TEXAS FAITH: Is the world getting better?

We certainly read a lot in, yes, newspapers about things going awry. Republican candidates making the case against Barack Obama offer ample examples of the world being a mess. And many a book has been sold about the next coming crisis.

But are we looking at all this the wrong way. Is it indeed the case that the world is getting better?  Dallas Morning News weekly column.

MIKE GHOUSE, President, Foundation for Pluralism, Dallas

Indeed the world is getting better and the worsening part is slowing down. Overall, the individuals in a given society feel relatively safe, secure and less apprehensive today than ever before, while the oppression and harassment of people in different parts of the world continues.

Our model is based on, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Seventy five years ago, we had about five democratic nations in the world. Today, we have approximately 100 nations and we still have another 96 to go and most of the 96 are moving towards freer societies.

Liberty and the pursuit of happiness are gaining momentum without the tyrants like Kim Jong Il, Muammar Gaddafi, Ali Saleh, Saddam Hussein, Hasni Mubarak and Ben Ali, while Bashar Asad is still at large.

Two decades ago, we had over a dozen regions of the world with active belligerent conflicts. Today, we are down to a few, including Israel and Palestine, and indeed it is the mother of all conflicts. Our policies have really messed up security for Israel and justice for the Palestinians. We need to demand them to sit together and negotiate peace. Instead, we (and the others) have equipped each other with arms to fight more and kill more.

Mahmud Ahmedinejad and Bibi Netanyahu are no doubt elected by the people. But do they truly represent the will of their people now? Are they delivering security to their people or bent on threatening each other and escalating the conflict?

Dialogue is the best option. Mother Teresa said if you want peace, go talk with your enemies, you don't make peace with your friends; you do that with your enemies. War will ruin every one and most certainly will bankrupt Americans. We don't need any more of it. We need to aggressively pursue conflict mitigation more than these two men push for destruction. Our president needs to take a firm stand for the sake of peace and security for that region, and stop us from draining ourselves.

Is life getting better in America? Hell yes, on the social front.

When Rush Limbaugh saw that the advertisers were pulling out from his show, and the broadcasters may have warned him that his fate will be similar to Glenn Beck's, he apologized for the sake of the dollars. This is a great example of turning the tables on the idiom, "evil persists because good men do nothing about it." Indeed, evil stops, if good people do something about it.

Anti-circumcision bills, in effect anti-Jewish bills, in Santa Monica and San Francisco were finally yanked from the ballot of those cities. The ridiculous anti-immigrant bill in Farmers Branch is in the courts now, and many states have passed legislation guaranteeing the personal freedom and liberty for gay marriages. Racism is on decline. Many men will join women in slowing Mullah Santorum's stance on women. The federal court judge threw out the gratuitous anti-Sharia bill in Oklahoma and indeed we have a symposium planned on Sharia, here in Dallas to better understand it and hope to un-intensify another ill of the society: Islamophobia.

On the economic front, we have a ways to go, but improvement is visible. Unemployment is down to 8.3%. We still have 2.3 million jobs out there that need matching skills, if president's retraining talk goes into action, we can hope for at 7% unemployment rate by the end of this year. Higher employment contributes toward increased tax revenues and deficit reduction, which in turn will boost consumer confidence to spend, and the economy will take off and prosperity will be back on our threshold. God bless America!

For responses from other Panelists at Dallas Morning news, please visit:
http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/03/texas-faith-is-the-world-getti.html

Mike Ghouse is a speaker thinker and a writer, committed to building a cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. He is a frequent guest on Fox TV with Sean Hannity and national syndicated radio show, writes weekly at Dallas Morning news and Huffington post and speaks on Pluralism, Politics, Islam, India and about building Cohesive America. All work is listed at www.MikeGhouse.net

Link to the article -  http://theghousediary.blogspot.com/2012/03/texas-faith-is-world-getting-better.html

Texas Faith: Are humans to serve the Earth? Or is the Earth to serve humans?

This week's question comes from a suggestion by panelist Daniel Kanter and it follows up on remarks that Rick Santorum made recently in speeches and on TV about the environment. Here is an excerpt from Santorum's February 19 appearance on CBS' Face the Nation:

"Man is here ...to care for the Earth, to be a steward of the Earth. But we're not here to serve the Earth. The Earth is not the objective. Man is the objective. And-I think a lot of radical environmentalists have it upside down."

Previously, Santorum made similar comments in Colorado, where he reportedly said:

"We were put on this Earth as creatures of God to have dominion over the Earth, to use it wisely and steward it wisely, but for our benefit not for the Earth's benefit."

Santorum followed up his observations in Colorado with comments about climate change. But I'm not interested in a debate about the pros-and-cons of that subject for this week. Rather, I would like to hear your answer to this philosophical and theological question:

Is man here to serve the Earth? Or is the Earth here to serve man?

Read on to hear what our panelists think about this issue, which goes to the heart of the religion-and-politics nexus.

MIKE GHOUSE, President, Foundation for Pluralism, Dallas

Our species is the first one among others to have mastered the furies of nature and survive against odds, unlike the dinosaurs and other species that did not.

The planet Earth has stability and balance built into it, and placed on a precise trajectory to revolve around the solar system. However, the earth can be thrown off its dynamic equilibrium with global warming, nuclear explosions and other man-made activities that are foreign to Earth's nature.

If the senator had attended science classes, he would have known how fertile lands have become deserts, or how irresponsible management of waste can cause our water to be destructive to health, and how the soil erosions (alluvial) can rob food productivity.

If we don't take care of mother Earth, she would deprive us of her fruits. It is a mutually respectful relationship with Earth, and not a Bam, slam, thank you maam kind of relationship.

I want to kill the stereotyping stamped on Republicans as men with a deficit in long-term thinking. The presidential candidates are a minority among us, just like in any group. They do not reflect the majority of moderate Republican men and women who understand science and nature and care for fellow beings. I am a moderate Republican and I am proud of it.

Indeed, we are all a part of one interconnected and interdependent system. Keeping its equilibrium is our responsibility for our own survival as a part of the whole.

Chief Seattle, a Native American, said it perfectly; "All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the webs, he does it to himself."

Carl Sagan adds, "We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives... every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam."

We are a merely a strand in the cosmic whole. Earth will not be there for man, if man becomes a user and abuser of mother Earth. Man was given the intelligence to manage the affairs of the planet to the mutual benefit of its entire inhabitant and the web it inhabits.

To read all responses at Dallas Morning News, go to:http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/02/texas-faith-are-humans-to-serv.html

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Mike Ghouse is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. He is a speaker, thinker and a writer and his work is linked to thirty blogs and four websites indexed at www.MikeGhouse.net