Forrest Whitaker is an actor who I like a lot. I was surprised to see him do a video for peace day 2015 in which he recites a speech by Martin Luther King. I thought the words towards the end of the Martin Luther King speech were quite powerful, “it is no longer a choice between violence and non violence in this world, its non violence or non existence”
There are many ideas on how to achieve world peace, there are many groups, much has been written about the subject. I feel convinced that if the world is to become more peaceful, then things need to move beyond words and ideas. I believe that a small group of people who feel passionate about the topic need to group together and build a better world on a small scale. I am talking maybe 100 people at most. Are there are a hundred people around the world that feel so passionately about world peace.
I certainly hope so, as if the nightly news is any indication to go by, there are millions who eat sleep and breath war and violence.
And what is the point of saying things should be this way or that way. I feel that the seeds of peace need to be planted on a small scale, we need to show people that there is a better way. Just as a tiny seed blossoms into a huge tree, I feel that perhaps not in this lifetime, but in future generations, the movement can grow to become something great.
When I look at all the non sensical religions around the world, which I believe most have no basis in the truth, and yet have managed to grow to such huge proportions, Will it be really that hard to start a movement based on truth and peace and love and unity?
I could go the popular route, just like a lot of other peace groups, and I could get a lot of support, but I feel that to go mainstream would just be a superficial effort at most.
I would like to attempt to make an effort of connecting some of the people around the globe where world peace is more than just something they wear on a t-shirt or a facebook group that they like. I would like to appeal to a smaller group of people who feel that world peace is their mission in life.
I would like to one day have a small piece of land with a physical building, perhaps here in Australia or some other part of the world, where the seeds of world peace can be planted. I would like to move away from a virtual presence to a real world group.
I am still working on a book, but I just thought I would make a post here, because it has been a while. If anything on this blog even remotely interests you, please take a few seconds to sign up for our newsletter.
I would like to wish everybody a Happy New Year for 2015. I think the new year is a good time to lay down a bit of a road map for the future of this website.
The approach is a little different from some other methods, but then maybe difference is a good thing. Considering the world is still experiencing wars in different regions, perhaps past methods have not worked too well. Looking at all the horrible atrocities that are happening in this world, I just think to some extent focusing on this negativity can be soul destroying. I want to focus on the more positive aspects of life.
Earlier this year, I tried to put together a bit of a mission statement for this site.
Anyone who has achieved a sense of inner peace in their life knows how great it is. From such a state, it is impossible to contemplate causing harm to another person.
Just as people with bad intents and selfish greedy motives have united to cause havoc in this world, I strongly believe that if the good peaceful people of this world united, world peace is the resulting product of that unity.
So, I would like the main focus of this website to be
“To help people find more peace in their life, and also provide a platform by which they can unite in friendship.”
Below is a an image which I think explains this statement
I have a few ideas on how to make that happen and plan to provide more details about that in the book that I am writing which I hope to finish by the end of 2015. I would like to invite other people who are passionate about peace to take a more active leadership role, but I think it is important to lay down some of the principles of the site, so that people can make a more informed decision about whether this is something they would like to participate in.
Going into 2016, if there are enough members on this site to justify it, I would like to work on an app to assist people with meditation and also help them network and make friends with other peace loving people around the world. I should point out that I am not religious, and when I say meditation, I am talking about a range of different neutral non religious guided meditations which people can use. I think it would be great to see what other peaceful people out there in the world are meditating with us, and also be able to make friends with them and interact with them. An added bonus would be if such a platform could also be used to to one day facilitate real world meet ups.
I realise that peaceful protests and lobbying government members is important, but there currently not many members of the site, and I would like to focus on those areas which I feel will have the most beneficial impact at this point in time.
The last post touched on the topic of whether world peace is possible, or simply out of reach. It is a common statement, I have received a number of emails over the years telling me that world peace will never happen. Not only do I believe that world peace is possible, I believe that it is inevitable. Keep in mind, that human slavery in America, the buying and selling of human beings was legal until about 1865 or thereabouts. During the period of slavery, if you had suggested that a person like Barack Obama could be the President of the United States, they would have probably told you that you were crazy and that it would never happen, but indeed it has happened. And the abhorrent act of buying and selling human slaves has ended. War is yet another insane abhorrent act, and its days will no doubt come to an end. Instead of being a naysayer, why not be one of the visionaries who believe that peace is possible and tries to tries to help steer the world a little closer to peace.
I read this article today by Diane Dimond titled “Sadly, world peace is out of reach” The articles starts off by saying don’t bother by wishing for world peace in the year ahead, it is never going to happen. Yes I would agree that we are unlikely to see World Peace in the year 2015, but I would never use the word never, when it comes to World Peace. The article makes some good points, but also ends with “I’d love for there to be world peace too. But, sadly, it’s never going to happen.”
I believe that bad incidents will always happen in the world. I think the vast majority of people in the world, are essentially good people, who just want to live a good peaceful life. But there are also people at either end of the spectrum, which represent a far smaller percentage, of both extraordinarily good people, and also extraordinarily bad people. I don’t think this will change, and isolated bad incidents will continue to appear on the nightly news, but it is important to not let your view of the world be tainted by these incidents as they are mostly carried out by a small number of people.
War is not an inevitable part of life, it will not always happen. Wars that occur do not represent the views or will of the majority of the people who find themselves caught up in them. Most people are good, and just want a nice place to live, good food, a job, somebody to love and to love them, the basic human needs.
War happens when bad people come into power, and good people people just watch and allow them to do the things they do. In part, apathy plays a part in why wars happen.
War would not be possible in a democratic country where the people ensured that their leaders carried out the will of the majority of the people. With modern technology, some of these major decisions, should go to an electronic poll, and the people should decide their future.
With the advent of nuclear weapons, to say that world peace is “never going to happen” is akin to conceding global suicide is inevitable. For it would only be a matter of time before war extended between two of the nine or so countries that have nuclear weapons. On the news tonight, I saw how Vladimir Putin had signed a military document that would enable Russia, to not just use nuclear weapons in retaliation, but to also use them “as part of strategic deterrent measures”. If that is in fact true, that is a rather concerning development.
The times are changing, please take a few seconds to join our small group, together we can lobby governments to ensure World Peace will eventually happen.
The internet has united us in a way that has never been possible before. While it has made us more united, there has still been a divide between people from many different countries, due to the language barrier. The current translation tools have been mediocre at best. However speech recognition on mobile devices like OK Google and Apple Siri is fantastic. For the most part it is usually very accurate.
Although I have not used Skype Translator, if the video lives up to the hype, we could very well be a step closer to a more united and peaceful world.
For anyone who has seen the movie “Interstellar”, and enjoyed it, I highly recommending also watching the documentary “The Science of Interstellar by the Discovery Channel.
It is narrated by the main star of the movie Matthew McConaughey, and shows how the movie is based on actual science. They have a consultant astrophysicist Kip Thorne who assisted with the production of the movie.
But the real star of the documentary was Marsha Irvins, an astronaut who had flown into space a total of five times aboard the space shuttle. She appears towards the end of the documentary, and her quote touched me the most. She said
I looked up overhead and there was this black sky and this blue earth, all hit you at that point, I am not on the planet anymore.
And every astronaut who has flown has come back and said the same thing, as you circle the earth, you do not see natural borders and boundaries that separate countries, and all of the wars and the angst and the strife that tear this planet apart, seem so insignificant from that view.
I saw this movie a few weeks back when it was first released and thought it was a great movie. For entertainment purposes, I don’t think it was quite as good as Gravity, but the movie did touch upon a number of issues that are of immense interest to me.
I will try not to post any spoilers in case you have not seen the movie.
1. Climate Change The movie shows a planet earth which is ravaged by extreme weather changes and dust storms which have made it hard to grow crops and have rendered planet earth uninhabitable. Here in Australia we are in the summer season and weather is normally very good, but I have seen thunderstorms every single day for the last nine days. It seems changes are already happening. The movie paints a picture of what may happen if we fail to take action soon.
2. Space exploration I have long believed that all of the money spent on defence and weapons should be spent on space exploration, whether it involves diverting the next inevitable incoming asteroid or comet and thus averting an extinction level event, or billions of years from now, travelling to an exoplanet when the sun eventually dies out, space exploration is essential to the long term survival of humanity. This movie deals with topics like wormholes, which science indicates are possible and one of the most likely ways that we would be able to travel such incredible distances, if we are in fact bound by the speed of light.
3. Other dimensions Whilst the movie deals with the topic of other dimensions in what I thought was a rather far fetched manner, it does a reasonably good job of dealing with the subject. Most of us live and only experience life in three dimensions, height, width and depth. Some scientific theories have said there are up to ten dimensions. We ignore and tend to dismiss that which we cannot see. Some ignore the spiritual dimension which we cannot see, but which I have no doubt exists as something other than the activity of the mind. Something like 96% of the universe is made up of dark matter and dark energy, which a more appropriate descriptor would be invisible instead of dark as it can’t be seen, but we know it exists from the effect that it has on matter. Understanding who we really are in my opinion is essential to inner peace, and inner peace is essential to world peace. And that is part of the reason I really liked this movie.
The international space station is one of the most stunning displays of what is possible with international co-operation. It truly would be wonderful to see that degree of co-operation in dealing with some of the other problems that our planet faces. I think the astronauts final words below said things so well.
For only if we are together, if we think ourselves as one single humanity, as we can see clearly from space, we will be able to build a better future.
It is always sad to see a country not learn from the mistakes of the past. Japan sits firmly within the Pacific Ring of Fire which is highly susceptible to earthquakes and resulting Tsunami’s.
Nuclear Reactors by their nature require large amounts of water for cooling, so are mostly built near the ocean, as we have seen with Fukushima which leaves them vulnerable to the devastation of a Tsunami.
Now, it is worth noting, that I am not totally against Nuclear Energy, it has its use in medical treatment, and I believe it will one day prove to be an invaluable resource in terms of space exploration. I do not think it is bad, but nuclear reactors are dangerous and the spent radioactive waste is extremely lethal. I think it is a shame that it is used, before all other renewable energy sources have been exhausted.
Now I understand that Japan is a relatively small country in terms of land mass, which may present some problems with clean renewable energies, but I really think they need to fast track their solar, wind and tidal wave technologies to reduce their reliance on nuclear energy.
The timeline on this BBC article, indicates that Japan has been nuclear power free from May to September 2012 (approximately 4 months) and also from September 2013 to present, which is more than a year, so it can be done.
There are companies with very large amounts of money invested in these nuclear power plants and they will lobby government to restart them. The only ones who can stop it from happening is the Japanese people.
I am a fan of Professor Brian Cox, and his series “Wonders of the Solar System” and “Wonders of the Universe”
I almost bought tickets to see his show in Australia. However after reading an article on the sydney morning herald website, I had completely lost my faith in his credibility.
The article was titled “We are alone in the Universe”. To say that intelligent life does not exist elsewhere in the universe is absolutely ludicrous, I have no doubt that it does. However when I just now revisited the article, it appears it was just poor journalism, and they had misquoted Professor Brian Cox. They have since corrected the article and issued a retraction.
He has been quoted as saying
“There is only one advanced technological civilisation in this galaxy and there has only ever been one – and that’s us,”
I will concede that what he is saying is possible, although I think highly unlikely. But there is a chance he could be right. Life indeed appears to be rare. A rare combination of circumstances need to be in place in order for intelligent life as we know it to be present. The planet needs to be have water, needs to be the right distance from a sun, so that the temperature will allow life, it needs to have an atmosphere. It also needs to have a planet like Jupiter within the solar system, which has been dubbed the vacuum cleaner of the solar system and in a large number of instances has drawn large meteors into it, thus preventing an impact with earth.
These circumstances are a rare combination which has allowed intelligent life to develop and thrive, and it is clear so far, that it is not all that common a combination, and life indeed is rare from what we have seen and know. This understanding should serve as a reminder of the immense importance of protecting our natural environment. It saddens to see how little regard we have for just how precious the earths atmosphere is, and how we have placed short term greed over this most precious of resources.
