Evolution

The war on Lebanon has had a devastating effect on me. I felt betrayed by everyone.

Perhaps I fail to realize over and over again that human values betray those who hang on to them with messianic delusion. The universality of values is great. It gives us aspirations and ambition. But every passing day proves that they're unrealistic if not coupled with an understanding of nature: Tennyson's "nature red in tooth and claw," applied to human nature.

Charles Darwin said:

The face of nature may be compared to a yielding surface, with ten thousand sharp edges packed close together and driven inwards by incessant blows, sometimes one wedge being struck, and then another with greater force.

...Each at some period of its life, during some season of the year, during each generation or at intervals, has to struggle for life, and to suffer great destruction. When we reflect on this struggle, we may console ourselves with the full belief that the war of nature is not incessant, that no fear is felt, that death is generally prompt, and that the vigourous, the healthy, and the happy survive and multiply.

Does believing in the war of nature surrender me to materialistic notions, creating a justification for those failing to act "human"? But is it not also human to be selfish and uncaring? That's a debate that will never find a satisfactory conclusion. It is quite possible that this world will never be the heaven we all seek. It may also be wise to accept that for every heaven, there's a hell. And that they're both on earth.

Darwin told his wife, who was worried about the fate of her husband's soul in the afterlife, that there's no question as to how one ought to behave. He believed that it was all up to the individual. And indeed it is. But as Darwin wept the loss of his daughter to illness, he blamed not his daughter's weakness, but himself for not providing her with better conditions for survival. He blamed his own weak biology, and decision to marry a cousin.

Almost daily for more than 30 days, a Lebanese father mourned the loss of a son, who lost a battle his father never taught him how to fight. Every day, a father wept and blamed not himself, but the people who killed his son.

Nobody wants to be in that father's shoes, robbed of the opportunity to empower his children with means for survival. How much that's the father's fault, and how much it is the fault of others matters less at this point, though it is up to the father to make that judgment.

And for other fathers in the world, those who cared about this war, and those who didn't,  life will soon show them its interconnectedness. We will soon see that when one man's child falls, other men and their children follow. 

But our private consolation remains that wars are not incessant, and that sooner or later, many other children will rise. And it is up to those of us who understand the interconnectedness of life to make sure they too don't fall.

Soon, my own consolation will be born. 

I tell my wife that he will change the world. But I constantly remind myself that he needs to learn how to take it on first. He has to learn that his life is part of the entangled bank of lives different from each other, and yet dependent on each other in complex manners.

As Darwin wrote more than 150 years ago,

From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms mist beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

-- I am taking a break from blogging. R and Hassan have agreed to guest-blog during my absence, which hopefully will not last more than a week. I leave you in their safe and capable hands. This blog turned one year old this week. Thank you for reading me. --

Comments

[Lazarus]

enjoy your break A.K. :)

[Asiason]

AK a rest well deserved. AND on the eve the UNSC has voted as one to bring the fighting to a stop.

Glory be... sanity may prevail.

[bad vilbel]

That was beautiful Abu Kais.

Enjoy your break. Lord knows we all need one.

[two teef]

All religions were and are man made. The genius of Jesus over others was he had the vision to give a reason for dying like a mere mortal. A religion formed with the idea that anyone who switches to another faith will be killed and anyone who is of another faith should be killed has only three endings. 1. They will eventually take over the world. 2. They will be killed by the one's they try to kill. 3. They change their religion to live peacefully with others. Even tho I think all religions are a bit of a con game, I still think they are useful if they make you happy and tolerant to others except of course, the ones that want to kill you. Oh yeah, a sense of humor would'nt hurt.. Well, if the good Lord's will'n and the creeks don't rise I'll be see'n ya... two teef, bowie,md.

[Ghassan Karam]

All our problems in the world have a moral basis. Unless we come to that realization we will not be able to address our cricic and challenges adequately. And one more thing Abu Kais, I do not believe for a second that we will ever get to utopia because if we ever do then there will no longer be a future to unfold.

R/Hassan/Readers
I have wanted to do this for a while but I did not think that it was very appropriate during the war (Is it over?). Is there an interest in setting up an account at Amazon with a list of say fifty baby items that those of us who would like can buy on line as a gift to KAIS?

[someone]

Nasrallah has won the war on jewich terrorists, jewich terrorists took over USA to fullfil their dream in arabia, americans have to wake up and save the Abraham Lincoln´s USA,and take back their country ,before it is too late.

Jewich terrorists have taken over USA,and they decide war or peace actions for the entire country ,any destruction of american society and infrastructures and killing of innocent american civilians will be their responsibility.

Jewich terrorists has no armed wing, but they control the US army, and the decision to go to war.These terrorists should be arrested ,who will free America from the terrorists?

[NoSleep]

In the chain of evolution for the homo sapiens category, the species that is angry, has a thick beard, carries a machine gun, spews anti-American hatred, and wears a turban, is greatly endangered and will soon disappear. I got that from Darwin.

[Hmmm]

Darwin was brilliant.

Actually, your post reminded me how many times he has been mis-quoted and mis-understood during this crisis, even by otherwise insightful men. Darwin took the commonsense understanding that success survives and failure dies, and put it in the context of a trillion billion moving pieces.
It is the perspective that matters, and why you should be upbeat about your coming joy. By "perspective" I mean that a thousand wisemen before had focused on how failure begets annilation, but they failed to grasp how success perpetuates itself. It is the basis of a progressive reality, wherein the world is constantly getting 'better' (loosely) at everything that is truly important.

Personally, I think the sadness comes when men like myself realize the world is moving away from them. When we realize that others are more successful, we take on the burden of understanding that either our methods are the best or the things we do achieve are not that important. That is hard on heart. That the world moves on, and is better than me, that is easy on the soul.

And then there is the myth of karma. Humans are silly creatures and believe in divine justice. They hold false hopes that unto bad men bad things will come, that in some distant future all debts must be repayed.
It is true that all debts must be repayed, but it is human folly to assume they will be paid by the souls that incur them. for every cause there IS an effect, so every act is balanced, neutral and whole.

Christians and Muslims are at a disadvantage here. While Israel works to succeed, survive and thrive in the present, others choose to fail in false martyrdom in the irrational hope of some undefined future gain. Heaven is a concept, not a place. And '40 virgins' is marketing scam for a medieval religion.
I hope this new chance at peace in the region is understood by all as a new opportunity. For it to be of value, all sides will need to reset the emotional clock, forget the past, and work hard to make the world a better place. Men who live with grudges are dinosaurs in a brave new world. They walk with the stench of historical failure and threaten to pollute our beautiful future.

[someone]

"I hope this new chance at peace in the region is understood by all as a new opportunity. For it to be of value, all sides will need to reset the emotional clock, forget the past, and work hard to make the world a better place. Men who live with grudges are dinosaurs in a brave new world. They walk with the stench of historical failure and threaten to pollute our beautiful future."

There is among human beings ,believers and there is material people.Those material people define success in life as gathering the maximum amount of money by using any methods and devote their life for this goal ,among those people we find criminals ,and thieves and many others.

If jews are among those material people and are the "chosen people" ,just because they achieve this goal of material success,that they defined it for themselves,they want also that other people (among them mulsims,and maybe christians) to choose their way of living,and to destroy their faith by material force (and by strong weapons),and said afterthat ,this is darwin theory of success and failure ,but maybe darwin didnt know something about faith and good values , maybe because he was among them who think that people live to achieve material success,and should be ranked by this achievement.

[Hmmm]

And that, Someone, is the fork in the road between the Middle East and the West.

God did not create any man to be despised, tortured and killed by another. Nor did He create the land so that it would become a source of envy, nor did He create the rocks so that they could smelt into swords, nor did He create our language so that it would lead men astray.
God has given no one the right to judge another. He has given no creed, Muslim or Jew or Christian, the right to harm His many other wonders.

What He has done was to provide us all with a world full of more resources and opportunity that we will ever need. He has given you a world of billions with whom to share your journey, enough water and food to support 10 times that many, and a personal reality capable of love from parents, wives, children and friends.
In short, he has given us a wealth limited only by the self-imposed boundaries of our feeble minds and hate-laced hearts.

If you feel yourself or your people a victim, then look inward. You are a victim of narrowness, of blind hate and of tradition. You are not God's chosen, nor are you the victim of his chosen. You are simply yet another walking wounded, like all of us, from man's inhumanity to man. Our collective denial of a parent's divine love as we kill each other in some perverse sibling rivalry.

[Ghassan Karam]

NoSleep,
I do believe that the passage you quote IS in Darwin ; at least implicitly :-) Now , why didn't I think of that?

[someone]

Ghassan,

Good comments ,i agree with you in many of your comments.

Narrowness is when some people define what is success for all human beings regardless culture and traditions ,define who has failed and who is the best, by launching theories like darwins or self estime as "the chosen people" those who define success like this are narrowminded people,it is like saying " the one who is not with us, is against us".

The goal ,is that all people should live in peace ,no one put theories or definitions for others to follow or something to apply by force.War begin when some group want to force their way of thinking ,faith, living on other group ,and use weapons to do that.

[Mel Gibson]

uh, yeah.