do, you'll be just like the rest. Except when you aren’t. Because, sometimes, you can't. I'm sorry to say so but, sadly, it's true: Bang-ups can happen even to you. You'll come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lightened. But mostly they’re dark. Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win? And IF you go in, should you turn left or right... Or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it's not, I'm afraid that you’ll find, for your mind-maker-upper to make up its mind. You can get so confused that you will race headed, I fear, toward that most useless place: The Waiting Place... ...for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting. NO! That's not for you! You have people to see You have errands to run. There is fun to be had And games to be won. And the magical things you can do with a ball will make you the winningest winner of all. Fame! You'll be famous as famous can be, with the whole wide world watching you win on TV. Except when they don't. Because, sometimes, you won't. I'm afraid at those times you'll play lonely games too Games you can't win' cause you play against you. But on you will go On and on you will hike. And will you succeed? You know, you just might! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) Kid, you’ll move mountains - Huge piles of sand That belong to the others - For whatever they’ve planned. So... be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea, Your mountain is waiting… Start chipping away! - With apologies to Dr. Seuss *** Image: Jan Steen, The Village School (c. 1670) Jan Steen’s lively scene shows a rustic classroom full of noisy children, distracted pupils, and an exasperated teacher—turning everyday education into a microcosm of human folly. Every figure wrestles with discipline and distraction, suggesting that learning itself is a moral and social balancing act. Through humor and chaos, Steen captures how early education becomes the training ground for future choices about work, behavior, and responsibility. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back The Education Mess in America David Cowles Oct 3, 2024 “The ability to acquire new skills, absorb new information, and solve new problems will be the mark of an educated person, not their SAT scores.” 50 years ago public education in America was in crisis. Functional literacy was on the decline, standardized test scores were falling, drop-out rates rising. Public support for public education was at a low point. Private alternatives were proliferating, and the homeschool movement was organizing. Then, in the 1990s, things started to turn around. As is often the case, one of the first shots fired came from Massachusetts . In 1993, the state implemented a rigorous standardized testing program, called MCAS, that allowed parents and educators to compare students, schools, and districts. Bulletin : A town’s MCAS scores became a factor in determining its real estate values! Parents were suddenly motivated…and kids weren’t far behind. Not unexpectedly, test scores skyrocketed! Public education was back. Not unexpectedly, special interest groups howled and 30 years later, the battle rages on. In November (2024), MA voters will be asked to eliminate MCAS as a requirement for high school graduation; the outcome is anyone’s guess. Then in 2020, along came COVID! Education everywhere suffered and MA MCAS scores were not exempt. But as the pandemic subsided, the cognoscente trusted that scores would rebound, that annual progress would revert to mean; many expected that pandemic losses would be erased over time. Very unexpectedly, that has not happened. MCAS scores have not made up for lost ground, they did not revert to mean, they did not even stabilize. They have continued to fall. This article is not just about education! It’s about how society responds to a collective crisis, how it analyzes problems and how it dreams up solutions. Educational achievement does not occur in a classroom or in a school or in a state. Educational achievement happens in each student, individually. Of course, it’s possible to measure an artificial cross section of those students’ skill levels, e.g. by subjecting them to population-wide standardized testing; but if you don’t like the results, these test scores tell you precisely nothing about how to make impactful changes. It's no wonder then that the MA educational establishment is proposing a revolutionary approach to the problem: “More of the same!” Just do more of what we’ve been doing; things will get better. Trust us! Is there a single person alive who thinks this makes sense? Didn’t someone tell me once that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results was the definition of insanity? And yet it’s the establishment’s consensus recommendation: longer school days, longer school years, shorter vacations, fewer electives, etc. More of the same is our knee-jerk reaction to every crisis. Education does not happen collectively; it happens individually. One student might benefit from a longer school day and her performance might improve; another student might become bored, depressed, apathetic and see his performance plummet. Most students would be unaffected – more miserable, but otherwise unaffected. Whatever the impact of this ‘carpet bombing’ strategy on standardized test scores, we would learn nothing about what’s happening at the level of the individual student. If our goal is to educate young people up to a reasonable percentage of their potential, we need to look at many variables more important than test scores: How has the educational process impacted the student’s self-confidence and self-worth? Their problem solving skills? Their native curiosity? Their creativity? Have they learned to work on their own and to work in teams? Have they learned to cope with stress? To overcome obstacles? Most importantly, have they ‘learned to learn’ and have they come to love learning for its own sake? Do I sound New Age? Maybe! I do know this: in the coming years, the ability to acquire new skills, absorb new information, and solve new problems will be the mark of an educated person, not their SAT scores - to like to learn and to be good at it, not an ivy-league diploma. Now, if you are among those folks willing to sacrifice academic achievement in the service of various social objectives, you have by now no doubt concluded that I am on your side. You could not be more wrong! I believe that the social aspects of learning will facilitate the academic and that academic achievement, the mastery of subjects and skills, will help us realize our social goals. They are not at cross purposes; they go hand-in-hand. None of this has much to do with population-wide test scores, but if a student focused strategy is working, its success will ultimately show up in those scores. But that is a knock-on benefit; it can’t be the primary objective! Kids are like quanta. Bombarding them with information ( aka energy) does nothing; but just the right amount of energy delivered at just the right wavelength can bring about a quantum leap! So where does this leave us in our current educational crisis? Rather than a more of the same one-size-fits-all approach, we need to recognize that education takes place one student at a time. A society is not educated; its members are! Educators need to develop a PEP – “Personal Education Plan” for each student. That plan must attend to all aspects of education for all students, but in different proportions for different students, depending on their needs at particular points in their educational careers. Now I understand that we are ‘resource constrained’; a 1 to 1 teacher-student ratio is not in the cards. But longer school hours won’t come without a cost either…and the return on such an investment will be nil (or net negative). Better to take whatever we’re prepared to spend on more-of-the-same and invest it instead in programs and resources that would bring us closer to the realization of a PEP strategy for all students. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to contact us on any matter. How did you like the post? How could we do better in the future? Suggestions welcome. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Rebbe and Chassid David Cowles Dec 26, 2023 “The Torah mandates just acts; the Prophets demand right intentions, but the Wisdom writers honor just acts performed by righteous people.” When the fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom Dov Ber, was a small boy, he played a game with his older brother, Reb Zalman Aaron. The game was “Rebbe and Chassid.” Reb Zalman Aaron, who was a year older, played the Rebbe, and Rabbi Sholom Dov Ber played the Chassid. Reb Sholom Dov Ber asked the “Rebbe” for advice on how to correct a shortcoming. “This past Shabbat,” he confessed, “I cracked and ate nuts, but then I learned that it’s best not to eat nuts on Shabbat because the shells are muktzah (forbidden to touch).” The “Rebbe” thought for a second and then gave advice. “You should look into the siddur (prayer book) when you pray. Do not pray by heart.” Reb Sholom Dov Ber responded, “You’re not a real Rebbe, and your advice won’t help!” “Why not?” asked Reb Zalman Aaron, puzzled. “I gave you good advice, didn’t I?” “When a Rebbe gives an answer, he lets out a sigh first. You didn’t sigh first, so you’re not a real Rebbe!” To Reb Zalman Aaron, a Rebbe is a wise man who gives advice. If his advice is correct, his job is done. But Reb Sholom Dov Ber, the future Rebbe, saw it differently. A Rebbe doesn’t just give advice. He bonds with the other person and deeply feels his plight. Whatever pains the other pains him too. Therefore, before giving advice, he sighs. (Like Bill Clinton, he feels your pain.) Not every reader of TWS comes out of the Hassidic tradition, but we can all learn from this story. Who am I? Am I what I do? Or am I what I am? Most people, myself especially, build a firewall between these two versions of the self; we exploit the protection that the firewall confers to maintain a bloated assessment of our own virtue. One day: “I know I’ve done some bad things (objective), but I am fundamentally a good person (subjective).” As my grandmother’s teacher said to her one day, “Marguerite, I know you mean well; you just don’t do well!” Or my middle school football coach, “No offense, Sonny (subjective), but you stink (objective).” Next day: “I regret that I am not a better person…but I’ve tried to ensure that my subjective deficits don’t corrupt my objective behavior.” AA has a slogan that applies here: “Fake it ‘til you make it.” A similar message comes from psychologist Wilhelm Reich: the best way to cure sexual inhibition/dysfunction (subjective) is to engage in as much sexual activity (with or without a partner) as possible (objective). The Old Testament distinguishes two related but distinct concepts: Justice (what is done: objective) and Righteousness (who does it: subjective). To greatly oversimplify, the Torah mandates just acts, the Prophets demand right intentions, while the Wisdom writers honor just acts performed by righteous people. Thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The goal of all religious practice is the same: to promote both justice and righteousness, and to make them coincident: Just acts performed by right actors. In the end, justice and righteousness are not substantially different; they are one substance pointed in opposite directions. Justice points away from the person toward the world; righteousness points away from the world toward the person. When a righteous actor performs a just act, the universe grows one step closer to God, in whom just action and righteous being are one. Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back God is Green David Cowles Dec 13, 2025 “Far from the apex of the pyramid of life, human beings are one among many, at best. God has his favorites, and homo sapiens is not among them.” These days, we debate how best to refer to God: he, she, it, or they? But we should all be able to agree on at least one thing: God is Green! (Fooled ya – bet you thought I was going to say ‘God is Good’; well, that too.) Citation? How about God’s own words as recorded in the oldest book in the Bible? No, not Genesis ; that’s the first book. The oldest may be the Book of Job . So how old is it? It’s so old that it is not even Jewish. It includes material from multiple traditions, and it includes vocabulary from at least 6 different Middle Eastern languages. (Perhaps the editors had Joyce, Pound and Eliot in mind.) The text consists mainly of an epic poem, recorded in its current form at the time of Parmenides ( On Nature , c. 500 BCE) but consisting of material much older than Homer ( Iliad , Odyssey , et al.), Oh, and one other thing, with the exception of the Gospel of John , it’s arguably the most beautiful text in the entire Bible. As a poem alone, it deserves to be ranked with the works of Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Dante and Milton. Don’t let me mislead you. It’s long (42 chapters), repetitive in some spots, impenetrable in others. Plus it’s almost universally misunderstood. For the most part, commentators interpret it in the context of post-exilic (5th century BCE) Judeo-Christian theology. It is compatible with this theology but that is not what the book is about. Heck, when much of the text was written there was no such thing as Judeo-Christian theology! Take God, for example. You know him as YHWH from Genesis , Exodus , Revelation , et al. But Job’s God is El Shaddai , an older version. That’s right; you’re not in Kansas anymore! And yet, parts of this text could easily have been written in the 1970’s, e.g. by Rudy Bahro ( From Red to Green ). But enough with the fluff; let’s cut to the chase! Job has issues! Of that there is no doubt. Using an ancient legal strategy worthy of Johnnie Cochrane , Job manages to engineer a situation in which God is ‘forced’ to defend himself in a court of law. Incredible, right? Like a modern day corporate litigant, part of Job’s strategy is to force God to disclose his ‘trade secrets’: specifically, how does the universe work? Very, very reluctantly, God complies…and we discover things your Sunday School (or Hebrew School) teacher never told you: “The Lord spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, and he said (excerpts from Chapters 39 – 41 follow): Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you know Wisdom. Who marked off its dimensions? Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, who laid its cornerstone? “Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt’? “Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? “ Who gives the ibis Wisdom or the rooster Understanding? Who has the Wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens when the dust becomes hard and the clods of earth stick together? “Do you hunt the prey for the lioness and satisfy the hunger of the lions when they crouch in their dens or lie in wait in a thicket? Who provides food for the raven when its young cry out to El (God) and wander about for lack of food? “Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied its ropes? I gave it the wasteland as its home, the salt flats as its habitat. It laughs at the commotion in the town; it does not hear a driver’s shout. It ranges the hills for its pasture and searches for any green thing. “If you’ve an arm as strong as El’s…look for the proud and bring him down. Crush the wicked where they stand! “ Behold Behemoth , who I made along with you. It feeds on grass like an ox. What strength it has in its loins, what power in the muscles of its belly! Its tail sways like a cedar; the sinews of its thighs are close-knit. Its bones are tubes of bronze, its limbs like rods of iron. It ranks first among the works of God. “The hills bring it their produce, and all the wild animals play nearby. Under the lotus plants it lies, hidden among the reeds in the marsh. The lotuses conceal it in their shadow; the poplars by the stream surround it. A raging river does not alarm it; it is secure, even if the Jordan should surge into its mouth. “Can you pull Leviathan out with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope? Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook? Will it keep begging you for mercy? Will it speak to you with gentle words? Will it make an agreement with you for you to take it as your slave for life? “Of all that's under heaven, he is mine. I cannot keep silent about him, the fact of his incomparable valor…Even gods (sic) live in fear of his majesty; they're in terror of the ruin he wreaks…He has no match on earth; who is made as fearless as he? …Over beasts of all kinds he is king. ” Clearly, the Book of Job does not present us with an anthropocentric model of the Universe. You get the distinct impression that homo sapiens may be an afterthought…and a dubious one at that. Far from the apex of the pyramid of life, human beings are one among many, at best . The full text of the Lord’s defense (chapters 39 – 41) is worth a read. God goes through a litany of species and the special charisms of each. We are left out, but what would our charism have been? Being a pest? God lets us know from the get-go that the world was not created for our comfort and convenience. In his opening paragraph, God tells us that he is focused on the Whole, creating and sustaining a world order that enables all its parts to work in harmony. God makes it clear to Job et al. that he has his favorites…and homo sapiens is not among them. We dare to challenge God but where were we when he laid the earth’s foundation? We don’t even measure up to the hippopotamus (Behemoth), “ which I (God) made along with you.” And then the killer: “It ranks first among the works of God.” Far from being God’s equal, we do not even measure up to our fraternal twin, Behemoth. Are we Cain to Behemoth’s Abel? Is that ‘green’ enough for you? Considering the endangered status of the hippo today, the analogy may be chillingly apt. And not done yet, God adds insult to injury, bringing up a sea creature called Leviathan. “ He has no match on earth…over beasts of all kinds he is king .” Clearly, God could benefit from a court ordered parenting class. He is angry at his servant Job, so he belittles him. “Why can’t you be more like your brother?” What kid wants to hear that she’s not #1 ? But in defense of God, like many beleaguered parents, he has a very full plate. The groaning of one man (Job), however justified, cannot take precedence over the hungry cries of raven chicks. And there are always lions to be fed. God’s mandate extends even to ‘land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, a desolate wasteland’ where God is concerned to grow grass. Sidebar : I’m placing this in a sidebar because it may be too speculative for some readers. Obviously, the authors of the Book of Job knew very little about biology, physical anthropology, or paleontology. But is it possible that they understood that Behemoth is closely matched to us genetically while Leviathan is a much more ‘primitive’ species? If so, this gives God’s rhetoric a fresh bite: “Not only do you not measure up to your brother, Behemoth - you don’t even measure up to a reptile.” Just speculating. God extols the merits of his creatures, even his ethically challenged ones, yet he appears to ignore the just pleas of his servant Job. What kind of God is this? Much of the poem’s text is concerned with questions of justice: Why do good things happen to bad people? Why doesn’t God do more to reward the just and punish the wicked? It’s the classic Problem of Evil (POE). Job asks why God does not do more to enforce the demands of justice, but God ingeniously turns the table: “If you’ve an arm as strong as El’s…look for the proud and bring him down. Crush the wicked where they stand…Then I myself will praise you.” The authors of Job anticipate the work of Gottfried Leibniz and Rabbi Harold Kushner. It is not a question of will ; it’s a matter of can . Sidebar : Most interpretations of Job treat POE as the central theme of the poem. It does receive a lot of ink, but the poem never delivers a solution. POE’s role in the argument is just that of a catalyst. In fact, the poem is about God’s essential nature (good, just) and his eco-friendly relationship with the created, autonomous, harmonious world. In the Jewish mystical practice known as Kabbalah , the chief virtues, second only to divine sovereignty (Keter) itself, are Wisdom and Understanding. And where do we find these virtues exemplified? In Lucy and Desi? Cheech and Chong? No. In the Ibis and the Rooster. (No, that is not the name of a London pub. If it were, I’d be there now.) 3,000 years later we are just now ‘discovering’ (again) that other species are conscious! We have systematically unlearned things we knew millennia ago. We are complicit in a massive, worldwide brainwashing conspiracy (Ellul, Propaganda ), designed to objectify the biosphere and self-aggrandize humanity. At the end of all this banter and bluster, Job comes out the clear winner. He uncovers God’s trade secrets, which was his primary objective in the first place. Plus, he prevails on matters of law. He receives full restitution and he is awarded substantial damages to boot. Consequently, we now know a lot more about God, and a lot more about our Universe, than we did before. For example, Good is God’s essential nature; it’s not an accident or a whim. The World enjoys autonomy. God’s concern is first and foremost for Creation as a whole and secondarily for any of its parts. And speaking of parts, ab initio all parts are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights (among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness). If they come to be graded over time (e.g. Hippo > Homo ), it is based solely on merit, not favoritism. And on that basis, we’ve got some catching up to do. So, can we all agree? God is Green! QED *** Giotto’s Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds shows Saint Francis addressing a group of attentive birds as fellow recipients of God’s love, emphasizing humility and compassion toward all living creatures. The calm, orderly gathering suggests a divinely sanctioned harmony between humans and animals, rooted in care rather than dominance. Through simple gestures and serene composition, the painting affirms the idea that animals are included within God’s moral and spiritual concern. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Anxiety and Depression David Cowles May 21, 2024 “Who knew that kids could be trained to put more pressure on themselves than any adult would dare?” The first half of the 20th century is a bonanza for students of intellectual history; just scratch the surface: Science - Relativity and Quantum Mechanics Psychology - Freud, Jung and Adler Painting - Cubism, Surrealism, Dada, and Abstract Art Literature (English) - Pound, Eliot, Joyce, and Stein It’s too soon to reflect on the post-War period but suffice to say, when we picked our heads back up after VJ Day, we found ourselves in a very different world. In retrospect, we might as well have been shipwrecked on a deserted island. The old world was gone, wiped away, but the new world was ‘on backorder’. Consider a human cell. Most of our cells have prescribed functions, but stem cells are capable of assuming any genetically permitted identity that meets the needs of the organism. Post war society was like a pluripotent stem cell. Anything could happen… …And it did! The post-war period has no shortage of chroniclers and commentators. To name just a few: Jacques Ellul, Buckminster Fuller, Marshall McLuhan, Jacques Derrida, Byung-Chul Han. Who? Byung-Chul Han (BCH) has written extensively on postmodern culture. In a series of books (e.g. The Burnout Society ) he documents our transition from a duty orientation to an achievement orientation. Late 19th and early 20th century psychology focused on the problem of neurosis , a symptom of what BCH calls ‘disciplinary society’. Today, we are more concerned with anxiety and depression. According to BCH, these are the wages of an ‘achievement society’. Byung-Chul Han traces the evolution and impact of this shift. For example, when raising children, we are now much less focused on their ‘following rules’ and much more focused on their ‘standing out’. Once upon a time, the worst thing a parent could say was, “Why can’t you be more like other kids?” Today, a parent might say, “Why aren’t you less like other kids?” The pressure to conform can be stifling but the pressure to stand out…terrifying. Once upon a time, parents were only too happy to raise a mini-me. If a child graduated high school (or college), stayed out of jail, married, raised a family, and found steady employment, parents were satisfied, ‘proud’ even. It was taken for granted that children who followed this path would be self-sufficient and better off financially than their parents. Today, parents don’t so much care if their kids are ‘good’ as long as they’re ‘exceptional’. The economic assumptions underlying the pre-war model are no longer generally valid. Playing by the rules doesn’t work. Most young people, despite their best efforts, will not achieve the degree of financial security their parents enjoyed. My father and I had a contentious relationship; what’s new? One time though, he hit the nail on the head: “I don’t understand your generation with all its talk about ‘finding yourself’. ‘Who am I?’ – I never asked that question; I always knew who I was.” Exactly! The All in The Family theme song captured my father’s mind-set: “And you knew who you were then…” Yup! My father was a good citizen who obeyed the rules and was quite happy to follow the path society laid out for him. And it worked for him…more or less. Neurosis is a product of repression, whether self-imposed or enforced by others. The creative impulse runs up against the prohibitions of the super-ego…or the ‘super-state’, i.e. society’s repressive apparatus, beginning with parents. Depression and anxiety, on the other hand, are the product of frustrated self-expectations. While neurotics may harbor rebellion against social constraints, depressives buy into society’s expectations, hook, line, and sinker…and only then find that they can’t ‘measure up’. Byung-Chul Han traces the transition of Western culture from a ‘disciplinary’ orientation to an ‘achievement’ orientation. Who knew that kids could be trained to put more pressure on themselves than any adult would dare? We live in a society structured in part by socio-economic class. But the classification scheme has changed. Bourgeoisie/proletariat, white collar/blue, 1%/99%, have morphed into something much, much more insidious: Winners & Losers . ‘You proletarian, blue collar, 99%-er’ doesn’t have quite the school yard sting of ‘You Loser ’. Winners and Losers – it’s not just a matter of comparing 401 k balances. Winners are beautiful, sophisticated, successful, popular, smart, creative, affable; Losers are…losers. In 1950, a parent who could say, “My son (sic) has a steady job at the local factory,” would enjoy some social capital. Not so today. “My child is a neurosurgeon, an investment banker, a CEO, a published author, a full professor,” generates capital now. Worse, absent the ability to make such claims, you have no social capital at all…you Loser ! Yup, the ‘sins’ of the children are visited on their parents! Once upon a time, society had room for people all up and down the socio-economic ladder. Everyone made a contribution, and everyone merited respect. Today, losers get no respect. Industrial can has replaced Judeo-Christian should as our ethical ideal. Worse, can has been turned into its own version of should : should be rich, should be beautiful, etc. The hapless teen today is in danger of self-identifying as a double loser. I am not just ‘a mess’, I am ‘an immoral mess’. I am immoral because I am a loser. In a classic display of the so-called ‘Protestant Ethic’, we have come to equate success with virtue. But don’t blame Calvin. As far back as the Book of Job certain folks argued that material success was a sign of God’s favor. Our culture bombards us with ‘positive messaging’: “Be yourself, be all that you can be, nothing is impossible!” But what if I don’t know or like myself, what if this is all that I can be, or want to be, and what if nothing else seems possible to me? What then? “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?... Maybe it just sags like a heavy load, or does it explode? ” (Langston Hughes) Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Century 22 Welcomes You David Cowles Jan 2, 2024 “…May I present for your entertainment and consideration…The 22nd Century.” If you are an Aletheia Today frequent flyer, you already know that I came of age in the ‘60s, steeped in the culture of incense, tie-dye, and Futurism , - “the insatiable urge to make a fool of oneself by predicting future events about which one knows nothing and over which one has no control.” - OED I always promised myself that I would never partake in such nonsense, but one of the few perks of superannuation is that you’re allowed some latitude when it comes to honoring ancient resolutions. So I’m about to do what I swore I’d never do: describe the future! But not war and pestilence or even technology, but its philosophy, theology, and cosmology. And so, without further ado, may I present for your entertainment and consideration…(drum roll please)… The 22 nd Century: We now recognize that ‘the matrix formerly known as spacetime’ (ST) is an ingenious mathematical construct performing several vital functions, none of which has to do with spatial intervals or temporal durations: ST is the ‘phase space’ sufficient for what-is to have a probability > 50%. ST is a logos (or scaffolding) for ordering events ‘aesthetically’ (e.g., according to relevance), like ornaments hung on an ontological Christmas tree. ST is a hologram. The whole is embodied, encoded, or reflected in each of its parts. Patterns are fractals; extension is a matter of scale. To a mechanic, a whole is equal to the sum of its parts (A + B = AB); to a biologist, a whole is greater than the sum of its parts (AB > A + B); but we realize now that the whole is immanent in each of its parts (A’ = Ʃ A). This is actually a rediscovery of the cosmology underlying the Christian Doctrine of Incarnation and the RCC Sacrament of Eucharist. Like any good Stalinist splinter party, we have purged a pandemonium of bourgeoise parrots from their lofty academic perches, while restoring some disgraced comrades to key party posts: Anaximander - because Being is Mutuality. Parmenides - because Thinking is Being. Zeno - because Arithmetic (including calculus) is incompatible with motion. Nicolas of Cusa - because Knowledge is a negative quantity, its upper limit = 0. Leibniz - because this is the best of all possible worlds. We recognize that DNA-based lifeforms constitute a biological continuum. Speciation notwithstanding, there are no bright lines between a paramecium and Uncle Phinneas. We accept that all terrestrial life is sentient, self-aware, and capable of mental functions. As a result, we find ourselves in the midst of an ethical dilemma that boils down to the question a scribe posed to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29) One way to understand Western intellectual history is as a gloss on Luke. Our definition of ‘neighbor’, always somewhat fluid, has gradually widened from extended family to tribe to nation to race to species, and now…to biome. Jesus cited the ‘care’ demonstrated by a Samaritan merchant for a Jewish crime victim. No doubt, Jesus and Luke intended this parable to cast a wide net…but how wide? Torah tells us that we do have a ‘duty of care’ toward non-human species…but what care with what limits? We’ve made considerable progress in our efforts to dialog with non-human species, but I can’t say whether we’ll be counting crows among the guests at next year’s Christmas party. And speaking of non-human species, we must not forget our silicon siblings. We’re still struggling to understand the degree of self-awareness achievable in an inorganic environment. We have newer and better Turing Tests, but we can’t agree on how to interpret the results. Do we classify entities by their functionality or by their substance? This is not a new argument; it goes back at least to Thomas and the Scholastics . Imagine you had an identical twin. You grew up together; you’re often mistaken for one another. Then, one day, your twin decides that you are not ‘real’ after all, that you are some sort of Bot. How do you convince him he’s wrong; Turing won’t get you there! We’ve either ‘discovered’ extraterrestrial ‘life’, or we’ve radically revised our thinking about its likelihood. This does not seem like much of a prediction, but it is. Back in the 2020s, a majority agreed with the statement, “We have not found extraterrestrial life yet, but it is almost certain that we will.” Very few people still hold this view! We understand at last that ‘consciousness’ is not a function of physiology but a fundamental feature of Universe, albeit manifested only in the context of certain loosely defined physical structures. Einstein et al. demonstrated the co-dependence of matter, energy, space, and time; we’ve added consciousness. We’ve not resolved the ‘existence of God’ debate. We’re still hunkered down in our ideological trenches…but we understand the ‘question’ of God much differently now. The image of God as a sort of ‘ Central Intelligence Agency ’ has evaporated, replaced by a concept of God as universal presence – not pantheism but panentheism. After all, God (YHWH) told us who he was 3500 years ago: “I am what am”. But it took us a while to listen. Finally, science continues to ask, “What is, how did it come to be, and how did it come to be what is?” Philosophy still asks, “How is it that anything could be or come to be?” Theology asks, “How is it that there is such a thing as ‘being’ or ‘coming to be’?” Well, this was fun! I wonder why I swore I’d never play the Futures Game. Oh yeah, now I do remember: Futurism only tells us what we already know! The future is now. Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Loaves and Fishes III David Colwes Aug 1, 2025 “…The evangelists outlined an economic doctrine challenging today’s Liberal (capitalist), Marxist (socialist), and Islamic (iqtisad) models.” Earlier we explored the event known as Jesus’ ‘multiplication of loaves and fishes’ ( Loaves and Fishes ). We deepened our dive with Loaves and Fishes II . Today we will review Jesus’ miracle again, this time from the perspective of 20 th century economic theory. All four canonical gospels include a ‘multiplication narrative’. Since these books were written by different people at different times with different objectives for different audiences, this degree of consistency is unusual and somewhat of a surprise. Matthew and Mark each include two different ‘multiplication accounts’ and it is in the relationship between these two accounts that we find the deeper meaning of the events themselves. The ‘devil’, as usual, is in the details. Check out the numbers. Jesus fed 5,000 pilgrims from just 5 loaves but a few weeks later he needed 7 loaves to satisfy 4,000. What’s going on here? Inflation? Entropy? Are people getting hungrier? Or was Jesus slowly running out of power? That’s a big fat ‘no’! It’s Providence. A ‘miracle’ does not vitiate nature; it contextualizes it. The ‘miraculous’ supplements the natural, but only as needed . Here, in each case, the need is defined and the resources fixed; it is the power of Triune God, operating through the non-Archimedean substructure, that bridges the gap! In quick sketches the evangelists outlined an economic doctrine challenging today’s Liberal (capitalist), Marxist (socialist), and Islamic (iqtisad) models. According to Islam, for example, Allah created the world with just enough resources to go around: economics is a zero sum game. Anyone’s accumulation of wealth is at the expense of others’ basic needs. Capitalism and socialism allow supply to vary (grow), either in response to demand or as a result of public policy. Christian economics, however, is cut from different cloth entirely: the world is inherently bountiful and there is always more than enough to go around…if only we would distribute it properly. Poverty is never a matter of insufficiency; it’s always a function of injustice. Sidebar : Communism attempted to level out the distribution of wealth, but it did so at the expense of production. The Judeo-Christian model addresses production and distribution together; it understands that neither can be optimized in isolation. It anticipates John Rawls’ model ( A Theory of Justice ) that seeks an algorithm that maximizes production consistent with a distribution pattern that satisfies the needs of every individual. In the Gospel accounts, resources are scarce, but many are fed; in both cases the process of distribution per se creates significant surplus. In fact, it is possible for the surplus to exceed the initial supply. Is this Keynesian? Or Christian? These Gospel narratives enshrine a fundamental economic doctrine: You can have your cake (surplus) and eat it too (bread)! Seen from this perspective, economics is not such a ‘dismal science’ (Carlyle/Malthus) after all. Puzzle : With an economic platform like this and a track record to back it up (e.g. manna in the Wilderness), how is it that YHWH ever loses an election? (Ask Winston Churchill following WWII.) Yet c. 1000 BCE, the people of Israel chose Saul to be their king, replacing a 250 year old theocracy with YHWH ruling directly through the mitzvah of Oral and Written Torah executed by short term, ‘lame duck’ Judges designated ad hoc and only as needed. Joshua’s platform (e.g. Sabbath days and years and the total redistribution of productive property every 50 years ) was enough to motivate the proletariat of Jericho to overthrow their rulers, tearing down the regional capital’s impregnable wall in the process, but it failed to satisfy Israel’s nationalist ambitions. The forces of nihilism and despair have a heavy lift: How do you persuade people that the sky is falling when it manifestly is not? And yet they succeeded…and they continue to succeed, even today. We are suspicious of good fortune: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch, it’s too good to be true, and of course, beware of Geeks (and Greeks)…” Sidebar : I spent most of my adult life working in an enterprise whose essential function was to give people money that they would not otherwise have had. Yet we struggled to make ends meet! No one will take Yes for an answer; we’re much too sophisticated for that! Israel’s fledgling monarchy behaved as central governments do everywhere…and exactly as Judge Samuel had forecast (1 Samuel 8): Corruption, conscription, confiscatory taxation and the hyper-concentration of wealth. As a result, Israel was conquered by foreign powers, its capital (Jerusalem) sacked, its prominent citizens exiled to Babylon. From there, the prophet Ezekiel plotted the restoration of theocracy; channeling YHWH, he declared, “I will be King over you.” (Ez. 20: 33) Although the exiles were returned to Jerusalem, the restoration of theocracy would be delayed another 500 years… until the coming of Christ. Ironically, it was the Roman governor of Palestine, Pontius Pilate , who officially certified the restoration of theocracy when he wrote atop the cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” and later confirmed it: “What I have written I have written.” By this action, Pilate effectively executed ‘regime change’, dethroning King Herod, making him a ‘rump ruler’, a king in title only. The 1,000 year reign of Israel’s secular kings was officially over; the Kingship of Christ was duly recognized by the reigning secular authority (Rome). 500 years later, Rome itself was sacked. 500 years from the end of theocracy to the fall of Jerusalem; another 500 years to Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection; 500 more years to the fall of Rome. But back to the task at hand. All 4 Gospels confirm a common data point (x, y, z): 5 loaves, 5,000 people, 12 baskets of surplus. But in Euclidean geometry, one data point by itself is…one data point; it tells us nothing beyond itself. Mark and Matthew give us a much needed second data point: 7 loaves, 4,000 people, 7 baskets. There is only one straight line running through both data points. With these two points in place, we can interpolate and extrapolate to cover every allowable combination of ‘supply, demand, and surplus’. Christian economics is not some vague utopian dream; it’s rigorously quantitative. Jesus does more with less (5,000 pilgrims fed from 5 loaves vs. 4,000 from 7). More significantly, feeding more from less creates more surplus. Of course, this is exactly opposite to what the other economic systems (above) would have predicted. They are based on the assumption that less supply (5 loaves) and more demand (5,000 pilgrims) will necessarily result in less surplus; Jesus proves them wrong. But what about the numbers themselves? Do they simply offer a general illustration of a vague economic concept? By no means! They are precisely determinative…and that’s how we know that the numbers are intentional. We are dealing with two variables: efficiency and bounty. If the first event has an efficiency of 1.00 (5k fed from 5 loaves), then in the second event, efficiency is reduced to 0.57 (4k fed from 7 loaves). In the first case, the bounty (surplus) is 12 while in the second case it is 7, a premium of 1.71 (12/7). So what? Well, the greater surplus (1.71) divided by the reduced efficiency (0.57) = 3, and there’s nothing vague or haphazard about that. It’s ‘3’, and why 3? Because 3 represents God’s Triune nature and Trinity is the paradigm of all process. God’s Providence is not vague; it is specific. There is a 3x multiplier built into the created world. Cast your bread upon the water and it will return 3 fold! Colloquial wisdom says, “Everything comes in 3’s.” This time, colloquial wisdom is correct! A triangle (3 sides) is the simplest closed polygon. Likewise, God is ‘simple’ (one substance per Aquinas) but also Triune (3 persons per Nicaea). God is Being and Being is Process; therefore God is Process; God is Triune, so Process is Triune; therefore ‘3’ is the universal multiplier. Christians, always count by 3’s! *** James Tissot, Multiplication of the Loaves , 1886–1896. Watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper. Brooklyn Museum, New York. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Expunge me, Expunge me Not David Cowles Jun 26, 2026 “Next time your little one asks, ‘Daddy, are there monsters under my bed?’ Reassure her: ‘Yes there are, thank God!” 2250 words, 10 minute read When I arrived at college to begin my freshman year, I was handed the university’s ‘orientation guide’. It included a code of conduct (yes, they still had such things back in them thar days), a long ladder of increasingly Draconian consequences for increasingly serious infractions; The final rung: Be expunged! As the manual explained (and I paraphrase): “All trace of you ever having attended this university will be permanently expunged from the record. It will be as if you had never been.” Kilroy was not here! Prior to college, I had done a bit ‘upstate’, i.e. 6 years in parochial school. At each grade level, the first full day of classes included a lengthy and graphic description of Hell that awaited us if we ate meat on a Friday. (We learned to love peanut butter and, being from Boston, Marshmallow Fluff rather than jelly.) But even the religious sisters who taught us could not imagine a punishment as severe as expungement. Imagine being so bad that God decides to erase you from the record, retroactively. Adam and Eve were not expunged; nor was Lot’s wife. Even back in the day we were told of God’s love and mercy but apparently that lesson never breached the ivy infested walls of academia. But college got me thinking (it’s supposed to do that, right?): What if the university’s disciplinary code leaked outside its haunted halls and came to infect the entire cosmos? Crossing the street after some unusually mean and thoughtless act, you suddenly disappear; God has tired of your repeated malfeasance: you’ve been expunged! *** The Book of Job , which includes some of the oldest text found anywhere in the Bible, presents a verbatim transcript of a mock legal proceeding modeled on jurisprudence as practiced throughout the Near East in the 2 nd millennium BCE. Welcome to Job v. God . Who does this? Who takes the creator of heaven and earth to court…and why? Job does! He seeks to compel God (1) to disclose the detailed terms and conditions that govern creation ( gnosis ) and (2) to submit to the same ethical imperatives as the rest of us ( dikay ). The Book of Job asks one question: Do ethical standards apply to God or is he exempt? Is God free to determine arbitrarily what is Good? Is he compelled even to acknowledge the normative power of universal Values? The ‘whole world’ is watching, and Job opens (3: 3 – 5): “May the day disappear, the day I was born, and the night that announced, ‘A man has been conceived’…let darkness expunge it.” Job is playing for all the marbles. There will be no settlement, no plea bargain here. Job makes it clear to the ‘cosmic court’ that he is prepared to put at risk not just life but existence per se . ‘Find in my favor…or expunge me! I do not choose to be, or ever to have been, part of a world where God does not exemplify universally acknowledged ethical values.’ A gutsy challenge from one who is dust and ashes . (42: 6) Job sneers at capital punishment; death is nothing to be feared. It leaves existence (having been) intact. Since everything will one day cease to be, there is no existential difference between what is, what was, and what will be. Job puts up not just his miserable present and hopeless future but his glorious, prosperous, and honored past as well. He is all in from the get-go. Good thing too because Job v. God is about to relegate Marbury, Madison, and OJ Simpson to bit roles in moot court. *** What does it mean to be expunged? Not only were you never conceived, the chains of dominoes you set in motion never fell. You made the sound of one hand clapping; you were a tree falling in an empty forest. Your existential footprint is obliterated. Not only does the evil that you’ve done vanish from the world but your good deeds as well. No old ladies helped across the street. No spouse adored; no children born and raised. No taxes paid, no donations to the United Way. For better and for worse, you simply never happened. Everything you touch, everyone you meet, is irrevocably altered by their interaction with you, no matter how trivial or perfunctory. Without you, everything around you is changed ( It’s a Wonderful Life ); and in almost no time ( Six Degrees of Separation ) the effect of your absence has radiated into every nook and cranny of the anthroposphere. Your actions are free, undetermined and unconditioned. But your physical being is the product of forces set in motion 14 billion years ago, and we know that we all share an LCA (last common ancestor) who lived just a few millennia ago. To the extent that your physical being is an effect , prior states of affairs would need to be altered to preclude that effect (i.e. you). You cannot preclude a particular effect (e.g. you) without altering its causal chain…in both directions! But even this is too linear. Causal chains intersect. As your expungement works its way forward and backwards along your causal chain, that chain intersects with other chains, setting off a tsunami of required adjustments in every direction. Every quantum of being is modified if even one quantum is modified. Everything changes everything else! Adjusting for rate limitations on the propagation of influences, the effect of any local modification would be immediate and universal. And if a single quantum of being were to be expunged , the cosmic fabric would unravel and the universe as we know it would cease to exist, now or ever. *** What then of Free Will ? Will operates in the interstices of the fabric. It is epigenetic. It introduces novelty. It is to causality as mitochondria is to DNA. Will is not determined, or even influenced, by causal chains. Will is the one and only source of novelty in the world, but determinations of will cannot be inconsistent with their relevant causal chains. Sartre called this condition Facticity : I am free to do whatever I wish but even so, unaided I cannot jump 10 feet in the air. That would not be consistent with causality. Free will means that whatever can happen may happen; determinism means that whatever may happen must happen. So when I exercise free will I impact the causal chain going forward but my actions have no retroactive impact because whatever I do is by definition compatible with whatever came before. Volition impacts the future without impacting the past. But not every event is determined or free. In fact, most events are neither. In Quantum Mechanics (QM), when the wave function decoheres (collapses), the result is neither determined nor volitional. Each specific result is uncaused (random) but the patterns formed by multiple results will be consistent with a pre-determined probability distribution. I’m at a craps table in the Bellagio . I place a quarter ($25) on the pass line. I’m hoping for a 7 or an 11. I roll the dice and the dealer calls out, “Snake eyes, line away!” I lost but the outcome was neither determined nor intentional; it was a function of probability. Events can occur according to causality, free will, or probability. According to renowned physicist Richard Feynman, when an event occurs at the QM level, the outcome includes all possible outcomes weighted according to their probability of occurrence. It is this broad spectrum ‘outcome’ that enters into the causal chain , regardless of event specifics. It’s exactly the same at Bellagio …except there probability unfolds over time. I bet a quarter and rolled craps: $25 lost. On the next throw, the dice comes up ‘winner winner chicken dinner’: $25 gained. If I roll the dice ‘enough times’, it will turn out that I have lost an average of about 50 cents (2% - the house margin) on each bet. Of course it won’t feel that way after I’ve lost 4 $25 bets in a row. *** At last, it’s time for our serpentine wanderings (above) to bear fruit. Apples : There is no conflict between Classical and Quantum Mechanics. Classical systems behave just like Quantum systems…spread over time. Schoedinger’s wave function, Bellagio’s odds, and Feynman’s Sum over Histories turn out to be different manifestations of the same underlying phenomenon. The universe is one! Oranges : There is no such thing as Cause and Effect . We assumed Causality at the outset of this journey, but that concept turns out to be oxymoronic ( reductio ad absurdum ). Any independent modification of any event in the cosmic field must immediately modify all events (from Big Bang to Heat Death) to maintain the consistency and solidarity of the cosmos. Absent the unconditioned exercise of free will, the entire spatiotemporal field, i.e. the Universe, self-adjusts to each perturbation. In the absence of novelty (free will), the cosmos seeks consistency at all costs. Causality assumes the existence of spatiotemporal locality (here and now) and directionality (vectors): A → B. In fact, there are no vectors and nothing is local! ( Everything Everywhere All at Once ) Nothing causes anything else; rather every event is a holistic response of the entire universe to itself. That response is instantaneous, but it manifests as a wave propagating at 300,000 km per second. The universe is one! We’re not unfamiliar with this phenomenon. Since 1964 (Bell’s Theorem) we have known that ‘entangled’ particles constitute a system that evolves instantaneously without violating the light speed barrier. But without linear causality, how do we explain the appearance of continuity among events? Turns out, conservation and correlation do the work of causation with none of the heart burn. Every event conserves as much of its inherited world as possible, consistent with its own subjective aim. I am reminded of my second job moonlighting as a neurosurgeon. Note to self : “When operating on a brain tumor, remove all infected, but no uninfected, tissue.” Or to repurpose a contemporary advertising slogan, “Only pay for what you need!” Avocadoes : Nothing can ever be expunged. What! We just spent 10 minutes exploring a phenomenon that doesn’t exist? Seriously? Yes! However justified the Dean of Students may be, she cannot expunge me. I exist and I cannot be made not to exist . Death is not inconsistent with existence. It’s part and parcel of it. To be expunged, on the other hand, is inconsistent with ever having been. Avocadoes is a corollary of the Grandfather Paradox . If I expunge you, you have never been; but if you have never been, what am I expunging? ‘Do unto others…the bell tolls for you’, etc. But what of the entirety? Parts cannot be expunged but what of the whole? Bertrand Russell held that the set of all events could not, itself, be an event but merely a collection, an inert receptacle. The only way to expunge the whole is to expunge, individually, each of its parts, but we have already determined that it is not possible to expunge any event. So the whole is safe! Whitehead, on the other hand, held that the set of all events is itself an event. The cosmic event is entangled with each of its component events. Whitehead turns Russell on his head but with the same result: no event, specific or cosmic, can be expunged because every event is inextricably entangled with every other event. The whole is inextricably entangled with each of its parts. It can no more be expunged than any of its members. You are safe, you exist, your existence is atemporal and therefore eternal, even though you are not immortal. You are…period! Now you just have to find a way to live with yourself. Pseudo-Job: “God, treat me justly or expunge me!” Pseudo-God: “To do so, I’d have to uncreate the entire Universe, and frankly, you’re not worth it!” God’s reasoning here is stunning. God does not cite Job’s virtues or his many good works. Instead, he crows about Leviathan, a monster ! “Of all that’s under heaven, he is mine. I cannot keep silent about him, his incomparable valor…Even the gods live in fear of his majesty. They’re in terror of the ruin he wrecks…Over beasts of all kinds he is king.” (41: 4 – 26) Leviathan is God’s pride and joy, not homo sapiens and certainly not pesky Job! So next time your little one asks, “Daddy, are there monsters under my bed?” Reassure her: “Yes there are, thank God!” Job is expendable, de trop ; Leviathan is not…and therefore we are forever safe from expungement. Our existence is eternal…guaranteed. Is that fruit enough for you? Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Art & Archimedes David Cowles Feb 28, 2026 There are more things in heaven and earth, Euclid, than are dreamt of in your philosophy…or ours.” 1200 words, 5 minute read We celebrate the fact that we are children of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. We look back on the Western world prior to 1500 CE and wonder, “How did people ever live like that, think like that?” The particularly crass among us disdainfully refer to the 1,000 years immediately preceding the Renaissance as the Dark Ages . As if we, the authors of Hiroshima and the Holocaust, are in any position to denigrate others! Truth is, the years around 1500 CE did witness the single biggest upheaval in the Intellectual History of Western Europe. Machiavelli was both the catalyst and emblem of this change. In a nutshell, the theo centric Universe of the Middle Ages gave way to the modern, ego centric model. Burgeoning science gave us the illusion of control. We no longer need respond to the actions of the Universe (the gods, fate); now we can impose our will (technology). We are no longer shaped by what happens around us; now we shape what happens to reflect our own image and likeness. Following the intermediation of the Reformation, Humanism, Moral Relativism and Secularism, Narcissism has replaced Roman Catholicism as the ‘universal faith’: I believe in me! Imagine a new edition of the Baltimore Catechism: “Why am I? - To know, love, and serve myself.” Sound about right? *** Perhaps the best way to learn about any culture is to study its art. How do folks understand the world around them? How do they relate to ‘things’…and to each other? We should not be surprised then that the intellectual upheaval of the Renaissance was accompanied by a seismic shift in painting protocol. In Italy and elsewhere, artists ‘suddenly discovered’ perspective. Discovered? Feels odd to apply this term to something we simply take for granted. Consider Camille Pissarro’s Road to Marly (below). Notice how the trees and other figures pictured close to the viewer are huge compared to those in the background. The space is continuous, receding smoothly toward a fixed point on the horizon. Road to Marly - Camille Pissarro (1870) This is a Big Bang/Big Crunch universe! Pissarro’s universe begins and ends at a singularity, a point, and from that point, like a cornucopia, it inflates to fill the canvas. This landscape appears to follow the laws of Euclidean Geometry, one of a much larger group of geometries jointly known as ‘Archimedean’. These geometries incorporate the rules and properties of real numbers (arithmetic, calculus). In our minds, this is not just a model, it’s Reality . Would it surprise you then to hear that this representation of the world is virtually unknown outside of Western Europe,1500 – 1900 CE? The vast majority of human beings, past and present, see the world very differently. Take the famous Italian painter, Giotto (c. 1300). His painting of St. Francis receiving the Stigmata (below) was painted (below) without perspective. The sizes of the objects represented have little to do with their situ in space. Rather their dimensions are dictated by the roles they play in the narrative. Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata - Giotto (c.1295-1300) Francis, appropriately, is huge, as is the angelic manifestation of Christ. Two nearby houses-of-prayer are tiny by comparison. One is positioned forward of Francis, one behind. Both are depicted as same-sized, indicative of the characteristics of the buildings themselves rather than their placement in the frame or relative to each other or to the viewer. Imagine Francis, as illustrated, squeezing through either door in time for matins ! The landscape itself (mountain, trees) is merely sketched, and it dissolves into an undifferentiated, monochromatic background, symbolizing uncreated light. It does not recede from the main image but rises above it. (Giotto characteristically depicts distance as height.) Finally, the trees on the mountain side are all similarly sized (tree sized) despite their varying distances from Francis…and the viewer. For centuries, post-Renaissance critics attributed these anomalies to a lack of technical proficiency. How wrong can we be! Giotto was a master of his craft, but he was painting a different world, or rather, our same world seen and understood differently: First, the size of an image is proportionate to its role in the narrative, not its position on the panel. Second, each object has its own intrinsic metric, unrelated to the metrics of the other objects. Finally, the frame does not contain the imagery; the images utterly overwhelm and overflow any edge. We approach Pissarro’s landscape as voyeurs. We are looking at the scene through a knothole in a fence. Giotto’s images, on the other hand, are projected at us. There is no question of not looking; they are in the way. We have to deal with them before we can move on. Earlier we pointed out that Pissarro’s landscape presents us with a paradigmatic model of a Euclidean universe: a place for everything and everything in its place. Giotto’s landscape is radically non-Euclidean: nothing’s in its place. In fact, its geometry is not even broadly Archimedean , much less narrowly Euclidean ! First, the sum of the parts can be greater than the whole; indeed a single part may be greater than the whole. Second, every object has its own metric, independent of other metrics, other objects, other images. Third, the value of any image is independent of its position in space or on the panel. Turns out, these are among the defining characteristics of non-Archimedean (non-A) Geometry. Check out this graphic: Now at last we can consider the Byzantine icon at the head of this article: Madonna and Child by Duccio di Buoninsegna, c. 1300. Much as I love Pissarro and Giotto and my own Claude assisted PowerPoint (above), this is clearly the masterpiece of our collection…and a clear exhibition of non-A Geometry in art. Mary and Jesus are the equivalent of our B and C circles (PowerPoint slide, above); A is the image as a whole. That leaves undefined that portion of A that is neither B nor C. Call it X. Our unknown artist, typical of the custom of his day, has colored this space a uniform, undifferentiated gold. If B+C > A, then B+C+X = A if and only if X = A - (B+C): in other words, B+C > A, if and only if X is a negative number. One way to make ordinary arithmetic work in a non-A universe is to allow objects (B and C) to exist in negative space (X where X < 0). Got it? Are you a non-Archimedean mathematician now? Good for you! If not, take at least this away: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Euclid, than are dreamt of in your philosophy…(or ours).” Icon of the Virgin and Child, Hodegetria variant - Byzantine or Crusader (13th Century) *** The Icon of the Virgin and Child (Hodegetria variant) centers on the theme of spiritual guidance , portraying Mary as "She who shows the Way" by gesturing toward Christ as the path to salvation. It reflects a unique intercultural synthesis , blending traditional Byzantine theological rigor with the distinct stylistic influences of 13th-century Crusader art. Finally, the icon emphasizes divine authority by depicting the Christ Child as a solemn, miniature philosopher offering a formal blessing. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back More Kids More Curiosity David Cowles Dec 6, 2025 “.” In another post on this site, Kids and Curiosity , we explored the almost universal decline in native curiosity experienced by tweens and teens. In this post, we’ll develop these ideas more fully, but don’t worry, I’ll catch you up. The human brain experiences five distinct eras as we age, and each is defined by changes in our neural architecture. That in turn influences how we process information, according to research recently published in Psychological Science by University of Chicago postdoctoral scholar Radhika Santhanagopalan, Ph.D. Our brain’s connections wire themselves in pretty much the same way from birth to nine years of age. Then our neural architecture starts to organize differently as we enter adolescence, through age 32. At this point, the brain’s structural development appears to peak, according to Alexa Mousley, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge (UK)… not the University in Cambridge (US). The brain’s architecture stabilizes (compared with the previous phases) and intelligence plateaus. By the time of our first ‘molt’ (c. age 9), we have already begun to understand some things about information: (1) Knowledge is power. (2) Information is a tool. (3) Tools (e.g. information) can be weaponized. Middle school is an opportunity for us to deploy those weapons. The results are never pretty. Sometime along the way, kids shed their luminous bodies and put on the shroud of adulthood. Sartre appropriately called it ‘the spirit of seriousness’. Typically, this happens at two major inflection points , one around the age of 10 and the second at 13. When children age from day care through kindergarten into first grade, they begin to understand their day to day experiences in terms of a ‘role’. How many parents have said, “Our job is to go to work and earn; your job is to go to school and learn?” And so learning becomes a programmed task, not a spontaneous response to one’s environment. As we age further, our roles expand. We are players on a little league team, members of a girl scout troop, voices in a church choir. Later, we are cast members in our high school’s musical, we play right guard on the football team, and we write for the school newspaper. We have gained competence…but at the expense of curiosity. But it doesn’t have to be this way! There’s nothing wrong with competence per se ; in fact, it’s a good thing in itself and it is a prerequisite for survival in this world. The problem comes when we identify with the roles associated with those skills. We do not just ‘play’ football, we are football players; we do not just ‘write’, we are authors. In fact of course, we are none of those things. We’re not anything in this world . We are the world transcending itself. We are not just conscious, we are consciousness ! We are the simultaneous awareness of our environment and of ourselves. We are not just recursive, we are recursion ! We are the Universe looking at itself…and making adjustments. We are right to be terrified. Our power is awesome…and we are totally alone with that power. We are desperate to fit in, to sand down all our rough edges, to cover-over any identifying marks. We yearn to be ‘just like everybody else’. We are like sleeper agents of a foreign power - not the USSR this time but God (or Gaia if you prefer). Our MO is to blend in, to attract no notice, to be as much like everyone else as possible. We tell ourselves, “That’s how you get ahead!” And we’re not entirely wrong. But just like sleeper agents during the Cold War, we are almost certain to go native . We forget all about our secret mission and we focus on lowering our handicap (that’s golf talk, BTW). And when our ‘handler’ finally reaches out with orders from ‘on high’, we say, “We don’t know who you are; you must be mistaking us for someone else.” Sleeper Agent or Adolescent, we have become what we were put here to observe and correct; we have become part of the problem we were meant to solve. And, of course, we will eagerly perpetuate this cycle of doom with our own offspring. As we age, we continue to identify more closely with our roles. We become spouses, parents, employees, managers, entrepreneurs. Gradually, these are no longer things we do or roles we assume; they are who (or what) we have become. The pressure of living in our aspirational society is all consuming. We are 110% invested in making a living, raising a family, saving for retirement, and there’s no relief until we reach seniority (or senility, whichever comes first). “Work/Life Balance” is a meme without meaning. Or, if it means anything, it refers to balancing different roles : e.g. cutting back on work so that we have time to coach our kids’ sports teams. There’s no question of making any room for us . Now none of these activities is bad per se ; they are only ‘suboptimal’ when we become what we do. Once we’re hooked, most of us will not have a realistic opportunity to pull back until we reach seniority . Then we yearn to rediscover ourselves, but we have no idea where to begin. Perhaps Social Security benefits need to include a free class called, Rediscovering You . *** Grandma with Kids, Grandmother’s Fairy Tale (1882) by Konstantin Makovsky portrays a grandmother surrounded by children as she tells a story, creating a warm scene filled with curiosity and gentle attention. The richly detailed interior and traditional clothing emphasize themes of family heritage, shared memory, and the passing down of wisdom through generations. 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< Back God, Christians, and… Aliens David P. Bugay Feb 5, 2026 Exploring the Edges of Faith with an Inquiring Mind 1500 words, 7 minute read (This post is contributed by David Bugay, PhD, an author, professor, and ordained minister devoted to equipping people to live with purpose, integrity, and faith.) If any group is philosophically prepared to consider the possibility of non-human intelligences, it may well be Christians. At first glance, this seems counterintuitive, as discussions about aliens and extraterrestrial life are frequently presented as challenges to belief in God, implying that faith and a populated universe were mutually exclusive. However, when we look more closely at Christian theology, a surprising realization emerges: Christianity has always affirmed a reality filled with intelligences beyond humanity—long before science gave them new names. At the foundation of Christianity stands belief in God as the most extraordinary Being conceivable. God is not merely stronger or intelligent than humanity; rather, God is understood as the source of all existence itself. Christians readily acknowledge that the fullness of God’s nature lies beyond human comprehension. Scripture does not attempt to tame this mystery; instead, it invites believers to live within it. That invitation quietly prepares Christians for a universe far stranger, richer, and more populated than everyday experience suggests. A Reality Beyond the Human First, Christianity insists that God is not human. While Christians believe God entered history in the person of Jesus Christ, this act was not because God was limited or confined, but rather because humanity required redemption and reconciliation. The incarnation represents divine accommodation with God stepping into human experience so that we might come to know Him. Jesus taught that “God is Spirit” and repeatedly emphasized that God’s ways and thoughts transcend human thoughts and experiences. From the very beginning, Christian faith affirms that reality extends far beyond what can be seen, touched, or measured. Second, God’s capacities defy all human limitations. Christians believe that God hears the prayers, fears, gratitude, and cries of billions of individuals while simultaneously sustaining the cosmos each moment. This form of intelligence is not bound by space, time, or physical constraint. It is a vision of consciousness operating on a scale that dwarfs anything in human experience. Non-Human Intelligences in Scripture Scriptures describe encounters between humanity and non-human intelligences. One of the most debated passages is found in Genesis 6, where Scripture refers to mysterious beings called the “sons of God.” These beings interact with humanity, and their influence is portrayed as deeply corrupting, contributing to violence and moral collapse. The text speaks of “giants” and “men of renown,” figures who loom large in both physical presence and cultural memory. Historically, many scholars have believed these beings to be fallen angels—spiritual intelligences in rebellion against God, who seek to distort creation and undermine God’s redemptive purposes. Others interpret the passage symbolically or theologically. Regardless of interpretation, the text undeniably presents the idea that powerful, non-human beings once interacted directly with human civilization, with catastrophic consequences. Within this framework, humanity alone stands under the promise of redemption first articulated in Genesis 3:15. Here we see the promise of our future redeemer crushing Satan’s head and Satan bruising His heel. These other worldly beings are not described as its recipients. The narrative suggests a violation of God’s created order, resulting in beings that do not reflect His design or intention. The flood, as judgment, marks a decisive reset—an act of preservation as much as punishment. What It Means to Be Human Christian anthropology further broadens this already expansive worldview. According to Scripture, humans are created in the image of God—not physically, but in nature. Humans are not merely biological organisms. They are embodied souls, possessing mind, will, and emotions. Within the soul resides the human spirit—the dimension of being capable of communion with God. Christians believe that at death, the body ceases, but the soul and spirit continue in the presence of God. This transition occurs beyond human observation and scientific instrumentation, yet it is affirmed as real, conscious, and meaningful. In other words, Christians believe in personal existence beyond the physical body and that challenges strictly material explanations of reality. A Populated Invisible World Christian theology affirms the ongoing presence of invisible intelligences in the contemporary world. Angels are described as non-human beings created to fulfill God’s purposes including guiding, protecting, or intervening in human affairs. Conversely, Scripture speaks of malevolent spiritual entities, commonly referred to as demons, whose objectives include deception, corruption, and destruction when permitted. These beings are not visible to the human eye, yet Christians maintain that their influence is both real and consequential. Even more striking, Christians believe that the boundary between the living and the dead is not absolute. Scripture describes believers as being “surrounded by a cloud of witnesses,” referring to those who have gone before them in faith. Some Christian traditions describe this as the Communion of Saints. While often expressed in general or poetic terms, this belief affirms a conscious, populated reality beyond the physical world. A Vast and Abundant Creation This theological perspective exists with Christianity’s awe-filled vision of creation itself. The universe contains trillions of stars organized in galaxies stretching beyond human comprehension. Christians interpret this vastness as the visible handiwork of God—a testimony to divine creativity and abundance. The night sky is not seen as empty space; it is viewed as a canvas proclaiming generosity rather than scarcity. This leads to an uncomfortable but unavoidable question: Is it reasonable to believe that God created all of this solely for one small planet and one species? Humanity has a well-documented tendency toward self-centeredness, instinctively placing itself at the center of existence. Yet the immense scale of the universe challenges this assumption. “If God created such immense cosmic real estate, vastness itself may be part of His signature.” Faith and the Possibility of Extraterrestrial Life Christians already affirm the existence of intelligent, non-human beings. God, Angels, and demons are all believed to be not human entities. Even humans, according to Christian doctrine, are not solely material; they are supernatural, destined for continued existence beyond physical death. If this is already accepted, then the possibility of additional created intelligences elsewhere in the universe should not be surprising. Contemporary science often speaks of other dimensions or planes of existence when addressing realities beyond direct observation. Christianity has spoken of this concept for millennia. The deeper challenge may not concern the existence of extraterrestrial life, but rather our willingness to accept that reality is far larger and more populated than our senses allow us to perceive. Surveys indicate that a strong majority of scientists believe life exists elsewhere in the universe, and an increasing number of Christians share this belief. Many prominent Christian leaders and institutions have publicly stated that extraterrestrial life would not contradict Christian faith. The relative silence on the topic within churches may reflect discomfort or simple habit rather than theological impossibility. Questions at the Edge of Faith If humanity were ever to encounter intelligent life beyond Earth, profound theological questions would follow. First, it would be necessary to consider whether such beings are “human” in the theological sense—not in physical form, but in being made in the image of God and possessing body, soul, and spirit. Or might they resemble the disruptive entities described in Genesis 6, seeking to circumvent God’s purposes? If so, how would the people of Earth know without interaction with these beings? Would we have to explore their perspectives of the universe itself and of God? Second, how would God relate to such beings? Are we the only ones where God Himself visited through His Son or, would God have multiple incarnations of Himself with other forms of life? Is Earth the only place where God in the flesh has made an appearance? If so, there is a far broader mission in sharing Christ with others, maybe beyond the bounds of this world. Third, would such beings need to hear the Gospel from humans, or would God have already revealed Himself to them in ways appropriate to their nature? Might they possess their own testimony of God’s Word, suited to their unique world and history? Nothing to Fear Ultimately, the central issue is trust. If God is with us, there is little reason for fear. Christian faith has always demanded humility before mystery, courage in the face of the unknown, and hope beyond sight. Should the universe contain intelligences which challenge all human imagination, then it would also provide opportunities to witness anew the depth, creativity, and sovereignty of God. In that sense, Christians may be well prepared to encounter the unknown—whether in this life or beyond. They already worship a God who exceeds every conceivable boundary. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.