Dear editor:
To allege that Jesus was a mythical creation of a Jewish sect takes a lot of chutzpah. The path which led Richard Carrier to make that observation was not one he personally would have chosen. Others led him to look at the historical evidence. And when he did, his revelations were made. Richard Carrier is a respected, peer-reviewed, historian with a doctorate degree from Columbia. He is a metaphysical naturalist. If you read his books, you have to be impressed with his reasoned and thorough research. You don't have to agree with him. But know that his work is an honest search for evidential and corroborative truth. Let's wait and see if history validates his research.
On another subject, let me pose a question. If you were to gather all the humans of the world and weigh them on a scale and then gather all the ants in the world and weigh them on a scale, which would weigh more? The common assumption would be humans. But noted scientist E.O. Wilson suspects, through his knowledgeable lifetime research and understanding, that ants would have approximately the same weight as the humans.
These two paragraphs may seem somewhat unrelated. But a connecting line of thought might be that you should never assume to know what to believe without reasoned thought.
I am a modest person who knows that life isn't just what others claim. Life is a precious mystery. So let it unfold as it will. But be warned about falling into tribal thought. For tribal thought may be the major stumbling block of the created world.
The oneness that all Earthlings share should be the big picture. It is of what Pope Francis spoke. The "golden rule" is a connecting belief shared by most of humanities belief systems. How can we put this rule into effect? The world and what it can produce is for all to share. It is not a contest to see who can gather and accumulate the most. Don't let money, power and fear rule over our connected reality. We are all in this together and we can only save the world and ourselves if we share and make getting along the top priority.
The advances in technology, and especially that of weapons, points out how natural earth processes have been overtaken and surpassed by a reality we have created. Mankind, in truth, still exists more like our prehistoric tribal relatives. This new technological corporate world is a threat which divides us into tribal groups that pit us against one another. It reduces us into factions .... "us" against "them."
Fact is, we share the Earth with all its life-forms. Mankind is on top of the cognitive species which exist and influence the world. But a priority that the human species should recognize is that other life-forms created on Earth are also Earthlings. The shared consciousness of all Earth needs to be acknowledged and recognized.
Bill Wiedmann
Hot Springs
Editorial on 10/05/2015