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The Luxury of a Pure Conscience is the Health of the Soul
Time is a mere infirmity of human mind which prevents us from seeing things sub specie aeternitatis; and because there is a close correlation between temporality and the mentality (temporalistic panpsychism). States of consciousness are private, God within the mind, this eternal monitor. Our environment also employs a deep impact on our development. Environment (nurture) refers to the combination of all external conditions that affect a person. For instance, the brain of a newborn baby has fewer dendrites (nerve cell branches) and synapses (connections between nerve cells) than an adult brain. However, the newborn brain is highly plastic (capable of being altered by experience). During the first three years of life, millions of new dendrites (connections between nerve cells) in the brain form every day. At the same time, unused synapses (connections between nerve cells) disappear. As a result, early learning environments literally shape the developing brain, through blooming and pruning of synapses. The cradle of civilization is in Africa, where the garden of Eden is located. Although human DNA is evolving, modern humans are still genetically quite similar to cave dwellers who lived 30,000 years ago. A strong influence of African migrants existed throughout the World (and is still detectable today). Most modern genes come from African as a result of large African migration(s) and/or incremental gene flow. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
The Pleistocene era is from 1,800,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago. During the latter Pleistocene (125,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago), one more major migrations from Africa fueled the Worldwide dispersal of modern humans. Although most researchers agree that anatomically modern humans originated in Africa between 150,000 and 200,00 years ago, there is still debate over whether this was a speciation event that replaced other human populations outside of Africa, or whether there was a genetic mixture. In Africa, premodern fossils have been found at several sites. One of the best known is Broken Hill (Kabwe). In this and other African premodern specimens, a mixture of older and more recent traits can be seen. Dating estimates of Broken Hill and most of the other premodern fossils from estimates have been given dates for most of the localities in the range of 600,000-125,000 years ago. The premodern human fossils from Africa and Europe are more similar to each other than they are to the hominids from Asia. They mix of some ancestral characteristics (retained from Homo erectus ancestors) with more derived features give the African and European fossils a distinctive look; they are usually referred to as H. heidelbergensis. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
The situation in Asia is less tidy. To some researchers, the remains appear more modern than contemporaries from either Europe or Africa. They represent a regional branch of H. heidelbergensis. The Pleistocene World forced many small populations into geographical isolation. Most of these regional populations no doubt died out. Some, however, did evolve, and their descendants are likely a major part of the later hominid fossil record. In African, H. heidelbergensis evolved into Neandertals. Meanwhile, the Chinese premodern populations may have all met with extinction. However, the African migrants might well have interbred with resident populations outside of Africa. Nevertheless, a bright new born baby born today could learn to become almost anything—an actor, an engineer, a race car, driver, nurse, singer, rapper, a spiritual gangster, or a mechanic who likes to build Victorian houses. But an Upper Pleistocene baby could have only become a hunter for food. It was once thought we appeared in Europe around 45,000 years ago and that they coexisted with Neanderthals for thousands of years after that. They may have hung on in pockets – including caves in Gibraltar – until 40,000 years ago, it was believed. In other words, there was a long, gradual takeover by modern humans, and died out from competition. It is not an easy matter to hit a conscience exactly between wind and water. Thank goodness for evolution and human rights. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Environmental factors actually start influencing development before birth. Although the intrauterine environment (interior of womb) is highly protected, environmental conditions can nevertheless affect the developing child. For example, when a young lady was pregnant, the baby’s fetal heart rate and movements increased when loud sounds or vibrations penetrated the womb. In addition to cultural differences, age, ethnicity, religion, disability, and sexual orientation all affect the social norms that guide behavior. Social norms are rules that define acceptable behavior. While watching an episode of “The Jefferson’s,” the father, George had a problem with his African American son, Lionel dating a young lady, Jenny, who has a White father and a Black mother because he did not understand her culture and did not want to deal with it. Also, on the show “The Bachelorette,” the star Rachel Lindsay is the first African American bachelorette ever on the show and comes from a prestigious family. She has to choose from African American and European American men, and one of these lucky men will be her next husband. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
To many, interracial dating is no big deal, most people do not even see what they problem is with Rachel choosing from men who have different skin tones, but still a lot of people have deeply rooted hostilities about interracial dating, as they did 40 years ago when “The Jefferson’s” was a new show, which reflects cultural attitudes of time era. And some other people wish that racial had more cultures to choose from like Japanese men and Hawaiian men. However, with interracial the more cultures you mix in to the situation, the more complex it becomes because people become insecure when they have more competition. Nevertheless, some women who are mixed race also have a problem with their children dating people who do not look like their phenotype (outward) appearance because they feel like their child is rejecting their image or culture. Even more, European American women who marry African American men sometimes have problems with their mixed race son’s dating White girls because of historical race relation issues and also sometimes because people who marry another race identify as they race and also feel rejected if their child rejects the race that they are married to. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Other problems with the show “The Bachelorette” is that some feel it is unethical because a woman is selecting from men who she does not really know and marrying them and a few people think it is unnatural. However, in China, for every man, there are two women, so there are more women than men. And dating and marriage has become a business. If you do not have a career, healthy bank account, are not tall and attractive and do not have a house in a desirable location a woman will reject you with in ten minutes of meeting you because women are in such high demand. Dating is like a business and so “The Bachelorette” many not be a bad form of finding a mate. The men are screened to make sure they healthy, safe, and come from good background, which seems like less of a gamble of meeting people on your own and taking a risk. Also, some people do fall in love fast. To fully understand human behavior, psychologist need to know how people differ, as well as the ways in which we are all alike. To be effective, psychologist must be sensitive to people who are ethnically and culturally different from themselves. For the same reason, an appreciation of human diversity can enrich your life, as well as your understanding of psychology. In strong and involuntary bias, the heart is conscience. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
We have to reflect on a new social reality: Cultural diversity is becoming the new normal. The percentage of non-Hispanic white people in the United States of America has reached an all-time low: 63 percent. That is 197.7 million White people out of 325.9 million Americans. In 2000, Whites were 69 percent of the population. In some large cities, African American, Hispanic, Asian American, and Native Americans are already the majority. In the past, psychology was based mostly on the cultures of North America and Europe. Now, we must ask, do the principles of Western psychology apply to people in all cultures? Are some psychological concepts invalid in other cultures? Are any universal? As psychologist have probed such questions, one thing has become clear: Most of what we think, feel, and do is influenced in one way or another by the social and cultural Worlds in which we live. Unlike the Divine Intellect, the souls are unable to grasp the timeless truth at one, in a single instantaneous act, but only gradually, step by step, by a laborious process of reasoning. Succession and change are thus mere results of our inability to grasp everything at once. The moving image of eternity, an imperfect (because moving) imitation is understood in a psychological sense as movement of soul. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Abandoned Opportunities are Never Lost
Beauty must be exhibited as a necessary condition of humanity, the luxury to apprehend, for this new value in the soul is the supremest Earthly sum; that refinement makes humans whole complete beings. The elegance and delicacy is the quality by which causes love or some passion similar to it. That love is all there is, is all we know of love; it is enough, the freight should be proportioned to the groove. Things are always beautiful in their own nature. You are the loveliest of all lovies, please stay awhile and tell me your name. And yet by Heaven, I think my love as rare. Love is compared to a single soul inhabiting two bodies. Happiness is what all people desire since it is always the end goal of our activities, it is an unconditional good. It does not depend on external things, but rather on how those things are used. Happiness is not to be found in the goods that one accumulates, or even in the projects that form the ingredients of one’s life, but rather in the agency of the individual who gives life a direction and focus. Human nature will discover what brings out the best in human beings. Offer all in your heart and all of your good intentions to God’s gracious majesty. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
The human soul as it is recognized has beauty in its true origin and destiny. What mystery pervades as well softened by nature’s blessing. Love is always in a state of lack and hence of desire: the desire to possess the beautiful. This state of infinite longing is trained on the truth, and is the path to wisdom. The basic idea has been relished many times by romantics. It fuels the cult of idealized or courtly love, which has been strong since the Middle Ages, in which the beloved has become a symbol of the infinite. Beauty is centered in the human experience of pleasure. Beauty is such an order and construction of parts, as either by the primary constitution of our nature, by custom, or by caprice, is fitted to give a pleasure and satisfaction to the soul. Pleasure and pain. Proud of my broken heart since you did break it, proud of the pain I did not feel until you, proud of my sight since it was the limit of my dream. The focus of my prayer, a perfect, paralyzing bliss constitutes your very essence. It was a dream in which I found myself, a brave palace that was all my own. Whether tomorrow’s day shall break the spell, I will remember always it was your hand that I held. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
Beauty is the emblem of what we lack, the mark of an art that speaks to our desire. Beautiful things do not stand aloof, but direct our attention and our desire to everything else we must learn or acquire in order to understand and possess, and they give Godspeed to the sense of life, providing new shape and direction. The Heaven below the Heaven above obscured with rosier hue. Whatever we have seen, heard, or understood, delights, pleases, and ravishes us by this joy so scantily disburse. The pleasure of sense accompanies the ideas of sensation. There is vastly greater pleasure in your complex beauty, a regular and harmonious apprehension, which conforms my soul as if it were a church. Everyone acknowledges we are delighted with your fine face, a just picture, than with the view of any one colour, were it as strong and lively as possible. When you smile, it is more pleasing then the Sun arising among settled clouds, and colouring their edges, with starry hemisphere. When roses cease to bloom, dear, and violets are done, the pleasure of your composition has passed beyond the Sun. When dreaming the night shall pass away. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
God above all others is capable of bringing us happiness, as he is the helper of mankind who eliminates those evils, whose cure brings the greatest happiness to the human race. If life is ever worth living, it is when one has attained this vision of the soul of beauty. And once you have seen it, you will never be seduced again by the charm of gold or flesh, you will care nothing for the beauties that used to take your breath away, and when one discerns this beauty, one will perceive the true virtue, not virtue’s semblance. And one has been brought forth and reared this perfect virtue, one shall be called the friend of God, and if ever it is capable of one to enjoy immortality, it shall then be given to that individual. The greatest happiness is the pure vision of God. This overwhelming experience of truth, beauty, and the divine, will make all the sufferings and tribulations of our lives meaningful and worth experiencing. It is something that is earnestly pursued that comes only after all our adventures in the World. Humble yourself deeply before God, and make virtue a necessity. Be thankful for everything that God has blessed you with and show appreciation by taking great care of it, and you will be rewarded with more. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
The righteous person is happier than the unjust individual. We all certainly prefer to be healthy than unhealthy, but health is nothing but the harmony among different parts of the body, each carrying out its proper function. Justice, it turns out, is a similar kind of harmony, but among different parts of the soul. Injustice on the other hand is a form of civil war between parts of the soul: a rebellion in which one rogue element—the desirous part of our natures—usurps reason as the controlling power. In contrast, the just soul is one that possess psychic harmony no matter what comes one’s way in life; just individuals never lose their inner composure, and can maintain peace and tranquility despite the harshest of life’s circumstances. Happiness is the internal benefits and characteristics rather than external ones. Living a virtuous life brings greater pleasure than living an unvirtuous life. Psychic harmony that results from a just life brings with it greater peace and inner tranquility, which is more pleasant than the unjust life which tends to bring inner discord, guilt, stress, and disease. Simplicity, gentleness and modesty are to be desired in all society—there are some people who are so full of affectation in whatever they do that everyone is annoyed by them. Some people are artificial in all they do and spoil the pleasure of society. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
The higher pleasures of the just life are not merely peace of mind, but the excitement of pursuing knowledge, as it produces an almost Godlike state in the human being. The philosopher is at the pinnacle of this pursuit: having cast off the blinders of ignorance, one is able to explore the higher realm of truth, and this experience makes every merely physical pleasure pale in comparison. Most pleasures are not really pleasures at all, but merely an absence of pain. Some pleasures are not relative because they concern higher parts of the soul that are not bound to the relativity produced by physical things. These are the philosophical pleasures—the pure pleasure of coming to a greater understanding of reality. Wrapped in ever-expanding social networks, we are never far from other people. They are always right beside us, just around the corner, or only a phone call, telegraph, or text massage away. In our intensely social World, it is tempting to assume that a person who is alone is a loser, a loner, a social outcast or, at the very least antisocial or shy. However, is this assumption always justified? Well, it depends. On the one hand, it is true that some people are alone because they are socially fearful, self-conscious, or shy, or otherwise dislike social situations. Many of these people are shy and lonely. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
In more extreme cases, people who shun social interaction and are troubled by their isolation may even be diagnosed with a mental disorder such as agoraphobia. On the other hand, it is also true that some people are alone simply because they prefer solitude. In fact, many of history’s most creative and spiritual individuals have found insight in their solitude. “I think it is important to take a break, you know, from the public eye for a while, and give people a chance to miss you. I want longevity. I do not want to get out there and run myself ragged and spread myself thin,” Aaliayh said when she was asked why she took five years off between albums. She went on to say, “There are times in my life when I just want to be by myself.” Environment factors influence intelligence. Social interaction, the media, the internet and video games, much like most of popular culture is becoming so complex. The rich, complicated experiences can require 40 hours or more of intense problem-solving to complete or understand. People must usually figure out by themselves how to figure out the rules because everything is so cognitively demanding. In the end, popular culture may well be inviting us to read, reflect, and problem-solve more than ever before. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
This person is alone. But is that individual lonely? Do you think time alone is healthy or unhealthy? Can we not be around people sometimes and by ourselves at other times? Why not? Perhaps we could all benefit from some alone time. Quiet time for reflection does seem to be associated with creativity, spiritual growth, problem solving, and self-discovery. In our modern World, social contact is a given. Alone time—now that is another story. Did you know that healthy solitude was on the minds of legislatures when they passed the 1964 Wilderness Act? According to the act, national parks should serve “to preserve natural conditions, to provide opportunities for solitude, and to provide a primitive and unconfined type of recreation.” Although little can be done to change neural intelligence, by adding to personal knowledge and learning to think better, people can become more intelligent. Many psychologists believe that to make full use of innate intelligence a person must have good metacognitive skills. Metacognitive skills mean above and beyond ordinary thinking. Such skills involve an ability to manage your own thinking and problem solving. Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
Typically, to better manage our lives, this means breaking problems into parts, establishing goals, and subgoals, monitoring your progress, and making connections. Learning metacognitive skills is the surest avenue to become more intelligent. Learning to relax is a way to lower stress, and emotional support also helps. To reduce stress, rehearse how you will cope with upsetting events. Calmly plan how you will handle each situation—by keeping your attention on the task, by focusing on the issues one at a time. Another helpful strategy involves listening to the upsetting thoughts you have during the day. Then you can learn to combat these worries with calming, rational replies. If I prepare well and calm my worries, my day will go fine. Even if I do not, it will not be the end of the World. My friends will still like me, and I can try to improve the next day. We acquire social motives in complex ways, through socialization and cultural conditioning. The behavior of outstanding artists, scientist, athletes, educators, and leaders is best understood in terms of such learned needs, particularly the need for achievement. This indicates our mind is part of our soul. Call to mind that the day now is beginning and you may work for eternity, and make steadfast resolution to use this day for that end. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
Mystery and Magic at the Winchester Mansion
Whoever has been so fired in one’s own spirit by the overwhelming thought of the Divine Being as to kindle the flames of faith in their heart of their fellow humans, has thereby proved oneself to be a prophet of the living God; and thus every great historic religion dates from a genuine inspiration by the Eternal spirit. The Winchester mansion attracted a recorded 27.5 million visits in 1923, when the state of California only had a population of 4 million (3.991 million to be exact). On its best day, the mansion drew more than 700,000 visitors. That the mansion was built at all, however, was something of a miracle. To build it, the Sarah and William Winchester confronted a legion of obstacles, any one of which could have—should have—killed it long before it was completed. Together, the Winchesters’ and their architects had conjured a dream castle, whose grandeur and beauty exceeded anything each singly could have imagined. The house was furnished with the finest materials and was a showcase of Victorian elegance and taste. It is a maze of Victorian craftmanship—there were gold and silver-plated chandeliers, imported Tiffany art glass windows, German silver and bronze inlaid doors, Swiss molded bathtubs, rare precious woods like mahogany paneled walls, and rosewood and parquet floors. Cabinets and fireplaces made of teak, maple, oak and white ash. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
Believe or not, the key to the massive front door was made of solid gold. Early in her residence, Mrs. Winchester planned a grand reception and sent hundreds of gold-engraved invitations to all the prominent valley residents. Visitors wore their best clothes and most subdued expressions, as if entering the great Winchester cathedral. Some wept at its beauty, others rejoiced as if they have a revelation of God, as the moonlight cascaded through the beautiful art glass windows. At that time, the Winchester mansion had 600 rooms, was 100,000 square feet, bisected with a ten-story tower and sat on 161 acres of beautifully landscaped gardens, with spouting fountains and blossoming orchards. A sumptuous midnight banquet was the main feature that night, guests were served beef bourguignon, tartiflette, and quiche on honeycomb platters of crystal glass, 12 inches in diameter made by Tiffany & Co, along with the table being set with a $800,000.00 solid-gold dinner service (which was counted at the end of the night to make sure every piece was put away in one of the mansion’s six huge safes). The dinner was supported by a famous orchestra for added entertainment. The mansions was patrolled by a pack of ferocious Hell Hounds, plus, of course she had her staff or armed bodyguards. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The crowing feature of which was the wine. A 1787 Chateau Lafite, was served out of a Tiffany & Co. refresher set in handblown glass with a 68-ounce pitcher and of course, 13-ounce glasses. For dessert, they tasted a new snack called Cracker Jack and a new breakfast food called Shredded Wheat, and brought elegance and tradition to the table by serving the treats out of 12-inch harmony bowls made of crystal glass by Tiffany & Co. The mansion employed two hundred Egyptian and German employees, who were paid in gold coins. There are still more than 10,000 windows, nine kitchens, 47 fireplaces, which are all hand carved and no two alike. And while no one claimed to like gossip, girl, they gossiped about Mrs. Winchester more than any Wendy interview—and everyone enjoyed it. Talk begat rumors and as the years passed and new towers and gables rose behind the 16-foot hedge of Llanda Villa, the rumors grew to established legend. There were also twenty-five distinct Victorian guest houses on the property. Everything about the Winchester mansion was exotic and, above all, immense. Mrs. Winchester also had a sacred blue séance room, where her secret rendezvous with the spirits took place. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
The house was over a square mile, and some people were more impressed with the Winchester mansion, so much so that it eclipsed the tower of Alexandre Eiffel, Madison Square Garden. Mrs. Winchester is reported to have had dinner with Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Henry Adams, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Nikola Tesla, Jane Addams, Francis Ellingwood Abbot, and his wife but when President Theodore Roosevelt’s entourage passed, he expressed desire to visit the greatest event in the history of this country since the Civil War, at the World famous mansion, but at the great front door, our nation’s leader was more than astonished to be coldly told by the Butler, “Mrs. Winchester is not home!” The Winchester mansion was one of the first in the World to utilize wood insulation. Mrs. Winchester used brass cornerplates on many stairways to prevent dust pocket, and she invented an inside crank to open and close the outside shutters. Her 46 fireplaces were the first hinged iron drops for ashes and concealed wood boxes. The tier of tubs in her immense laundry had moulded-in wash boards. Mrs. Winchester also rode in regal splendor. First with a Victoria with livered coachman. Then a French Renault, a Buick Town-Car and two Pierce-Arrows, one done in stunning lavender and gold. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
Mrs. Winchester had a remarkable memory and knew location of every piece of material in the mansion, even in the vast store-rooms. Some of the built-in innovations were decades ahead of the times. Annunciators installed in all rooms could signal her whereabouts to the servants. Illuminating gas was manufactured by a new process directly on the grounds. She improvised a window catch patterned after the Winchester rifle trigger and trip-hammer. Mrs. Winchester was very strong minded and firm, but always fair and kind. Laziness, theft, gossip or revealed confidence met with instant dismissal. Something magical had occurred in that mansion, and it was beyond doubt, but darkness, too had touched the house. Scores of workers had been hurt or killed in building the dream, their families consigned to poverty (for looting the mansion). And a fire had killed more, and an assassin had allegedly gone on a rampage targeting members of elite classes. Worse had occurred, too, but these revelations emerged only slowly. A murdered had moved among the beautiful things the Winchesters had created and the mansion was so large that he would sneak in and out at night killing guests. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
Mr. Abbot’s young wife was drawn to the Winchester mansion by the prospect of business and she and many other young women had disappeared, last seen at the mile-long Winchester mansion. Later, Francis Abbot and his colleagues learned of the anguished letters describing daughters who had come to California and had fallen silent. The press speculated that scores of people must have disappeared within the building. After completing “The Syllogistic Philosophy,” Francis Abbot allegedly committed suicide at his wife’s grave. Even Lizzie Halliday was startled by what the fact that such grisly events could have gone undiscovered for so long, and people started to suspect that there really was supernatural activity going on inside of the Winchester mansion and that the Winchester family was being stalked and killed by ghost. Enough strange things began happening to people to make the claim seem plausible. For the supernaturally inclined, the death of the butler alone offered sufficient proof. America is every whit as sacred as Judea. God is as near to you and to me, as ever he was to Moses, to Jesus, or to Paul. Wherever a human soul has uttered its sincere and brave faith in the Divine, and this bequeathed to us the legacy of inspire words, there is the Holy Bible. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
Humans impose their own way of life on nature, and transforms it into something with a human shape. There are in consequence two levels of nature: an upper level of human nature and a lower level of physical nature. We are born into the latter World, but do not really belong to it. It is natural to people to be moral, civilized, and socially disciplined; it is unnatural to live like wild beasts. Human’s present relation to nature can hardly be expressed except by paradox. Certain human qualities, such as chastity, are natural, on the human level of nature. The nature God had originally planned for humans was that of the Golden Age or the Garden of Eden: this was lost at the Fall, but in some measure, is recreated by the disciplines of civilization, morality, religion, and the arts. People are subject to death, and on the physical level of nature there can be no more natural event than death. Yet death was not a part of the order originally planned for humans and in that context death is unnatural. Witchcraft, a perceived facility to summon evil spirits and demons to do harm to others, was linked to religion to the extent that the medieval Church had powers to punish those who dabbled in magic and sorcery. Its priests were able to exorcise those who had become possessed by malign spirits. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
During the 16th century, many people believed that witchcraft, rather than the workings of God’s will, offered a more convincing explanation of sudden and unexpected ill fortune, such as the death of a child, bad harvests, or the death of cattle. Witch-hunting became an obsession in some parts of the country. An estimated total 60,000 people were executed during the witch trials. Those accused of witchcraft were portrayed as being worshipers of the Devil, who engaged in such acts as malevolent sorcery at meetings known as Witches’ Sabbaths. In 1552, Parliament passed the Witchcraft Acts which defined witchcraft as a crime punishable by death. It was repealed five years later, but restored by a new Act in 1562. The circling of the immortal Heavenly bodies in the sky is the most eloquent symbol of the order and harmony of the nature that was originally intended for human beings. In 1736, Parliament passed an Act repealing the laws against witchcraft, but imposing fines or imprisonment on people who claimed to be able to use magical powers. At the level of society (or at least the groups of human beings that existed in the evolutionary past), religious belief promotes cooperation, mutual respect, and solidarity, and these features help the group to survive. God wants us to love our neighbors, as we love ourselves, which means show respect. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
But What does He Owe Me for Five Years of Bread and Bored?
Fire exists the first in light, and then consolidates—only the chemist can disclose into what carbonates. Clearly, certain sites are endowed more richly than others. The natural beauty wandered through the landscape like morning glory through the picket of a fence. The depth and subtlety of this landscape with gardening features, terraces, fountains and statues produces an affect on the mind between eternity and time. The heart asks for pleasure first. The purer the beauty, the more it will be out of the World. The lake was lovely and always changing hue and texture, and it was also a novelty capable of amplifying the drawing power of exposition. Many visitors from the heart of the country will, until they arrive here, never have seen a broad body of water extending to the horizon; will never have seen a vessel under sail, nor a steamboat of half the tonnage of those to be seen hourly passing in and out of the harbor; and will never have seen such effects of reflected light or clouds piling up from the horizon, as are to be enjoyed almost every Summer’s day on the lake margin of the city. And the sweetest in the gale is heard, as it sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all perching hope in the soul. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Indeed, space is an obscure representation of the essence or essential presence of the divine being. When walking through a charming and lush forest setting, one’s thoughts can easily take flights of fancy and shed the layers of city life. The essential feature of the soul is that it initiates movement. To do this, however, it must be where the body is. This is possible because unlike material objects spirits can penetrate both other spirits and material object, contracting or expanding like Newton’s aether, as the occasion makes necessary. Thus, God, an individual mind, and a material object can be all present in the one place without losing their independence as substances. Spirit can be regarded as a sort of fourth dimension; a body which contains a spirit has a certain spissitude, or density of substances. The behavior of living organisms cannot be derived from a collection of particles; spirits are the true cause of all activity. This does not mean that all activity is the work of conscious rational beings. Spirits exists at various levels; seminal forms, which are neither sensitive nor rational but are still capable of initiating motion, are responsible for actions at the level lower than animal feeling. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Pursuing what seems to be in accordance with right reason, our capacity to discover what actions accord with reason and our inclination toward those actions that flow from a special boniform faculty. Reason itself cannot incite action; virtuous action can be instigated only by the passional side of our nature. The ultimate ground of all virtue is intellectual love. You may seem alone, but you are not. There are always eyes watching you. Do not wish you were a priority in someone’s life because you are God’s number one priority. If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end. Most people give up just when they are about to achieve success. Do not feel badly because you are not where you want to be right this moment. Do not focus on the disappointment, failure, or mistakes. They are all part of God’s plan to prepare you for victory. Keep moving forward, doing your best and being your best, and honor God. Be determined and persistent, and God will provide for your future. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
The knowledge of the soul admittedly contributes greatly to the advance of truth in general, and, above all, to our understanding of Nature, for the soul is in some sense the principle of life. Fortunes, as well as reputations, are at stake. Look, life is not fun and games. We could be running multimillion-dollars businesses, and we are not laughing all the way to the bank. Our economy is based on planned obsolescence. God knows what he is doing in your life and put a dream in your heart. There is a promise inside of your soul, and deep down you know that you will succeed. Our aim is to grasp and understand the soul’s essential nature and its properties; of these some are taught to be affections proper to the soul itself, while others are considered to attach to the being owning to the presence within it of soul. To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things to do in the World. The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest. Meaning we will be successful. Righteousness goes before us and prepares the way for our footsteps. Adversity causes some to break; others to break records. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Some philosophers have argued that mental events after death are logically impossible. They contend that a mind or mental events presuppose a person who has them, and what is meant by a person entails a body. A typical line of reasoning would be the following: the concept of a person presupposes criteria for identifying the person, and in the end the criteria will have to be physical if we are to identify people. It does, however, seem perfectly possible and quite graphically describable, too, that I should survive my own death and witness my own funeral. That is why we do not speak ill of the dead. There must be a reason for that superstition. So, the disembodied existence of a person seems to be logically possible. Yet, one the other hand, there does appear to be a difficulty in conceiving of disembodied existence as the general rule, since it is hard to see how we would even have a concept of persons in such a situation. It is only through their bodies that we come to know of the existence, identity, and nature of other persons. Perhaps the concept of a person logically requires that there be at least some cases of people with bodies, but it does not require that all persons have bodies. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
In favor of the hypothesis of survival, there is a large number of reports, investigated with varying degrees of neutrality, of messages from and apparitions of people who have died. In many of these cases it is reported that information was transmitted that only the dead person could have had. It is argued that such occurrences are best explained by postulating that the persons involved survived their physical deaths and are able to communicate with us. Even if such cases did stand up under scrutiny, we would be faced with the difficult problem of distinguishing them from retrospective clairvoyance and telepathy, which in turn, cannot easily be distinguished from usual forms of physical causation. Evidence against the hypothesis of disembodied existence is the fact that certain neural mechanisms are necessary for consciousness. When these mechanisms are interfered with, there is temporary loss of consciousness. Since all neural mechanisms cease functioning entirely in death, it is reasonable to think that consciousness ceases entirely. It is true that there is still the possibility that only as a person has a body that his or her consciousness dependent on it and when the body dies the person is free from this dependency. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
However, this simply points out an inductive argument from known cases to as yet unknown cases, and such induction runs some risk of going wrong. General inductive procedures justify not giving much weight to this possibility. Yet, many people believe that we can gain insight into the mind-body problem by considering the analogous issues involved in machines. The achievements in machine technology are truly remarkable. Machines are able to store enormous amounts of information and perform calculations at incredible speeds. Machines have developed theorems (sometimes more ingeniously than their designers), play games (sometimes more skillfully than their inventors), translate spoken words into different languages, compose music, and write poems. Machines have been constructed that learn from past experiences, adapt their programs to new circumstances, and develop new ways of solving problems. The suggestion might be made that if we can explain machine output solely in physical terms, and if there is no difference in principle between machine output and human behavior, then it follows that we can explain human behavior in physical terms. Might it not be that when we have machines that complex, we would have just as much reason for believing in the intervention of mental events in the case of machines as we have in the case of humans? This remains to be seen. Some thinkers, accepting both premises that the soul is both originative of movement and cognitive, have compounded it of both and declared the soul to be a self-moving number. The same power that raised Christ from the dead lives on inside of us. God is greater than anything that is against us, and controller of our destinies. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
We are Like Ships that Clash in the Night
It is suspense, it is hope, that make the food of misery; certainty is always endured, because known to be past amendment, and felt to give defiance to struggling. There was advice, much of it of course from New York. The advice that rankled most came from Samuel Ward McAllister, the self-appointed arbiter of New York society. Appalled by the vision conjured by Sacramento’s King’s arena, of crème and rabble mixing in such volume and with such indecorous propinquity, Ward McAllister in a column in the New York World advised: it is not quantity but quality that the society people here want. Hospitality which includes the whole human race is not desirable. I urge Sacramento hostesses to hire some French chefs to improve their culinary diction. In these modern days, society cannot get along without French chefs. The person who have been accustomed to delicate fillets of beef, terrapin pate de foie gras, truffled turkey and things of that sort would not care to sit down to a boiled leg of mutton dinner with turnips. I should also advise that they do not frappe their wine too much. Let them put the bottle in the tub and be careful to keep the neck free from ice. For, the quantity of wine in the neck of the bottle being small, it will be acted upon by the ice first. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
In twenty-five minutes from the time of being places in the tub the wine will be in a perfect condition to be served immediately. What I mean by a perfect condition is that when the wine is poured from the bottle it should contain little flakes of ice. That is a real frappe. The thing is Ward McAllister was serious. Ward McAllister was one classy voice, and it was clear to everyone that he spoke with the sanction of New York’s blue bloods. Among Sacramento’s leading citizens there was also a deep fear of being second class. No one topped Sacramento in historical architecture, Mc Mansions, and plush landscapes, but the city’s upper echelons there was a veiled anxiety that the city in its commercial advance may indeed have failed to cultivate the finer traits of man and woman. Mrs. Caroline Astor, undisputed queen of New York society, created a social aristocracy of unparalleled extravagance and exclusivity. Mrs. Astor’s list of “Four Hundred” were the bread and butter of this era’s high society. She was an arbiter of social acceptability while also working to keep the undesirables in their place. The King’s arena was a giant white banner waved in Mrs. Astor’s face. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
I remember how it seemed to float, then, down the melancholy glory of that track upon the sea, away into the World of dreams. With its gorgeous classical buildings packed with art, its clean water and electric lights, and understaffed police department, the King’s arena was Sacramento’s conscience, the city wanted to become. Days too often destroys an air-built castle at the moment of its completion, without the least ceremony or remorse. As we let go and allow God to work out our issues in life, happiness becomes self-proclaimed and effortless. There is less required from the outside World to be experiences. We let go of the illusions of others as the source of our happiness. Instead of looking to get from others, we now look to give. People seek to be with us. We kiss the stars, we rise, we are your main desire. Your flesh, we are. Cold, we are so cold. Your mouth, these words, silence. It turns humming, we laugh, my head falls back. Moon hangs around my head, a blade over my head, reminds me to do before I am dead. Night consumes light and all I dread reminds me what to do before I a dead. Sun relines, heats my mind, reminds me what to leave behind. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Light eats night and all I never said reminds me what to do before…I am to see you, to touch you, to feel you, to tell you; reminds me. Now, Lord, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your children. For your sake, Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. Give ear, God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act! For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name. Besides accounting for our knowledge of right and wrong, the moral sense closes the gap between moral knowledge and moral behavior by providing a motive for moral behavior. Since moral knowledge consists of feelings of pleasure and uneasiness, the prospect of enjoying or avoiding these feelings is a sufficient motive for pursuing virtue and avoiding vice. If moral knowledge were not ultimately a matter of feelings, it would be possible for someone to know a certain kind of action is virtuous but still have no motive for doing it. The moral sense also enables us to account for our approval and condemnation of actions and character as following from our being pleased or pained by them. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
God determined us to be pleased by benevolent actions; and when nothing interferes with the moral sense, we count benevolence a virtue and malevolence a vice. Consciousness advances itself when it is provided with essential information which then becomes activated by intention. This in turn prompts inspiration, humility, and surrender, and these tendencies become progressively more operative. When dominant, they lead to dedicated and perseverance. In addition to these aspects of consciousness, progress is greatly assisted by expert guidance and the usefulness of spirituality. Father, God, you said that you would supply all of my needs according to your riches. You are God, the Lord my provider. What is impossible is possible with you. And you promised my end would be better than my beginning because all things are going to work together for my good. Thank you that you are faithful to your word and will work mightily in my behalf. I know that by believing in your power, God, that surpassing greatness is released. I am not discouraged by the size of the task, for the Lord God is with me. He will see to it that it is finished completely. God’s power is at work in my life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Bedroom Scale
Our minds shine not through the body. She managed his correspondence and kept his books, while he concentrated on getting his building ready for the World’s fair. They dined together in his office, on meals brought in from the across the street. He touched her and caressed her and let his eyes fill with tears of adoration. Then they sat down to pray: Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us today, our daily nourishment. Forgive our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but delivers us from the evil one. Can the mind forget the history of its own life? For if you forgive people when they sin against you, your Heavenly father will also forgive you. However, if you do not forgive people their sins, your father will not forgive you. As deep cries unto deep, so my thoughts cries unto thee and you do answer. I am renewed and refreshed; my whole being responds to your love, and I am complete in thee. All my ways are guarded and guided, and I shall live with thee eternally. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
The road to misery is often through the most pleasing paths. When God breathed his life into you, he put something in you to give you an advantage. There is something about you that makes you stand out, something that draws friendly people and opportunity, something that causes you to overcome obstacle, to accomplish dream. Sometime I wonder how did I get to where I am? This is not just my own ability. All of our knowledge is based on our experience. I have good fortune to meet with success, I shall proceed to the examination of morals, politics, and criticism. All of our simple ideas in their first appearance are derived from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent. I first make myself certain, by a new review, of what I have already asserted, that every simple impression is attended with a correspondent impression. The application of ideas beyond their nature proceeds from our collecting all their possible degrees of quantity and quality in such an imperfection manner as may serve the purpose of life, which is the proposition I proposed to explain. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
The skeptic who maintains that we cannot know there are other persons is already contradicting oneself by supposing in referring to the plural, we. If such-and-such is not instance knowing, then no one has ever known anything and there cannot be such a thing as knowing. When these norms are arranged I order of their indefeasibility, it would seem that where observation unequivocally reveals just that when we look at an inkwell we directly perceive a sense datum and that is claim is indefeasible in that observation unequivocally presents us with a sense datum. The image in the mind is only that of a particular object, though the application of it in our reasoning be the same, as if it were universal. The postulation of God and immortality can by no means insure that the ultimate moral goals will, in fact, be reached, even though it was precisely to insure their attainment that the postulates were made. The moral order is an objectively valid order, that moral values belong to the nature of reality, and the history of the World process is fitted to realize this order. If we were to assume that the goal of World-process is the realizing of happiness, there would be the weightiest empirical evidence against us. #RandolpHarris 3 of 5
With moral worth and goodness, it is different. Conditions that work against happiness may work for, not against the developing, trying, and testing of moral fiber. The very imperfection of the World is an argument pointing to the theistic conclusion. There remains yet a gap between the claim that the Universe works toward a moral purpose and the full claim that God exists. Belief in God is presupposed by belief in an objective and eternally valid morality. If the moral law is eternally valid, and valid whether we recognize it or not, how could this eternal validity stand alone, not embodied in matter and neither seen nor realized by finite minds, unless there were an eternal mind whose thought and will were therein expressed? One can readily agree that the World as we experience it is better adapted to be a vale of soul-making than a hedonistic holiday camp. Yet, there are difficulties about even the soul-making view. Some human suffering (the unmerited suffering of young children, for instance) cannot always be treated plausibly as developing moral fiber, or as realizing any other moral value. #Randolphharris 4 of 5
The natural environment can figure as the destroyer of moral personality as well as its preserver and nourisher. The validity of the law to an eternal mind, surely contains a confusion of the logical and psychological. Christianity provides a uniquely helpful way in which we can see the unlovable neighbor, admit one and about our neighbor, we bring our view of one into relation with God’s action—his action in creating our neighbor and his constant and costly redemptive action on our neighbor’s behalf. Good and evil are relative to the person who uses these words; and when people are joined together in a commonwealth, then good and evil are subject to the determinations of the commonwealth. As for our motives for pursuing good and avoiding evil, they may be summed up as self-interest. Were it to our own interest to purse what others, or the commonwealth, have designated as evil, we certainly would. Our observation of an instance of virtuous action is the occasion for a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction, which enables us to distinguish that action as virtuous. The rest of your life will be the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
The Heaven Below and the Heaven Above—I speculate No More
We may summarily reject all miracles, prophecies, narratives of angels and demons, and the like, as simply impossible and irreconcilable with the known and universal laws which govern the course of events. There is a sympathetic power in all states of mind, and they who have reached the deep secret of eternal rest have a strong power of imparting calm to others. His absence broke her heart. She had fallen in love. His visits thrilled her, his departures destroyed her. She was perplexed—had seemed to be conducting a courtship and even urged her to abandon her studies and run with him to Shanghai, China, but now he was gone and his letters came only rarely. She gladly would have left London under the flag of marriage, but not under the reckless terms he proposed. He would have made an excellent husband. He was affectionate in ways she rarely encountered in men, and he was adept at business. She missed his warmth and touch. As she gazed out of her window and the sparkling stars, she said to herself, “Let me not mar that perfect dream by an auroral stain, but so adjust my daily night that it will come again.” #RamdolphHarris 1 of 7
He was credulous inasmuch as the miracles, as they are narrated, cannot, in the light of our modern knowledge of the uniformity of nature, be accepted as historical facts. Protagonists of the supernatural, and opponents too, take it for granted that well all possess some natural (as oppose to revealed) way of knowing that and where the unassisted potentialities of nature (as opposed to a postulated supernature) are more restricted than the potentialities which, in fact, we find to be realized or realizable in the Universe around us. We must be careful not to overpsychologize our poltergeist agents. As many critics of psychoanalysis have complained, it is easy to find psychopathology and stress conditions anywhere one looks for them. Now that parapsychologist expect to find psychopathology, it is not surprising that they do find it in these cases. If poltergeist outbreaks are simply due to young people with repressed hostility who are under psychological stress, we should expect to see whole school buildings come crashing down by the dozens each year around finals time. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
At any given time, there are probably hundreds of thousands of young people who have more severe psychological disturbances or who are enduring far greater stress than any of the poltergeist agents who have been studied. The real question is, what are the catalysts that set off so very few individuals, turning them into poltergeist agents? What is it in their psychological (or physical) makeup that can cause such gross violations of the laws of physics? It must be work effected in a manner different from the common and regular mode of providence, by the interposition either of God himself, or some intelligent agent superior to human beings. The occurrence of poltergeist is to serve for the proof or evidence of some particular doctrine, or in attestation of the authority of some particular person, then surely poltergeist agents must be conceived in this way. It is only and precisely insofar as it is something really transcendent—something, so to speak, which nature by itself could not contrive—that such an occurrence could force us to conclude that some supernatural power is being revealed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Poltergeist activities are not essentially overridings, but signs. If a sign is to signify to the unbeliever, then there must by some means independent of the doctrinal system itself by which the signs may be identified and read. It is necessary to insist on two fact that seem to be often overlooked—namely, that part of the price which must be paid for this method of interpretation is the sacrifice of the use of these incidents as independent evidence of the genuinely revelatory character of the doctrines; and that such a sacrifice presumably entails the rejection of sensible operations, which, being above the comprehension of the spectator, and contrary to the established course of nature, is taken to be the divine. Nature is the will of God, and hence that a portent is not contrary to nature, but contrary to our knowledge of nature (Portentum ergo fit non contra naturam, sed contra quam est nota natura). Neuroelectric discharges become blocked in the body and are instead reflected in the surrounding environment. When the agents cannot deal with disturbances in the traditional way, such as headaches, vomiting, and seizures, then the poltergeist are activated within the agent and the energy is transferred to something in the environment that reflects the disturbance that the body is trying to resolve. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
People who are basically possessed or haunted by a poltergeist indicate signs of abnormality in their brainstem, and it may be associated with alterations in brain structure and function. There is no species of reasoning more common, more useful, and even necessary to human life than that derived from the testimony of people and the reports of eye-witnesses and spectators. Yet all testimony must ultimately be subject to assessment by the supreme court of experience. Certainly, there are a number of circumstances to be taken into consideration in all judgments of this kind. Yet the ultimate standard by which we determine all disputes is always derived from the experience and observation. The weight of the testimony required must depend on the apparent credibility of the events reported. If the events are in some way marvelous and rare, then the testimony for them has to be treated with more circumspection than the witness to everyday occurrences. A poltergeist agent is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a poltergeist, from the very nature of the fact, is as an entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
However, if there is sufficient historical evidence to establish that a poltergeist agent exists or there is real paranormal activity, like the universal eight-day eclipse that had occurred in January 1600, then our present philosophers [scientists], instead of doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain; and ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived. Therefore, it seems more likely that the poltergeist are not of a violation of the laws of nature, but rather, and more weakly, of violation of the usual course of nature. Divine companionship—I have an inner friend who walks and talks with me daily. He is not afar off, but is within me, a constant companion. I shall never become lonely, for my friend is always near. I have but to speak and he answers. Before ever my lips spoke, he told me of his love. Oh, my kind friend, how dear to me is your presence. The spirit within me is my friend. Eternal peace, undisturbed and quiet, I feel you calm. I would enter your gates with joy and live in peace in your house. Eternal and blessed presence, illumine my mind and command my will that my soul may be refreshed and that my life may be renewed. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
One blessing had I, than the rest so larger to my eyes that I stopped gauging, satisfied, for this enchanted size. It is the limit of my dream, the focus of my prayer—a percent sustaining bliss contended as despair. I knew no more of want or cold, phantasms both become, for this new value in the soul, supremest Earthly sum. The Heaven below the Heaven above obscured with ruddier hue. Life’s latitude leant over-full; the judgment perished, too. Why joys so scantily disburse, why paradise defer, why flood are served to us in bowls—I speculate no more. Lover of my soul, and keeper of my spirit, none can separate us, for we are one. So shall your wisdom guide me, your presence dwell within me, your love keep me and your life envelop me now and forever for. It is forever calm and peaceful. It is, therefore, a principle of complete satisfaction which knows no unsatisfied desire. The only appetite or desire of Infinite Mind is for the complete manifestation of its own constructive contemplation. My life is a part of the Universal Life; its peace, calm and satisfaction are manifesting in and through me now in absolute perfection. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
That Wretched, Rash, Intruding Fool, Farewell! I Took Him for Better!
In human nature, the Scriptures center on the fact that so many different interpretations are possible and are accepted by so many different sincere believers. Traditional religion, therefore, is not infallible but only probable, as is all history. Reason and tolerance are the only cures for vindication of human nature. In all behavior there occurs an unrestricted concomitance of physical and physical events. Hence, each behavior episode is susceptible of interpretation in both physiological and psychological terms. There are two stories to be told, each throwing light on the other, but neither story as such makes the other what it is. The twofold story is really about one natural order of events. Moreover, that one order of events has a progressive natural history designated by the word evolution. An adequate description of this process requires us to recognize that evolution has not been uniformly continuous, as Darwin believed, but has involved from time to time major discontinuities or critical turning point. These turning points are marked by the abrupt appearance of certain phenomena called emergents. #RandolphHarris 1 of 8
An emergent supervenes upon what already exists, arises out of what already exists, is something genuinely new in the history of the Universe, occurs in a manner that is unpredictable in principle since it conforms to no general laws, and cannot be naturalistically explained but must be accepted with natural piety. The successive emergent in the panorama of evolution mark stages of progress from lower to higher. In picturing the totality of nature, we have a pyramidal scheme. The full significance of emergent evolution cannot be grasped, however, as long as one remains at the level of a philosophy based on the procedure sanctioned by the progress of scientific thought. A basic presupposition of the system is one in which the existence of a physical World is nowise dependent on being perceived or thought of by any human or sub-human mind. Physical events exert an advenient influence on the sense receptors of organisms. By virtue of their physical power, the organism respond by respond by referring the signs arising within the psychophysical system to regions of physical space in the process called proficient reference. #RandolphHarris 2 of 8
The result is an emergent object correlated with the externa event in such a way as to be biologically useful to the organism. The pyramid of emergent evolution is a hierarchy of kinds of relatedness. Four basic concepts are needed to unfold it consequences—stuff, substance, quality, and property. The ultimate stuff consists of psychophysical events, and the mode of their relatedness in a given system is that system’s substance. Each system has intrinsic qualities grounded in its substance and extrinsic properties grounded in its relation to other systems. Besides the emergent there are resultants, or phenomena that are repetitive, predictable, and the source of quantitative continuity. Emergence generates progress in continuity, but through resultants there is continuity in progress. The universal correlation of physical and physical events. The mind is a quality emergent at a high level of evolutionary advance. The directing activity, otherwise called spirit or God is manifest. Thus, the whole course of events subsumed under evolution is the expression of God’s purpose, which embraces all that has been and all that will be brought about in the course of evolutionary advance. #RandolphHarris 3 of 8
The view of evolution, a mystery, unexplained, and inexplicable except, perhaps, to God. However, doing this research, it has been revealed that the spirit and soul are two different essences. The spirit is God in us, the soul is also from God, but it is the essence of human that causes the body to live. Is it possible, however, for one to live without a soul? It seems probable. It has been thought that babies who are born through invitro federalization do not have souls. More than 26,000 children are born from invitro fertilization treatment in the United Kingdom, and as they reach adulthood, many will discover they are too unable to have babies naturally. There are genetic causes of infertility that you can pass on. It means that the next generation may be infertile as well. If there is a genetic origin this genetic origin of infertility may be transmitted to the next generation. It is also believed that invitro fertilization removes conception from the marital act and because it treats babies as a product to be manipulated, violating the child’s integrity as a human being with an immortal soul from the moment of conception. #RandolphHarris 4 of 8
With embryotic stem cell research, genetic engineering, and cloning are things that have arisen with invitro fertilization. However, nothing can move a body that God wills to be at rest or impede or alter the movement of a body that he wills to be in motion, bodies in themselves are inefficacious; and since there is a necessary connection between the volition, God is the true cause of the motion in bodies, and the action of his will is their moving force. Accordingly, when one ball strikes a second ball and the second ball moves, God is the real or true cause (cause reelle, veritable) of the second ball moving. Since God acts not at random, but in accordance with general laws of motion that he has enacted, the impact of the first ball may be called occasional, or particular, cause (cause occasionnelle, particuliere) of the second ball moving. Granted that bodies are inefficacious, it is true fortiori that they cannot necessarily produce changes in the mid. And God being the true cause of movements in bodies, it follows that the mind cannot produce changes in the body. We may, for instance, exert ourselves to do something without success, and it is possible that God might have conjoined to our volitions effects contrary to them. #RandolphHarris 5 of 8
As it is, God acts according to laws connecting mental events and cerebral events in such a way that, if the body is suitably disposed, our volitions are executed. Evils exists in the World not to create despair, but to create activity. It is perfectly impossible to conceive that any creatures of God’s hands can be condemned to eternal suffering. Could we once admit such an idea, all our natural conceptions of goodness and justice would be completely overthrown, and we could no longer look on God as a merciful and righteous Being. The doctrine of life and immortality is brought to light by the gospel is the doctrine that the end of righteousness is everlasting life, and the wages of willful and wanton sin are death. It is wrong to cause a decedent to suffer serious and fatal injuries, as well as fear and terror of impending death. Along with the loss of support, loss of net earnings of the descendent, loss of services, loss of inheritance of prospective accumulations, mental anguish, emotional pain and suffering, loss of society, care, love, affection, solace, protection, companionship, comfort; to endure conscious physical pain and mental suffering. #RandolphHarris 6 of 8
These acts and omissions were outrageous and gross in that they knew or, in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have known that these people were unqualified, inexperienced, and ill-prepared to have positions of authority. These individuals acted oppressively, and in such a manner that was despicable and subjected others to cruel and unjust hardship in conscious disregard for the safety of Randolph Harris and others. As a direct and proximate result of the negligence, recklessness and carelessness, plaintiffs have suffered foreseeable damages in an amount to be proven at trial. The aforementioned conduct of each of the defendants was despicable and oppressive and subjected Randolph Harris to cruel and unjust hardship in conscious disregard of his health, safety, and welfare. Each of the defendants willfully, wantonly, recklessly, maliciously, and despicably chose not to properly act. Some people may come off as gentlemen of the situation, for his own master’s purpose, manipulates human beings, including his own children, and who does not even do it very well. #RandolphHarris 7 of 8
These types of individuals are plausible, not monsters, but they appear to have grown morally blind—a verdict which, in due course, evidently applies also to the more immature manipulators, whose loyalty to their master’s seems to know no reservations. It is never good to become deeply involved in a situation of increasing ugliness, some people might see these types of individuals and their associates as incarnations evil, they are corrupted enough from any balanced point of view, a condition that is also intimated by the heavy-headed revel. In a World where people are forced to act, there appears to be no room for passive and obedient innocence. It is crushed, and perishes. That wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took him for better. Take your fortune; you will find to be too busy is some danger. The death of my father has shaken me so profoundly that I refuse to accept it as natural, and look at the events that occurred shortly after, which were caused by negligence, recklessness and carelessness of defendants. They negligently failed to warn me as to the risks inherent in this situation. Their acts and omissions were outrageous and gross in that they knew. In a World where people are forced to act, there appears to be no room for passive and obedient innocence. It is crushed, and perishes. #RandolphHarris 8 of 8
Please Help Save the Life of this Mother
No child should have to go through life without loving parents. Every being and specifically their life belongs to God. Therefore, life is something of great importance and has meaning and significance because we are attached to some goals which we do not consider trivial and in that sense these goals are obtainable for us. In declaring that one’s life is worthwhile in the objective sense, one is saying that he or she is attached to certain goals which are both attainable and of optimistic value. To let things advance is enlightenment. Humans are outstanding because they are astonishing and extraordinary beings with amazing physical and extraordinary talents. Cognition of the magnitude of a human being allows us to enjoy wisdom, discernment, insight, discretion, knowledge, will power, conscience, love, perfectionism and management. Human life is so important that it has always attracted the attention of scholars and philosophers. The most important principle of human rights is the right to life. There are no other rights for humankind without the right to life. According to Article III of the Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person, and this right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his or her life. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
One institution that is found in any society is the family. Family is an integral part of everyone’s house. In some societies, the common units are the small groups made up of parents and children (called nuclear or primary families) and larger groups (called the extended or secondary family), which also includes aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. Before the turn of the century, most Americans and Canadians lives in extended families—either several generations within the same house, or several sub-units, each living in a nearby house. However, today, the households of most people in North American include only the nuclear family. Urbanization and the Industrial Revolution have been responsible for the change. The number of farmer decreased and the number of those in factory and office jobs grew enormously. As individual’s job became more important to them, people were more willing to move away from home town and family ties and establish an independent life. This trend has had an important effect in reducing the socializing influences of the extended family, which often continued strongly throughout the whole life of a rural adult. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Originally, the family served as almost a self-contained society. Perhaps one of the reasons for the immense popularity of the film “The Godfather.” That sort of solidarity and support is strangely attractive to modern people in America, Canada, Europe, Africa, Russia, and Mexico, who are largely cut loose from their own extended families. What are the traditional functions of the family? They provide long-term personal intimacy and companionship, regulate sexual relations, ensure the continuance of society through birth and socialization of children, and provide economic support for dependents, and later, for the parents, through their children. The family of any person starts with parents itself. Parents understand the child’s strengths and weaknesses and guide the child to the right path. If the parent models thrift, the child will be thrifty. This is one reason why some children get lifted out of poverty—because their parents model good traits even if they are of meager means or could not attend the best university. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Parents play the biggest role in our development. Mother and Fathers are essential for our mental, physical, social, spiritual, financial, educational, and career development. Parents help us in every step of our lives. They comfort us when we are babies who come into the World crying and fussing. They provide us with love, nourishment, values, security, pleasure, culture and are the most precious gift of God for humans. A person can expect unconditional love from their mother and father and parents take great care of our upbringing. They help us overcome our negative attributes and insufficiencies. Parents are there to change our pampers when we wake up in the middle of the night wet and soiled. They take time off work to nurse us back to health when we are sick and take us to the doctor. Parents go out of their way to make us feel special on our birthday by showering us with gifts, balloons, cake, ice cream, hugs and kisses. A child with good parenting rarely fails in life. In many people’s success, the role of the parents is the foundation. Many World leaders and philosophers describe the role of their parents in their life. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Love and care are essential elements to human beings. Parents gift many blessings to their children and are directly involved in their development. They share in our happiness and sorrow equally. When a kid is sad, the parent is sad, and when you are happy, your parents are happy. They love you more than you can imagine and share a psychic bond that allows them to detect your emotions when you are unwilling to express them. Without parents, it would be very difficult for anyone to have a great life. Without parents, people have an unfulfilled life. They become isolated and face more hardships in life. The financial support of parents is a virtue of parents that helps children receive an education, develop hobbies, make long life friends, without worrying or having to work while they are still developing and forming their own personality and ideas about the World. Also, parents are your best friends, when the World seems to turn against you and harasses you, parents are there offer you moral support. Having parents at your side is a great bonding experience, as they provide immediate moral support and the strength to handle any situation. If you want your child to succeed, model the behavior you want them to embrace. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Every life is of equal value. There is a mother in Canada, with two young children who has cancer and needs a lifesaving treatment in America. The cost of the procedure is $650,000.00. Birch Hill Studio Inc located at 3208 30th Avenue, in Vernon, British Columbia V1T2C5 and Lbvlifestyle at 107-2900 Pandosy St. Kelown www.Lbvlifestyle.com are selling items and donating the proceeds to help save the life of this young lady. And there is also a “Go Fund Me” charity donation page setup at https://www.gofundme.com/23txyjck . As a person who had a father who suffered from cancer and ended up passing away from complications when I was young, I wanted to share this story for you and pray that if you can, you will help save the life of this mother so she can be there to support her child(ren). The most devastating thing for a child is to lose a parent or a sibling. I do not want to see these kids going through life looking at other people and wishing that was their parent still living. Or wondering if their parent is in Heaven with a new family and forgot all about them. Or walking around praying that their parent will give them a sign to show that they still around and still care, even if they are in spiritual form. If you can give and save a life, please do so. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
With More Knowledge We can Create Better Work and a Feeling of Knowledge
The fields of air are open to knowledge. The person who can join ideas with the most propriety will separate them with the greatest nicety. Human well-being (eudaimonia) is the highest aim of moral thought and conduct, and the virtues are the requisite skills and dispositions needed to attain it. If the code of ethics are taught to people for several successive generations, the code will become congenital. Every individual inherits some predisposition from one’s predispositions from their predecessors, and later generations are therefore supposed to be more advanced intellectually than earlier ones. Good is what gives people pleasure in the long run. Ethics is the science of conduct, and conduct deals with the adjustment of acts to ends. The lower animals find their satisfaction in using the environment to their best advantage; human beings find their satisfaction, or happiness, in a similar way. Appropriate adjustments result in pleasure; inappropriate adjustments result in pain. We ought to look to our own pleasures, but we ought to do this by using intelligence, which gives us some insight, no matter how small, into what the future may bring; present pleasures may be outweighed by possible future pains. #RandolpHarris 1 of 5
Unlike primitive people, we have the ability to form ideas about remote ends, and disaster befalls us easily when we refuse to entertain such ideas or to construct them in accordance with the scientific data available to us. In fact, the whole conception of a moral consciousness is no more than a rule emphasizing the need to consider the consequences of its actions, to examine whether more or fewer possible benefits to itself and to society would result. The notion of duty is also a rule emphasizing the need to consider future benefits in contrast with present temptations. Without the feeling of duty we would simply act for ourselves alone and, in this way, in the long run act against our own best interests. Much earlier in history, an analysis of utilitarianism and biological behavior leads us to concrete educational proposals. Since people are in constant struggles with environmental forces, they ought, first and foremost, to be subjects that will help them most in this struggle. A knowledge of science, therefore, is crucial because it is the primary means by which people may be able to avert possible natural disasters. After the sciences, one ought to study psychology, education, and the social sciences because these will give insight into ways of resolving family and social problems. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
The antiquated Roman literature survives, and creates for us an intimacy with the classic ages, which we have no means of forming with the subsequent ones. Light literature is the garden and the orchard, the fountain, the rainbow, the far view; the view within us as well as without. The choice public will have good writing for light readings. All art is convention of one kind or another, and each demands its own interpretation. People should also study art because it produced the kind of satisfaction that needs no justification nor analysis in terms of future satisfactions. It is an immediate good in itself, producing an immediate feeling of mental well-being. Learning should begin by introducing the child to actual experimental situations from which one should deduce the law involved. The child should be taught to regard the World as a place in which one must makes one’s own decision in accordance with the best scientific data. Therefore, teachers should encourage initiative and free expression of ideas, and they can best do this by being actively engaged in inquiry and study. A teacher who is interested in one’s work, will be more apt to produce research oriented students. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
Ardent souls, ready to construct their coming lives, are apt to commit themselves to the fulfillment of their own vision. Life never seems so clear and easy as when the heart is beating faster at the sight of some generous self-risking deed. We feel no doubt then what is the highest prize the soul can win; we almost believe in our power to attain it. There is nothing that human imagination can figure brilliant and enviable that human genius and skill do not aspire to realize. What we strive to gratify, though we may call it a distant hope, is an immediate desire: the future estate for which people drudge up city alleys exists already in their imagination and love. The people who have many gratifications are apt to wander in imagination from daily and familiar joys, and confidently to reach after things yet untried. No human being springs forth from the womb as a fully-grown, sophisticated, wise, ready-for-anything adult. Nor does one possess all the necessary skills for effectively interrelating when one comes into the World. We have to learn the techniques of relating to other humans. However, we do bring some characteristics into the World with us. Exactly what is inherited and what do we learn? #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
The newborn child is new in a lot of ways. One’s new at being out in the open. One is new to one’s parents, and they are certainly new to the child, even though the baby has been pretty close to one of them for nearly a year. The baby is doing new things to meet some familiar needs, too. When the baby was a resident inside of the mother, the baby had a nice thing going—the most comfortable, most protected environment it is possible to imagine. Until birth, the infant is pretty much a product of their heredity. Heredity refers to the genetic traits and characteristics that are inherited—that come with the child when one is born, passed down from the parents. It is as possible for a baby to know something without having been at school, as it is to have been at school and to know nothing. Almighty God, kindle, we pray, in every heart the true love of peace, and guide with your wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of Earth, that in tranquility your dominion may increase until the Earth is filled with knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God and forever. The rest of your life will be the very best of your life. Happy Canada Day. Amen. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Randolph Harris II International Institute 