The Fishbowl Principle

AuthorHouse

Contents

Preface.........................................................................................ix1. On The Interconnectedness of Everything.....................................................32. On The Physical Universe: Time, Matter, And The Beginning of Everything.....................233. On the Origins of Life on Earth.............................................................494. On Evolution And The Emergence of Humans....................................................695. On Psychology And The Human Mind............................................................1056. On Religion (as Spirituality)...............................................................1337. The Fishbowl Principle......................................................................1678. On Evolutionary Religion....................................................................1899. On Evolutionary Government..................................................................21310. On Evolutionary Economy and Energy..........................................................23511. On Evolutionary Education...................................................................25112. On Acceleration And The Dilemmas of Our Age.................................................27513. On Population...............................................................................29514. On Environment and Energy...................................................................327Conclusion: Approach to Solutions...............................................................355Afterword.......................................................................................365About The Authors...............................................................................367References......................................................................................371Index...........................................................................................395

Chapter One

A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall (Bob Dylan)

It is the crack of dawn, and the old man is throwing himself into his work with the energy of a man a fraction his age. His body is loosely draped in frayed clothes, his hair unkempt, skin burnt, and eyes ablaze. Muttering to himself, he attends to his task with feverish resolve, pausing only to shake his head from time to time in dismay. When passersby ask him what he is doing or, more typically, poke fun at him, he issues a series of bleak prognostications. The gist of what he has to say: The world is coming to an end, and he, accordingly, is taking precautions. How did the old man know of this impending threat? God told him.

Would any of us have taken such a fool seriously? Today, if someone were to take such a stand, they would most likely be labeled psychotic, or at the very least, categorically ignored. As things turned out, however, the man was not crazy; he was righteous. Upon receiving the revelation that the world was in grave danger, he felt divinely compelled to preserve what he could. So he embarked upon his project, which was to build a gigantic structure that would serve as shelter from an imminent, cataclysmic storm.

No, Noah was not crazy at all. As the Book of Genesis explains, God was disgusted with the wickedness and evil wrought by humanity and decided to cleanse Earth and start anew. Under God's plan, Noah and his family were to be saved (along with delegates from the animal kingdom) as representative models, progenitors for the world to come. He was entrusted with the task of safeguarding not just his own life but also all life on the planet. Just how Noah knew it was necessary to build an escape vessel was of little interest to the spotted owls and ferrets that would eventually float with him to safety. The animals were safe and dry as the result of their steward's efforts. But Noah's soon-to-be-drowned contemporaries questioned the basis for his prophesy; they smugly viewed him as a lunatic, screaming at the gates of the asylum that the sky was falling on the most beautiful of days. So they did not heed Noah's warning-and they paid the ultimate price.

Who among us, knowing what we know now, would not have sought a berth on Noah's Ark as refuge from the mass extinction outside? With the benefit of hindsight, we would all choose survival for ourselves. But imagine meeting a wild-eyed old man on a sunny day, with no clear indication of a storm on the horizon: would any of us have listened?

When the waters around us are calm, we find it difficult to anticipate, let alone prepare, for an oncoming storm with the potential to undo everything we have built. The survivors of the 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia can tell us stories about what it means to be devastated by an event that comes without warning. But the survivors of the 2004 tsunami are not unique. There are countless others, such as the survivors of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (who, along with the various public safety officials, were cautioned-and, in fact, were admonished quite explicitly-regarding the oncoming threat to human life), who can also speak to what it means to suffer unexpected consequences from natural events (Warrick, 2006). The unhappy truth is that recorded human history is woven largely from the thread of unheeded warnings. Sometimes, though, our biggest threats have not been from nature or from the heavens. Sometimes we create our own storms. Sometimes our biggest threats have come from ourselves.

Will You Keep on Building 'til There's No More Room Up There? (Dolly Parton)

The Book of Genesis (as well as the Qur'an) tells us that God sent the Great Flood because of his anger at the wickedness of humans. God, in effect, had hit the reset button on his creation and, after wiping the slate clean, established a covenant with Noah to do things properly. After the floodwaters receded, Noah held up his end of the bargain-he was fruitful and multiplied. But over time, the great restructuring of the human soul once again strayed from its divine blueprint. Noah's descendants brought with them both righteousness and wickedness in abundant supply.

In the eyes of God, an unacceptable level of wickedness was reached with the rise to power of Noah's great-grandson Nimrod, who instructed his tribe to build a tower high enough to veritably touch the heavens and serve as testament to Nimrod's greatness. Indeed, Nimrod's tower was intended to be high enough to rival the power of God. Having seen that drowning humanity was not enough to get them to behave, God decided this time to use confusion to humble these most willful of his creations. God handily reduced Nimrod's tower to rubble, and caused all who took part in its building to suddenly speak in diverse languages. Following the tower's fall, what the erstwhile construction crew heard from each other was nothing more than a cacophony of babble.

Whether these Biblical stories are read as the direct word of God, the interpreted word of God, or instructive tales of morality, few would deny that they contain powerful images and messages. People of the "Book" (Muslims, Christians, and Jews) draw much inspiration and, depending upon their level of devotion, daily guidance from these words. Throughout modern...