The Creation of Evil, Justice and Mortality in the Garden in Eden

In the first story in the Bible the Creator introduced TOV (good) into his creation:

Doing things that protect and preserve lives,

make lives more functional and increase the quality of life.

When the man ate the forbidden fruit he introduced RAH (evil) into Yahweh’s Garden:

Doing things that destroy and threaten their lives,

make their lives less functional and decrease the quality of life.

It is important to clearly understand this point:

Good and Evil are concrete actions,

not an abstract internal or spiritual qualities.

The next wisdom principle taught by this story is how to respond to evil:

Justice is the divine response to evil actions.

After the man and woman stepped out of their hiding places and faced Yahweh, both wearing fig leaves, it was clear to Yahweh something had happened since he last saw them. Continue to read at --

https://mailchi.mp/dbb213524f4c/the-creation-of-evil-justice-and-mortality-in-the-garden-in-eden

People that care about and help care for each other and have each other’s backs

Lives 1^st Living is about people helping people learn how to care about and help care for each other and have each other’s backs. It is like playing a team sport. Everyone that has ever been on a championship team knows it was “a team effort.” On the simplest level this means that we depend on other people for our very survival. Read more at -

https://mailchi.mp/05f9c358abc3/people-that-care-about-and-help-care-for-each-other-and-have-each-others-backs

Lives 1st Living is about “Holding Human Lives Sacred.”

The ideas, principles and values upon which Lives 1^st Living is based are found in Genesis and Declaration of Independence. Lives 1^st Living requires “holding human lives sacred.” But it is important to understand that “sacred” has two meanings -- religious and secular.

For most of history, “sacred” has been linked to the religious meaning – specifically sacredness as defined in the Bible. But the Declaration of Independence introduced a “secular model” and that made the United States of America ground zero as the place where people with religious and secular beliefs must intertwine, interact and work together to create the successfully functioning democracy envisioned by the Founding Father of a new nation. Read more at --

https://mailchi.mp/119a0b6f89cb/lives-1st-living-is-about-holding-human-lives-sacred

Trapped in Our Thin Slice of Reality

We think of color as a fundamental quality of the world around us.

But in the outside world, color doesn’t actually exist.

When electromagnetic radiation hits an object, some of it bounces off and is captured by our eyes. We can distinguish between millions of combinations of wavelengths — but it is only inside our heads that any of this becomes color.

Color is an interpretation of wavelengths, one that only exists internally.

And it gets stranger, because the wavelengths we’re talking about involve only what we call “visible light,” a spectrum of wavelengths that runs from red to violet. But visible light constitutes only a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum — less than one ten-trillionth of it. Continue reading at –

https://mailchi.mp/44eb03ce828e/trapped-in-our-thin-slice-of-reality

Do You Believe that God and Rattlesnakes Exist?

Let me tell you a story.

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?"

And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"*

The point of the fish story is this:

The most obvious and important realities are often the ones

that are hardest to see and talk about.

However, the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, those realities can have a life or death importance. Let me tell you another story to help you understand what this means. Continue reading at –

https://mailchi.mp/53522fd32cbb/do-you-believe-that-god-and-rattlesnakes-exist

What If Power Positions in Nations, Corporations, Political Organizations and Religions Were Held By Male and Female Co-Shepherds?

How could the Co-Shepherding Model be incorporated in lives today? Consider potential impacts on individual lives as well as on the society. Continue reading at --

https://mailchi.mp/c720151066fe/what-if-power-positions-in-nations-corporations-political-organizations-and-religions-were-held-by-male-and-female-co-shepherds

Humans: Created to Have Dominion By Acting Together to Do Good

Then God blessed them, and God said to them,

“Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it;

have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air,

and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

(1769 King James Version Genesis 1:28)

The English word “dominion” is associated with two other meanings -- “to tread on” and “to rule.” All three English words are “power” words.  

The Creator empowered the two humans to have power

over every living thing that moves on the earth.

But, The Hebrew & Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, Volume 3 (p. 1190) contains a very important note about the Hebrew word translated “dominion”:

The basic meaning of the verb is not to rule;

the word actually denotes the traveling around of the shepherd with his flock.

Read the rest of this educational email at –

https://mailchi.mp/01b24f8de1bb/humans-created-to-have-dominion-by-acting-together-to-do-good