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$15/year All correspondence to: Editor: Joyce Bates All correspondence to: P. O. Box 5552 Greenville, SC 29606- 5552 April, 2012
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The Voice of
Sanity
THE NEWSLETTER OF THE PIEDMONT SECULAR HUMANISTS Visit our web-site for current and back-issues at: www.piedmonthumanists.org
e-mail: uscshgvl@yahoo.com |
CALENDAR
Second Saturday Brunch, April 14th, 10:00AM to 12:00noon, at Denny's restaurant, 2521 Wade Hampton Blvd.
The Non-theist groups get-togethers have been changed to 2:00PM every Sunday afternoon at the Brew and Ewe; 108 West Broad Street; Greenville.
Socrates Club group meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month 7:00PM at Earth Fair; 3 Pelham Road, #3620; Greenville.
The Free-Thought group meets every other Thursday (March 1st, 15th and 29th,); 7:00PM at Bailey’s; 2409 Laurens Road; Greenville.
The American Humanist Association will have their 71st annual conference June 7th 2012 in New Orleans
HEAVEN: Who needs it?
Humanists give no credibility to the teaching of
a Heaven in our future. However, millions of Americans will tell you that after
death, they are going to Heaven.
Recently, at one of our brunches, a member asked
me “…will those in Heaven have civil rights?” The question caught me completely
off guard! I have thought about it since and decided to explore for an answer
that would best answer this inquiry.
To some, this probe will have all the earmarks
of an iconoclastic query since the premise is skeptical and eschatology is a
labyrinth of interpretations. Conservative Christians would have us believe
that the intricate details of prophecy must be related without contradiction.
This field of theology has suffered at the hand of its interpreters and without
question there exist widely divergent schools of understanding.
Ponder this: Eternity is a long time. In fact,
eternity may not fit the designation of “time.” Heaven is to be eternal. In
view of the fact that most human beings become restless on a rainy Sunday
afternoon with “nothing to do,” it is certain that an eternal stay, will be any
less boring. We in America value our civil rights, freedom of speech and
freedom of movement. Jesus taught Christians to say and believe, “Thy kingdom
come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.” This raises the question,
what is “His will in heaven, and what will Jesus expect of those who go there?”
“His will,” will be the rule -- not the will of those who are there. There goes
scores of “rights” right out the window! Again Christians are instructed to
…“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against
the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the
obedience of Christ;…” 2 Corinthians 10:5. Every thought will be that of Christ
and his teachings. There will be NO activity that would be in any way
disobedient to Jesus Christ -- and remember he was the perfect one. The
inhabitants of Heaven will be subjected to all the laws of both the Old and New
Testaments of their Bible since Jesus Christ taught, “Think not that I am come
to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.”
Heaven will be a true theocracy. In the book of The Revelation chapter 2 and
verses 26-27 the revelator says, “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works
unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations: And he shall rule them
with a rod of iron;…” Whether it is Jesus Christ/God or whomever that is ruling
here, they will rule with a “rod of iron.” Saddam Hussein will be a cherished
leader compared to this eternal ruthless ruler. There would be a chance of
escape from an earthly tyrant, but not from Heaven, for it is eternal.
Let’s let our imaginations run for a few
sentences and dream what may be some heavenly activity to entertain the
inhabitants. There may be a Bible class being taught by Jeremiah, who will
serve as exegete expounding verse by verse his prophetic writings. Assembled on
a near by mountain side will be Moses who will spend about 10,000 years
explaining all the laws of Leviticus. Jesus on another grassy knoll will be
exploring his contradictory teaching and giving an alter call for those who
would not keep his teachings, i.e., cutting one’s hand off when it offended
others; why many chose to drive a SUV when they should have sold all they had
and given it to the poor and listening to excuses as to why heavenly
inhabitants did not “pray without ceasing“ as they were commanded.
There will be no civil rights or freedom as we
are accustomed to here in America. It is not going to par well with Americans
in heaven when they are told that they cannot pick up a stick on the Sabbath.
When a group of Americans try to have a street party in heaven, no pork roast
will be permitted and certainly no wine will be allowed. If the Bible class
gets boring, there will be no R-rated movies to attend or no retail will be
open on Sunday. The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights will not apply in
heaven. It is a fact that the average parishioner becomes bored and sleepy at
the Sunday morning worship service, wondering, “…when will the minister finally
conclude.” Strolls through the park, walks and jogging all get old after
awhile. Just imagine existing as a soul (what is that?) and eternal monotony
just living on and on without purpose except to “worship Jesus,” -- “The four
and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him
that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast
created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created,” Revelation
4:10-11. If an hour on Sunday morning gets boring, just think about what
heavenly inhabitants are in for: “Therefore are they before the throne of God,
and serve him day and night in his temple:…”
Christianity teaches that one can repent on
their deathbed; that is, they can repent and be saved as they draw their last
breath. Who knows that Hitler did not, in his last breath, repent and call upon
God to save him? Every kind of criminal has repented in their prison cells and
found God. The worst kind of murders have called upon God for salvation. It
will be nice having Hitler, Charles Manson, Susan Smith and other notorious
criminals as a neighbor in the next-door mansion. Earthly justice put them away
as punishment. God’s justice is, “neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no
more.” Heavenly inhabitants will not be able to choose their neighbors. They
are all “washed in the blood” and will all live happily ever after! Have a
great time!
Heaven is a human creation to escape reality.
Who needs it?
Lee D.
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Global Thinking—About Water
It is difficult to truly appreciate the impact ordinary water has on civilized life. We take it for granted for cooking, showering, doing laundry, and watering our lawns, but otherwise we aren’t aware of its huge impact.
Our supply comes from the watershed then empties into Table Rock, and North Saluda reservoirs among other reservoirs and lakes. The Greenville local water control center is located off route 276, just south of Marietta. It has buried structures three stories high with six-foot diameter intake pipes to receive water from these local reservoirs. No one will notice it is there. But, just imagine a control chamber 25 stories high, the size of two football fields with intake from a 24-foot diameter pipe sixty miles long. There is such a delivery system being built to take water from the Catskill Mountains to New York City. Construction on it was initiated in the 1970s to replace a dangerously leaky system. It will be completed in 2020. No one will notice that, either. Both New York and Greenville are lucky because they are in the rainy Eastern United States.
When we look at our water bills we see the treatment of sewage far exceeds the price of the water delivery. Yes, it is expensive, but we wouldn’t want to go back to the 1960s. At that time household wastewater was carefully treated, but waste from manufacturing was not. One river, the Cuyahoga in Ohio, actually caught fire because so much of the industrial waste it contained was volatile. Incidents like this caused people to realize that water not only functions to make our sweet tea and do our laundry, but it is required for the production of all our food (irrigation), and the manufacture of our clothing, furniture, building materials, electronics and energy.
We have won the water lottery with our location at the headwaters of our drainage basin, but we have to share its flow with everyone downstream. That means, all our manufacturing and household water use must be cleaned up enough to be potable again. Additionally, some runoff will soak into the ground and eventually into important underground aquifers. One such aquifer is the Floridan, an essential but unsung water source for southeast coastal populations from Mississippi to South Carolina, and including all of Florida. It receives rainwater from the Savannah and Chattahoochee (Atlanta’s water source) basins. The Floridan shows us that rivers and aquifers cover huge geographic areas that do not respect political or economic boundaries. Therefore, no single political or economic entity can claim full control of these waters without damaging the network of co-operation required to keep the civilization they support going.
Globally here is how the continents rate in water richness versus population. Notice the numbers are for runoff (the part we use), not rain:
Asia, 33 percent of the world’s runoff with 60 percent of its population
South America, 28 percent of the world’s runoff with 6 percent of its population
North America, 18 percent of the world’s runoff with 8 percent of its population
Africa, 9 percent of the world’s runoff with 13 percent of its population
Europe 7 percent of the world’s runoff with 12 percent of its population
Australia, 5 percent of the world’s runoff with one-half of one percent its population
North and South America are the winners with low population pressure in respect to their water resources. Australia is too, but only because its harsh dryness restricts where large populations can live, and because the Australian government has made sure that none of the resource is wasted. The numbers above explain why countries such as China, India and Pakistan, only to mention a few, are in a constant struggle to provide potable water to their citizens.
One of the biggest reasons for the hostilities between India and Pakistan back in the 1950s was water. The two countries shared the Indus River watershed and did not have sufficient ways of capturing Himalayan melt-waters and seasonal monsoon rains for controlling this system. Torrential rains, flooding and drought always kept farmers from providing enough grain to feed their communities. The Indus Waters Treaty in 1960 and the huge dams including the gigantic Mangla Dam first seemed a success in alleviating food imports for both countries. Runoff was reduced, wheat production increased by a factor of six, and electricity was brought to local villages. But now the system is in disrepair (as little as 30 percent of canal waters now reach the root zones of crops) and 25 percent of Pakistan’s crop potential is lost because of salt. Some think it is because no one really owns any part of the system and therefore no one takes responsibility for it. To add insult to injury, statistics from 2002 show Pakistani women giving birth to an average of 6.6 babies per woman, a birth rate unsustainable by the country’s present agricultural conditions.
In the 1990s, because of excessive water uptake by industry, China’s Yellow River failed to reach the major wheat producing province of Shandong during its growing season. Shandong comprises the delta area of the river as it reaches the Yellow Sea. In 1995 the peak area of dryness extended for 440 miles. The alarmed Beijing government rationed use of the river so that some water would always be available for Shandong. However, even with total management the pressure from population, industry, and agriculture has pretty much tapped the Yellow River out. The Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze River has problems too. Rising water pressure when the dam was being filled caused mudslides and huge waves. Problems arose with water pollution because the dam slowed the dispersal of industrial and household waste. And downstream, in Shanghai, the reduced force of flow in the river allowed incursion of salt water from the China Sea jeopardizing local water supplies.
So, locally we are lucky. But even though water has no real price, except when it’s bottled, we still have to treat it as a valuable commodity and not waste it. JB
Ref. Discovering the Unknown Landscape; Ann Vileisis; 1997; Island Press
Mirage; Cynthia Barnett; 2007; University of Michigan Press
Tapped Out; Dr. Paul Simon; 1998; Welcome Rain Publishers
Water; Steven Sullivan; 2010; Harper-Collins
Water Wars; Diane Raines Ward; 2002; Penguin-Putnam
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Ever wonder why you’ve been confused about the story of the Resurrection?
This may be the part of the reason why.
Easter Quiz
c. three women (Mark 16:1);
d. more than three women (Luke 23:55-56; 24:1,10)
ref: www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/EasterQuiz.htm