“Until the late nineteenth century the question of woman’s ability to profit from or even survive higher education was controversial. Vassar College opened in 1865 was often described by its first president as an experiment.… as late as 1871 an MD at Harvard Medical School published a book on the dangers of higher education for girls, he doubted the achievement was worth the cost from their psyche and procreative powers.”

From: Carl N Degler, In Search of Human Nature, Oxford University Press 1991

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Here’s a paragraph from a Special Report in The Economist titled Biodiversity. The bottom line is that wealthier regions sometimes do a better job of protecting and sustaining biodiversity.

“that is thanks to the developments covered in this special report – shifting public attitudes to other species, increasing appreciation of natural environments, legislation to stop the killing of endangered species, programs to eradicate invasive species, more and bigger protected areas for wildlife, subsidies to restore degraded habitat, better sanitation, better regulation of pesticides, decreasing levels of conflict and increasingly effective states implementing conservationist legislation. All of these become more prevalent as countries get richer.” The Economist, September 14, 2013, Special Report, Biodiversity, Averting the Sixth Extinction, p.15:

Does upgrading become more prevalent as a county gets richer?  Welcome new developments? Continue to work on Haw River and Jordan Lake cleanup? Keep Kudzu out? Control Sevin dust and Coyotes?

What development and prosperity did the first settlers have in mind when they came here around 1751? Apparently the Catawba Indians were friendly towards the colonists and later served side by side with them fighting the British in our Revolutionary War. How did it turn out for the Catawba?

It’s easy to prove anti-development perspectives as long as one forgets that there’s probably not a single person contributing to this debate who would be here were it not for a long series of developers.

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An active constituency insists that civilization would be better off with no religion. This anti-religion constituency has grown in numbers. They claim religion is mumbo-jumbo. They remind people about centuries of dastardly behavior, violence against weddings and worshipers, pilgrims and patients, students and children committed in the name of some religious brand. They remind us that even today, religious people continue to inflict an encyclopedia of horrors upon their own kind.

They observe that religion’s dance with power and money is like a year-round prom.

Reverse Witnessing

A friend recently offered his selection of anti-religious propaganda online as if he totally agreed with it. He “witnessed” in reverse. He cited as a fact that “most scientists are anti-religious.” Yet his anti-religion narrative is based on mumbo-jumbo fantasies of his own. If the“delete religion” campaign is successful, who does the anti-religion constituency imagine is going to do a better job of managing civilization?

Doesn’t removing one power always means replacing it with another?

The anti-religion constituency often fails to take responsibility for centuries of dastardly behavior committed by nonreligious people, including Stalin’s gulags, Hitler’s camps, and Mao’s blood Red Book, which were violent crusades for “secular divinities”.

I ask my anti-religious friend, “aren’t the put downs emanating from religion one of the qualities you find most objectionable”?

Avoid put-downs when possible. Follow your own better ways.

His “opinionating” reminds me that some religious and anti-religious people are inclined towards righteous judgment, too easily condemning perspectives other than their own.

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Virginia’s Question 4/26/13

“Why is it taking so long for women to become real people?”

Allen’s response:

Well women are as real as clouds, trees, and men.

Answering One Question with Two

When will humanity’s genetically all-mutt races move beyond global traditions of destructive prejudice based on cosmetic factors to more constructive common ground?

And when will the destructive consequences of violently imposed anti-education attitudes, implanted by whip and lynching, weaken their hold on victims and perpetrators?  Simon Legree still haunts many lands today including our own. He says, “Boys, better not dream about bettering yourselves, quit dreaming and join my gang.” And he says, “Girls, know your place and do what you’re told or I’m going to beat and stone you!” Male violence against women is the Simon Legree of gender.

The History of Gender Suppression

The roots of gender suppression are hidden in history, though less hidden everyday because people are investigating this subject. Read my 8/13/2011 post entitled “Jobs and the Gender of Divinity.”

http://www.digest-this.com/jobs-production-technology-and-the-gender-of-divinity/.

I asked “If the role of women in the workplace and in heaven drastically changed after the adoption of plow technology, how will robotic agriculture and manufacturing affect the role of male and female workers in the 21st century?”

Virginia, you answered your own question: the emancipation of women remains “an ongoing process which has taken far too many centuries.”  Yet the violently enforced definitive confinement of womanhood continued (continues) for thousands of years longer than the systematic enslavement and deprecation of African-Americans, the consequences of which are still with us.

Thank you again for commenting.  Allen

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For example, the Hippocratic Oath is sometimes quoted to justify a stance against abortion rights by the same people who are certain that faith in female divinity as expressed in this document is heretical. Indeed, this oath, from which anti-abortion advocates draw support, was created by people who worshiped goddesses. It states, “I swear by Apollo the healer, Asclepius, Hygieia and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and judgment, the following oath and agreement.”

It’s still possible to find an occasional version of the oath including the word “goddesses” hanging on a doctor’s waiting room wall. Modern versions are likely to omit all reference to divine power. Faith in female divinity is still thriving among civilization’s 1 billion-plus member Hindu community, but references to female divinity were violently suppressed in the monotheistic Western world a long time ago.

Consider two speculative questions: What would Western civilization be like if masculine definitions of divinity had been suppressed, if female divinity was the only acceptable version? And why do people insist on assigning one of two biological genders to divinity?

The oath states, “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.” The anti-abortion constituency insists these words represent an uncompromising stand against euthanasia and any type of abortion. Pro-choice forces point out that a pessary was one of many methods for ending pregnancy at that time.

Isn’t it likely that Greek physicians in the 5th century B.C. made medical decisions consistent with their training, values and the circumstances they faced with their patients? The oath states, “I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to others.” Some physicians may have taken this to condone abortions necessary to save a mother’s life, while others believed a pregnancy should never be interrupted, regardless of the circumstances.

The Hippocratic Oath, written in Ionic Greek approximately 2,500 years ago, demonstrates how issues we’re facing today resemble those faced by our recent ancestors. Nobody knows for sure who wrote it. A modernized version is used by a majority of U.S. medical schools. These oaths are part of civilization’s ongoing quest to establish and meet higher standards.

How contemporary are patients’ privacy rights? The oath states: “All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.”

Recognizing that physicians often have intimate, private access to their patients’ bodies and emotions, the oath states, “In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.”

In other words, physicians must avoid sexual contact with patients. How about religious officials?

The oath states, “I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.” Let specialists do specialized jobs. The ubiquitous “Best Doctors by Specialization” lists demonstrate professional commitment to this principle.

In a modernized version of the oath, Dr. Louis Lasagna wrote, “I will not be ashamed to say ‘I know not,’” and “Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given to me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.”

For the complete version of Dr. Lasagna’s oath visit http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html. A classical version of the Hippocratic Oath is also available at this site.

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Industrialists, politicians and propagandists in their employ dismiss reports of destructive climate change caused by human activity as mere speculation. If you can’t conclusively prove your claims, they say, your theories are worthless and should be ignored. In order to protect their own commercial and political advantages, they reject suggestions that civilization may be severely damaged by human habits.
They are gambling with the future of humanity.

Similar Uncertainties

Blaise Pascal was an eminent 17th-century French intellectual who considered similar uncertainties about God and salvation. A mathematician, physicist, philosopher and writer, Pascal invented and marketed a functional mechanical calculator in the 1600s. His calculations influenced subsequent developments in geometry, calculus, probability theory, economics and hydrodynamics.

Pascal was a religious man who wrote in defense of the scientific method. Perhaps he is best known for what is variously called Pascal’s Wager, Pascal’s Gambit or the Pascal Option.

Pascal proposed that though many people are unsure whether God exists, their uncertainty should not prevent them from living a religious and moral life because they have everything to gain and little to lose by doing so. “Even if it should turn out that there is no God, the sheer risk of deciding against such a possibility warrants that we should take that option,” his reasoning went, according to Philosophy Online (http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/pages/pascal.htm).

People who are unconvinced by evidence regarding climate change might consider applying similar logic. Radical climate change caused by human activity might damage civilization and cause billions of people to suffer. Progress toward cleaner, greener technology is self-protective and creates jobs. Even you’re uncertain about climate change and its causes, it make sense to choose the option that would benefit us most.

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The half-light of half-learned lessons cuts us off from elders of the sharp-edged pagan years.       Outlined by evening sky they walk toward prayer, leaning over their lamps.                                               By flickering light they stand in corners cut in damp earth holding each other tall.

Old story told once more, we rise from cushioned pews, let fall each other, uninstructed in the catch of shifting weight.                                                                                                                                                     Shadows of wistful wishes wax in failing light.                                                                                                   The dark is out there.                                                                                                                                             Who can teach the bending into it?

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A Reuters exclusive posted by journalist Jim Wolf, “Orbital Solar Power Plants Touted for Energy Needs” http://blogs.reuters.com/jim-wolf, describes a fantasy project with the potential to provide civilization with energy for centuries to come.

Indian and U.S. space scientists propose that power plants be placed in orbit to collect solar energy and beam it to Earth. They claim this project is technologically feasible, and could be accomplished within 30 years if expensive research and development is financed.

The sun is Earth life’s primary source of energy. The human constituency accepts that the earth rotates around the sun. No political party challenges the science that the sun is the center of our solar system.

In which Digest This category does this story belong: “Defend Civilization,” “Human Leadership,” “Human Solidarity,” “Questions” or “Fairy Tales Revisited”? Turning to the sun for solutions is a fairy tale revisited.

Male and female solar deities were part of human history for a long time. Those who worshiped divine power associated with the sun included Aztec, African, Arabian, Basque, Brazilian, Canaanite, Celtic, Egyptian, Etruscan, Germanic, Greek, Hindu, Hittite, Japanese, Mayan, Native American, Norse, Persian, Polynesian, Slavic and Turkic peoples.

Humanity’s relationship with the sun includes many prominent markers. It was less than 500 years ago when Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler offered science to replace geocentrism (the earth at the center of the universe) with heliocentrism (the sun at the center). The observations of William Herschel confirmed by Edwin Hubble in the 1920s demonstrated that the sun is one of billions of suns in the galaxies.

Energy and Hope

Yet we remain a man-centered universe. As much as we’ve learned about life and the galaxies, humanity focuses on our own critical needs.  Our critical needs include an abundant supply of energy and hope.

We obsess about the end of civilization. The popularity of doomsday scenarios – including the Mayan Prophecy, 2012, Y2K, and the endlessly updated old-time favorites: Judgment Day, Nostradamus, Armageddon and the Apocalypse – demonstrate that we’re living at a time when energy and hope feel scarce. We’re just a bit frightened.

You Make Me Happy When Sky’s Are Grey

Surely our hopeful fantasies deserve equal time with these doomsday scenarios. So let’s welcome this fairy tale about orbiting solar power plants delivering an unlimited supply of electricity. Make a movie about beaming down energy and beam up hope. Imagine, and then create, a society where energy and hope are plentiful.

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