Protests a long time ago

Once upon a time some people in this country held protests. They weren't too much different from ones we have today ... except for the REAL protests. I'll give you examples from my past.
When I was still in school (I graduated in 1962), all starry eyed and sure to change the world I became involved in a few protests. I marched, for example, with the NAACP picketing of Fairyland Park, an amusement park in Kansas City, MO, and the Swope Park swimming pool, that was a large swimming pool complex. There were three pools: a small kiddie pool; a three board diving pool (two low and one "high;" and a city block sized pool of even depth of 4 feet for general fooling around. In the summer this pool complex was always jammed with hundreds of kids and their parents (a few). It was mostly for teenagers and was completely (trust me on this) white kids.
So, the decision was to try to integrate this unjust segregation. Oh, there weren't signs saying "Whites only," or "No blacks." It was just culturally understood. (I have learned, now that I am "old" that Fairyland Park was open one day a year to blacks and that there was an area called "Watermelon Hill" where blacks could picnic.) So we marched to protest injustice.
We were prepared with little signs, pins, and instructions not to damage anything, remain silent, and keep walking in a long back and forth in front of the main entrance. We didn't interfere with anybody, and no one brought sticks, knives, guns, baseball bats, etc. to the protest. After all, we weren't going to riot or anything like that! We were peacefully protesting. If others came and stood around watching us, or even talking or yelling at us, we were to ignore them and stick to protesting. Simple! And there were even a few policemen there to watch what was going on. I only remember a few, perhaps a dozen or so.
I remember being scared as we got on the buses, and I was pretty much surrounded by black people, but they didn't seem to mind my being there.
We walked, we protested, we got yelled at a little, and so it went. A few times like this and ... what do you know? The city and the people who ran Fairyland Park came to agree to allow anyone to use the park and the pool! We had succeeded without violence or getting our heads split open. I was pretty happy about that. (Actually, it took about two years.)
That summer, a neighbor of mine and I went to the Swope Park Pool. This large pool was always packed. But not then. For one thing, I think we were the only white persons there! And there were only a few small groups of blacks in the pool! The place was almost deserted. The same thing was happening at Fairyland, and the owners were struggling to keep the place open. By 1977 it was closed and gone. (You can check out what was lost by reading about Fairyland Park on Wikipedia.)
Some things aren't really meant to survive cultural change, although I suspect playground parks can if they start out right. Look at the Disney offerings, the Seven Flags, and local area parks like Hershey Park, etc. They seem to still be doing well ... and are integrated without making a fuss about it. (I'm not sure the gay community will agree from what I have read.) But our quiet protests (and some not quiet ones in the deep South) did work and result in a changing society. I would hope we are over the rough beginnings and into a new society.
But no, there are still "protests" where more than one side (sometimes a whole flock of them) are coming together, armed and spoiling for a fight. I don't think that's protest ... it's rioting. Can't our government units just admit this and work to stop rioting?
I want my peaceful protests back. Please?

Ah, History!

I remain amazed that people jump to express opinions founded on nothing but their emotions. Now it is okay for someone to express an opinion. That's truly a First Amendment right. But when it has no reality to back it up, it is just irresponsible and can be ignored ... or challenged and corrected. That's another person's right.
The current attack on a defenseless statue of Robert E. Lee is a case of this. It presumes to spring from the "knowledge" that Lee was BAD, but doesn't provide any sense in which that is truth.
Lee was an interesting person. He had pride in his home state (VA) and stood by it even when the people of the state were going in a direction he didn't approve of. The truth is that Lee had always held that slavery was a political and moral evil. He held that opinion for a long time. His wife (and I suppose with his approval) taught their slaves (and yes, they had them) to read and write and prepared them to assume their freedom (manumission) that the Lees assumed would come in the near future. Lee had said that freedom from slavery was a reasonable outcome and could not be "forced" at the barrel of a gun.
Lee was also against secession. But he did believe in states' rights. The general opinion on this was that the states freely chose to unite to form the Union, and should be allowed to freely chose to separate from the Union if they wanted. Of course the Union, led by the North, held that they didn't have that right ... therefore the conflict and resulting civil war.
When Lee surrendered to Grant (his West Point fellow graduate) they both emphasized that no rebellion against the outcome should be carried on. Neither Lee nor Grant denied that Virginia was to remain in the Union.
So why the displeasure (hatred?) of the statue of Lee? He was honorable to his duty and to his word. He went on to be a leader in the war with Mexico. His statue should remain standing and his history can be seen as the reasonable, honest, and open man that he was.
I object to mobs, gangs, and thugs making decisions based on false "history" for law abiding citizens.
And when politicians cave in to their bullying demands, I weep for my country.

Creation and the Big Bang: Religion vs Science (Part 3)

Okay, so here we go! The last question is: What is my relationship with God (shorthand for the creative force) and the stories I have heard about how God interacts with the physical world? I mean, basically, what is the efficacy of prayer?

Think about all the people praying (that is requesting a boon or intervention by God) in their daily physical lives. Does God “hear” the prayer. In a sense, since I think we are kept in a state of existence by God’s will for each physical thing to exist, we are actually doing what some physical things do, i.e. pray. Once we come to a personal (i.e. this one representation of the physical compound object I have referred to as a featherless biped) understanding of a sense of God being our sustainer, we might just jump to the thought that God is so intimately involved with each of us (and everything else) that God knows exactly everything about our functioning, including desires and actions. So, yes, God “hears” or “knows” our prayers.

But do we influence God to the point of our prayers changing the normal, ongoing, and interactional behavior of all the other physical stuff? Why would they? And what of two or more persons having opposing pray intentions? Do they cancel out? Does God cause both requests to be honored? Is this possible?

I have even ventured so far as to imagine that as each request or feeling is honored, a new parallel universe springs into existence going in a new interactional way. Billions of new universes coming into existence for each proceeding instant!! Wow!

And what about all those galaxies, clusters, and dark spaces we keep detecting? They have googles and googlepelexes or stars and planets with similar physical interactions that have been replicated on our planet. Is it possible in this mix that we are the only “sentient” beings in existence. This hardly seems possible. Some would say yes, on religious grounds that we had a Messiah who “saved” us from our impossible corrupted condition to one of total joy interaction with the God that created us. But couldn’t it be possible, then, that there have been /are/and will be billions and billions of Messiahs, each appropriate to the beings involved, to save many, many other sentient beings? Why not?

So, you see, I am more confused and puzzled than ever. Every time we get more data in while searching space we see thousands and thousands of additional galaxies we didn’t realize existed. All the permutations seem more and more likely.

I like best, at present, the idea that the function of prayer is to so incline the pray-er to become more accepting of whatever happens following it. And, of course, maintaining hope and faith in the construct he or she follows with regard to interaction to the God as the pray-er knows it.

That’s about as good as it gets for now.

And that’s the end of this series …. For now. I continue to ponder, wonder, and study. I’m not sure it’s worth anything, but I just feel compelled to do it right now.

Input requested: just no name-calling, just thoughtful comments. I can be convinced by logic and the experience of others. That’s MY faith.