For All Intents and ..

First, I like to rehash what I wrote about years ago, a short one I read from somewhere.  A funny story – it was funny then, to me, anyway – that I keep recalling it every now and then, went like this:

There was a campground for boy scouts by the beach close to the sea where dolphins also come by each morning.  The camp director actually fed the dolphins at about the same time the boy scouts had their breakfast.  Each morning the camp director would announce breakfast to the boys and call out to the dolphins with, “For All in Tents and porpoises…“, to come and get it.  

Corny now, perhaps, but it was a clever pun I can’t shake off, that it was the title of my musing then.   

"The phrase for 'all intents and purposes' originated in 1546, in an Act of British Parliament that gave King Henry VIII the power to interpret laws in any way he wished".

When I read the above, a factoid of little significance now, pales against everything else we  know about Henry VIII.  It was also about "Absolute power corrupts absolutely".  So many stories about that too but this musing will not be about that.  It will not be about politics.  Neither about dolphins or porpoises.

However, the phrase "intents and purposes" held so much staying power and latent energy that it has not lost its relevance even in today's language and vocabulary - legalese or otherwise.  Today, we may use "virtually" or "in effect" to mean the same thing; but often we still hear or read "for all intents and purposes".

I chose this to be about life in general, personal ponderings for everyone.  It is one characteristic of language that two words taken together render both innocuous; separately, each has a far deeper meaning.

Intent, as a stand alone word is powerful. Purpose can easily be just as powerful, if not more so.  Yet, neither one is of any value unless propelled into action.  In physics, both will be defined purely as potential energy.  No different from a wagon load of coal, a barrel of oil or a giant boulder at the mountain top. Unless converted into heat and/or kinetic energy to perform work or exert power to move some other object, intent and purpose are both simply as useful as an ax or saw inside a locked tool shed.

However, when John says to Jane, "I intend to marry you", is that more powerful than when he tells a friend, "I love Jane.  Very much"?  The first sentence could be more powerful to Jane, more so to her mom - the eager future mother-in-law. Actually, John telling a friend he loves Jane is a lot more powerful than just saying to Jane, "I intend to marry you".  Think about that for a minute.

To all retirees like me, when we wake up each morning we intend to get up. When indeed we do, it's another day to be grateful for. We intend to do something. If we didn't act on that intention to do it, we find that the time to the next sunset will seem like taking forever to elapse. That might seem like a good way to lengthen the remainder of our time on earth but in reality it could be the shortest and awful way.  Let me pause and speak for those in nursing homes or living by themselves who are much too unable to act on their intentions.  We must never forget nor should we not care or wish them well in our prayers.  This musing will not speak to them.  It is for those, the reader like you, who is blessed with the ability to still act on mere intention everyday, greeting every sunrise with a purpose.  I am reminded of the last few verses from Rudyard Kipling's  poem, "IF":

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it.

Sadly, the subject-phrase is also used in the following quote:

"He was forty, out of baseball, and, for all intents and purposes, out of life".

Intentions reside in our head, denizens of our thoughts. Some, if not many, are fleeting visitors, others linger, a few are plucked and we act on them.  Others over stay, can be annoying, others become kibitzers - not in any good way - congealing into  harmful obsessions.  Still merely intentions.  But they have the power to sometimes become agents of over analysis. Analysis after analysis that leads to mental paralysis. 

Intent, the criminal kind, is not prosecutable in the court of law; fortunate for anyone not acting on impulse or intent to commit a crime.  Anyone who purchased a gun for the purpose of committing a crime is held blameless until the act of robbing an establishment.  

Two faces of intent and purpose we'd rather not intrude into our lives, either as a doer or the object of someone's deed.  Intent and purpose, both powerful in each own individual potentiality but let's focus on their good sides.

Intent is where everything humanly doable begins.  It was intended by our parents that we do well when we grow up.  Their good parenting was primed by the same intent.  It was our intent to do well in school because the purpose of a good education is to serve us well later in life.   

Intent and purpose should not wane post everything we have accomplished so far.  Intent and purpose do not and should not end at the water's edge of retirement.

Acting on one's intention to be of service to others through volunteer work is as rewarding or even of greater value over another's exotic hobby of collecting rare objects of art.  But no matter how noble or exciting an intention can be if left unfulfilled is of negative value against one simple undertaking that is acted on and finished.

The origin of the following proverb is not known but it first appeared in print in 1828:

 "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" 

This is the darker side  of intention though no less powerful when used to motivate others to do evil deeds.  We will not get into it any more than what we see in newspaper headlines, almost on a daily basis.  We will not look back in the history books for so many roads humanity had paved with good intentions, only for many of them to lead to places of unimaginable horror - man's inhumanity to another man.

We will leave it at that.  Let's go to another analogy. A more pleasant and practical one;  some readers may even find this useful.

A few weeks ago my wife and I decided we needed a round breakfast table in the kitchen area, replacing the rectangular one that is there currently. There is a purpose for why, which I will get into later. I suggested we'll just buy the table top only and I intended to build the base. Awesome, if not a bit ambitious intention (at my age). I found a company in Austin TX.  They will custom-make the top to my specification: 48 inch dia. round table, 1-1/2 inch thick, from solid red oak ( I intended to use 1 inch thick red oak stair tread at the home center to make 2-inch thick workpieces after gluing them up for the base) .  The manufacturer will make it a point to send me a diagram of the intended table, with all the specifications, once I place the order. It was going to take 2-4 weeks to finish. All of these were all intentions at that point until I gave them my 16 digit card number plus my signing on to the design they sent me.  I thought a lot about all those intentions, not the least of which was the cost (not cheap for just the top) and the hours and hours of building the base. 

I had time before the table arrived.  I have wood working experience though not necessarily about making the table base, let alone a plan or drawing of my intended idea of it.

First photo below is what the company sent me to see first and approve. It will be sanded and ready for staining and finishing of my choice.

  

Alas, the tabletop arrived (below) before I was done with the intended base!

It took two of the delivery guys to carry it into the house where I had them lay on the work table I had set up earlier. It was exactly as they promised, except I wasn't quite prepared for how heavy it was.  But for all intents and purposes, I am now well past committed. I intend to get this done.

Meanwhile, I was dry-fitting the cut parts (below).  At this point of construction it was already about forty pounds.  I intended for this to be a knock-down assembly construction. I was going to stain and finish the parts individually for later assembly inside.  It was going to be quite unwieldy to carry from the workshop, through the garage to the inside of the house.

Dis-assembled parts (below) stained and finished in the garage for better air circulation against the fumes.

Now, (below) I have it attached to the table's underside.  The challenge is how to flip it over, right side up, and ease it down to the floor without breaking my back or crushing my toes.  The work table surface is 30 inches off the floor and this table is now about 120-130 pounds.  

So many intentions cascading through my thoughts. I intend to do it this way or that, and what else will intrude before I get to do it.  And I will still need to move it to the intended nook, after moving the old table. I guess y'all will have to wait when I have this fully accounted for in my woodworking blog. And I can't have my wife watch me do it to spare her the anguish of my attempt.  We'll see.  It will not be but for a while. I will be waiting for a part.  A part of me who will want to do it.

Now, for the purpose of a round table.  As most of you know, my wife has Parkinson's.  Mentally, she is definitely very capable so  she still handles the detailed home accounting and all our financial records and she still likes the occasional card game.  The round table is a lot more suitable when  our two couple-friends come to play. The grandkids visiting us this Christmas also love the same card game we play.

However, I do intend to finish this by Thanksgiving.

Are We Living in an Algorithmic Universe?

Today, we hear constantly about news and discussions on AI, and references to algorithm for  this, algorithm for that. Let's take a  dive, not too deeply I might add, into a world  defined by this seemingly mysterious, but almost ubiquitous word. We'll look at it from a different set of colored lenses.

Merriam Webster definition: 

al·​go·​rithm ˈal-gə-ˌri-t͟həm 

: a procedure for solving a mathematical problem (as of finding the greatest common divisor) in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation

broadly : a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing some end

For most folks algorithm will seem intimidating but we can ignore the mathematical trimmings  associated with it.  Let's pick the last phrase in the broader definition - a process for "accomplishing some end" as focus for this musing.

Whether one believes in a universe with or without a Creator, one must deal with how we got to this point of our existence. From the development of our civilization, and the time that it took to get us here - 13.7 billion years from the first spark of creation to about 200-800 million years ago for when complex lifeforms may have begun - took a succession of events, a very long process, if you will, to get us to the present moment.  All these numbers are, at best, a bunch of estimates based on what scientists can squeeze out of the best science available up to the present moment.  Be that as it may, despite our inability to know everything - ever - there is one certainty we can establish: it took innumerable succession of steps in a particular order to arrive at some end (where we are today), or millions upon millions of algorithmic steps to make you out of that primordial cell 4 billion years ago.  

That primordial cell was hypothesized as the last universal common ancestor or LUCA.

Now, whether there was just that one LUCA or multiple versions of it in our history, one undeniable fact is that there were simple life forms millions and millions of years ago. From those origins arose all complex living things that are in existence today, although presently only a mere 1% of all living things that ever existed are still around as a result of at least five known extinction eras (from fossil records) over time. 

At the instant moment of creation ("Let there be light" .. Genesis 1:3) from that primordial spark of pure energy to some of it condensing into the first elementary particles of matter, to the first electron, to the first hydrogen atoms, to molecules, polymers (combination of molecules) and to the first reproducing cells that took millions upon millions of succeeding steps - some were dead ends, others continued on - until the pairing of cells for sustained reproduction, then onto more cell divisions, and voila, here you are.  You are in fact at the tip of countless cell divisions, uninterrupted algorithmic steps to make you.  Keep in mind that if there was one break along the way, you will not be here.

In fact, you are you and uniquely you because  of the combination of genetic characteristics from your mom and dad. In those genes, all contained in an embryonic cell no bigger than a pinhead, were a complex code of steps that regulated what parts will be formed first and strictly in the order that they were to take place so that nine months later you became an individual being. You'd have to admit that it took perfectly executed algorithmic steps during those nine months; otherwise, you will not have been what you became after nine months, at the very least, or worse, there will not even be a you. 

So, you were a product of a series of perfectly written algorithmic codes.  And the question then becomes - if there was a code, there had to have been a coder.  There lies the argument against a universe without a creator.  Some will say that is a huge leap to make.  Is it?

Well, yes, but the alternative is for  everything to have happened randomly, in no particular order, no repeatable algorithm to regulate the continued propagation of species.  You see, without a code writer, it will be as if we gave a monkey, or, generously, have a million of them tap on a million typewriters and expect one or a combination of them will have produced a Shakespearean tragedy or comedy. Of course, you are far more complex, by a billion fold, at least, than one Shakespeare's complete play. 

Okay, so we got that out of the way.

Let's make one more leap.  You are a product of an algorithmic universe. If so, you are faced with this: At this particular moment in time, when you  look back and then forward, was it fate that made you become you to the exclusion of your own free will?  Fate versus free will. Is that a fair question? Or, is it neither here nor there?

The avenue of fate leads to a dead end repository of total blamelessness.  One can't be responsible.  It was fate. And there lies the rub into a pointless existence.  And we know that is not true. So, what is the next option?

There is a case for a hybrid of fate and free will. It can be said that fate is only the starting point.  One is born in a house of wealth or abject poverty, a bad neighborhood, etc. An advantageous circumstance of birth, or an uphill struggle from poor beginnings had many times been proven to be not the absolute determinant of a future life.  There are just too many stories about spectacular reversal of fortunes that can only be explained by the individual's will or the absence of it.

That would be one micro-view at the individual level. Does algorithm work at the macro level?  Say, at the collective level of a kingdom, an empire, a nation, does algorithmic sequencing of events and circumstances determine the path of the collective?  

I more than hinted at the possibility that indeed algorithms had a way of determining the rise and fall of empires in an earlier musing, "2050: The Ebb of the Tragic Trajectory of a Once Powerful Nation".  Did God preordained for empires to rise and fall every 250 years?  

We cannot question the mind of the Creator, can we?  At one time I used the analogy of the characters in a comic strip who obviously live in a two-dimensional world of flat panels of a comic book.  Their creator, illustrator and story teller, lives in a three-dimensional world of a room, drawing board, pens and chair, etc.  The characters have no way of seeing anything beyond the flat panel and so they can't know what the illustrator is doing and or what it is he or she intends for the story to go.

We are like those characters in, this time, a three dimensional comic strip.  The three dimensions we exist in, make that four if we include time, allow us to live our lives under a framework of algorithmic codes, and some leeway, facilitated by our ability to exercise some free will towards some end.  We have advanced this far into our development, physically and mentally; humanity had accumulated a compounding wealth of information and knowledge but for as long as we are confined to this four-dimensional world, we have no access to dimensions beyond this.

Back to the illustrator/creator two paragraphs above and let's assume he or she decides to give the characters free will to go about making decisions for themselves.  Farfetched, isn't it? Imagine the steep learning curve, missteps and miscalculations will abound.  Permit me another analogy I've used before.  Imagine a fish wondering whatever happened to its friend who seconds ago took a wiggly worm and it's gone! It left the watery world, the only one they knew, never to know or understand where the other fish went. There's an airy world above, the dangling fish at the end of a fishing pole, that they could not understand or even survive in.

We are the creatures today that took eons to develop.  Our ancestors, limited in their understanding in the beginning, went on to inhabit a civilized world (for the most part) even though brain anatomy did not change much at all. It seems then that there was an algorithmic code in our being that allowed us to progress from the world of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons and other earlier sub-species to a society of law  and order, the Magna Carta, Geneva Convention, etc. 

Is human nature part of the algorithmic code?  Is the "selfish gene" as proposed by Richard Dawkins the beginning and the end that bookends our humanity?  We would like to think not.

There must be more to the algorithmic universe.  If we've gone this far, it is a good bet that we can go much farther.  Somehow it must also be built in to our algorithmic brain that brought about  in various iterations  our hopes and dreams expressed by  philosophers, spiritual leaders and ordinary people in our history - the longing for this Enlightenment, the Nirvana that, the Eternal Bliss, Heaven, Salvation and all the higher meanings that transcend physical life.  

We would like to think that. 

 

 

Is There a Case for Benevolent Dictatorships?

Ordinarily, benevolence and dictatorship next to each other do not belong in the same sentence. However, early in the 20th century, historians have used the phrase "benevolent dictatorship" to describe several notable governments that were run as such.  The concept was not without controversy nor was it free from criticism. 

First, let's consider the following perspectives: (a) Good parenting in any household is, and should be, a benevolent dictatorship; (b) Businesses, any business from a handful of employees to mega corporations can only be run successfully through dictatorship; (c) In the military, along the entirety of the chain of command, dictatorship is both the language and the operating system. So, parents of young children, CEOs and military commanders share those attributes?

 "I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator".

                                                        --- Richard Branson

Richard Nicolas Branson, mega entrepreneur, business visionary.. may have been semi-facetious when he said that so let's have another quote to kind of add another facet of governance before we get into governments - the leaders and the governed .

"To my knowledge there are no good records that have been built by institutions run by committee. In almost all cases the great records are the product of individuals, perhaps working together ..  In reality outstanding records are made by dictators, hopefully benevolent, but nonetheless dictators".

                                                                                                — Peter Cundill

Now, this takes us to the business of running a country.

"The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination".

                                                        ---- Voltaire

Votaire was the pen name of François-Marie Arouet, an 18th century writer and philosopher who advocated for free speech, freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.  

This may sound surprising but a democracy, or democratically run nations, is  relatively new as practiced  but the concept had been around  early on in  the long history of humanity.  Plato wrote "The Republic" in or about 375 BCE but it is still today  a college source of reference materials in philosophy and political science.  Commonly used summary for The Republic is that, in three words,  it is about justice, virtue and happiness that should define good governance.  Plato spoke of a philosopher-king - capable of leading an empire/nation with equal justice for all, a virtuous man who must aim for the attainment of happiness for the people. 

The Roman Empire picked it up after the collapse of the Greek Empire but the rule of and by the people did not take hold once the Caesars took over the reign of governing, despite the existence of the Roman Senate, where Julius Caesar was unceremoniously assassinated by several senators right on the senate floor.

It was less than three centuries ago when the idea of democracy was resurrected  and dubbed an experiment by historians upon the birth of a new nation in the New World.

After 1776, the new concept was emulated around the world that had several monarchies toppled over like dominoes.  Where monarchies remained, they merely stayed on as some sort of national symbols while the real government function rested in parliaments or other formats of democracy that allow for the people to choose their leaders.  

Democracy - what a perfect way to run a government. But, is it?

Fast forward to today and we find that, generally speaking, governments are run either as a democracy or dictatorship. The thing though about modern dictatorship is that it can rise from a democratic system that can perversely devolve into an autocratic rule.

We can come to agree that both ideologies have had their successes and, inarguably, their failures.  I think I've covered this in more detail in another blog earlier.

Now, which were those "notable governments that were run as such" referred to in the first paragraph above? 

Obviously, we cannot cover all of them but it is worth mentioning here that there are at least a dozen books by different authors written with the exact same titles, "Benevolent Dictator/s".  

Please refer to the two portraits (below) of two leaders in the modern era:

Left: Viktor Fyodorovich Yanukovich; we will use his initials as VFY

Right: Lee Kuan Yew, who journalists would also write about as LKY           

  

                

VFY currently in exile and living in Russia is a former president of Ukraine who was driven out of office in February, 2014 by parliamentary vote, later charged in absentia for corruption and deaths of many protesters and political enemies during his tenure as president.  He was found guilty and sentenced to 13 years in prison.  Fitting the definition of a kleptocrat for enriching himself while in office, resulted in a collective label attributable to corrupt public officials in Ukraine the word "Yanukism".  Indeed, upon his abrupt and unceremonious departure Ukraine was in deep economic trouble while his lavish lifestyle was exposed by the amount of luxury cars, homes and financial records and traces of foreign bank accounts that revealed the extent of the fortunes he amassed while in office. He is not the only one who took refuge in exile. 

From 1946 to 2012, almost 200 former dictators and monarchs either left their respective countries in exile or were assassinated in a process that is now defined under the general category of regime changes.

LKY, if he were alive today, will have been 100 years old a few days ago on September 23.  Worth mentioning because it means that LKY lived through WWII, regionally as the War in the Pacific, and the Japanese occupation of the Malay Peninsula.  

 

LKY, widely acclaimed as "the father of Singapore" and deservedly so, is also known to have taken Singapore from a third world country after the end of the war up to the time that it separated from the Malaysian Federation to first world status in less than three decades after his country's independence in 1965.  For one leader to have done it well within one lifetime at the helm of unopposed leadership for forty years was an extraordinary feat unmatched in the modern era.  

"With overwhelming parliamentary control at every general election, Lee oversaw Singapore's transformation into a developed country with a high-income economy within his premiership. In the process, he forged a highly effective, anti-corrupt government and civil service".

He advocated for civic nationalism backed by meritocracy and integrating instead of dividing the multiracial residents of the island by making English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil as official languages but, to take advantage  of the efficiency of English in international commerce and trade, English became the lingua franca.  LKY grew up in an English speaking family and learned Chinese later in life. During the war he learned to speak Japanese and worked as an interpreter at one time.  He spoke Malay fluently which helped when he negotiated Singapore's entry into the Malaysian Federation, and the subsequent separation from it two years later to gain independence.

LKY had his detractors on issues of press freedom, political protests but not with regards to corruption or enriching himself while in power. To achieve and maintain an honest government LKY believed that ministers were well paid.  Later, he proposed that top civil servants, including judges should be paid at par with professionals in the private sector.  He recognized that teachers should be well paid if the future of the country hinges on the education of the youth.  

LKY was a pragmatist and his tenure could best be described as "semi-authoritarian"  and as a "hybrid regime" came the phrase, "guided democracy". 

VFY and LKY give us two contrasting portraits.  However, is this what wins the case for a benevolent dictatorship?  Let's read the quote below:

 

"The longing for a leader who knows what is in her people's best interests, who rules with care and guides the nation on a wise path, was Plato's idea of a philosopher-king. It's a tempting picture, but it's asking the wrong question. In political history, philosophers moved from a preference for such benevolent dictators to the ugly realities of democracy when they switched the question from "who could best rule?" to "what system prevents the worst rule?"

                                                 -- Rachel Kleinfeld

(Kleinfeld is a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program)

This musing has not adequately answered the question to every reader's satisfaction but I'm afraid we will be asking it again and again. 

What If Your Train Doesn't Stop Here or There?

An atheist was drinking in a bar alone. Quietly at first but by 1:30 a.m. he asked the bartender, "Do you believe in God?"  

"Yes", the bartender replied, "and I need to call you a cab".

"Why?", the atheist was irritated.

"We're closing at 2. Driving at this hour, in the condition you're in right now, you just might end up killing yourself".

"Well, that would be it, right? I die and that's it. Light's out, curtains down, show's over. My train stops here or out there.  I've had a good run and when the whistle stops, end of story because I don't believe in the after life". 

"Are you a betting man, sir", asked the bartender.

"Yeah, I go to the casinos occasionally. I buy lottery tickets. Why do you ask?"

"Ah, well, believing as you do, a two dollar bet to win a million dollars would be one awesome return, right?"

"Yeah, sure!"

"And you believe, when the lights are out, curtains down, your train stops, your life is gone, you'd be a complete zero, not worth anything."

"Yep, flat out nothing, zero, zilch."

"Not even worth two dollars, right?"

"Not even that".

"So, betting a zero, zilch as you put it, would be a good bet  if there is an afterlife and it would be one awesome return, wouldn't it?  Zero for infinity, eternity, life after death, albeit a different life, perhaps?"

"If", the atheist interrupted.

"Indeed and to that I say", the bartender replied, "What 'if' your train doesn't stop here or there"?

"Well, tell me, if there is eternity, is the God you believe in eternal"?

"Let me tell you something. Several months ago a man sitting right about where you are sitting now, had much to drink and he fell asleep.  Right at about closing time he suddenly woke up, as if jolted by something.  I asked him what was wrong.  He said he had a strange dream. He said he had a conversation with God, which went like this: 'God, I know a million years to us is just like a second to you, right?  And a million dollars to us is like a penny to you, right? So, will you give me a penny - a God penny?  God responded, 'sure, just wait and I'll give it to you in a second'.

The atheist, after a minute of pondering, though not focusing on the punch line of the joke, said, "I got it, will you please get me a cab.  Here is my car key. I'll come back tomorrow afternoon".

"You mean this afternoon.  This is already the morning of what you think is tomorrow". 

"Right you are again". He stood up.  "I'll walk outside, get some air while waiting for the cab, all right"?

The bar owner who happened to be nearby checking the receipts by the register who was listening to the conversation  said to the bartender when the atheist walked out, "You've been telling that story to drunks all the time, but to an atheist"? 

"I got him to take the cab, didn't I"?

Later that day, just before 6:00 P.M. The bartender was back for his usual second shift that begins at six.  The day shift bartender said, "The guy who left his car is here. He's got a table since five and all he's been drinking is club soda".  

"Didn't you give him his car key?"  

"I did but he said he'll wait for you. There's a young lady with him".

As the bartender approached their table the atheist stood up, extended his hand for a handshake and pointed to the young lady sitting down. "This is my daughter, Gracey. She drove me over and insisted she'd like to meet you".

Gracey spoke, "First, thank you for talking with him and getting him to take a cab. My sister and an older brother appreciate it. Would you please sit down for just a bit. Your conversation didn't really change him.   You made him go back to the man he used to be.  He was a believer, not extremely devout, but he always took us to church every Sunday when we were little.  My mom passed away last year from cervical cancer".

The man, the dad, chimed in, "She was a wonderful woman whom I adored, a good wife and mother to my children and a great grandmother to our grandkids.  Why did she go the way she did? She suffered and it was painful to bear that she will not see our younger daughter get married.  Since then, I've stopped believing".

Gracey interrupted, "But it is all good now. He spoke to my sister and brother earlier today". Looking at her dad, Gracey said, "And dad, stop apologizing to us.  We are so happy, so blessed, you are back with us".  Turning to the bartender, she said, "Thank you for getting our dad back to us. You just don't know how wonderful this is going to be for us and our children.  So, thank you."

A couple more minutes later they all stood up, the man, the dad, extended his hand again and said, "Thank you for walking me back to my family again. Someone up there must have been listening again and spoke through you".

"God was listening all along and didn't stop speaking to you. This time you went back to listening again". 

As the bartender was putting his apron on, the day shift bartender asked him, "What was that all about?"

"Apparently, in the wee hours of the morning when I finished serving the last drinks, I somehow served a different kind of drink that thankfully quenched someone's thirst in some miraculous fashion.  I hope that in all the years that you will be bartending - I don't know how long you will be doing this - that you will get to experience something like today.  You will understand it then but not for now".

Stories like this happen all the time.  Often in the unlikely places among the most unlikely people in the most unlikely circumstances.  And across all social strata. We  are told we may seldom see it because in this modern age of social media, self absorption, everyone hunched over that tiny screen, people may not notice it unfolding in everyday life.  But they do a million fold more often than those extraordinary events we read in the news or social media. Whatever the reader's belief system or philosophical inclination, it is hard to ever find any definitive answers to some of the questions we encounter that defy logical or scientific explanations. Yet we do hear of life-changing single events or series of happenings that seem to defy the natural progression beyond or apart from what is expected.

The bartender, not saddled with self righteousness, nor a model for sainthood, became no doubt just a messenger.  Whether one ascribes any kind of spiritual motivation on his part or he was just simply doing what bartenders do - listening to other people's honest take on life once uninhibited by alcohol - he, without realizing it then, became an instrument by which another human being was offered a message.

Perhaps it is true that our individual life's trajectory is not one fixed track but one that requires we make  course corrections along the way that come either as minute shifts or life changing transitions.  It must help then to listen and observe along the way if our train doesn't stop here or there but one which goes on forever. 

 

--

 

Leap of Faith Into the Less Traveled Road

One morning, nine year-old Claire asked her dad this question, "Dad, if there is only one God, why are there so many religions?

It was a simple question from a young girl that  adults would have been hard pressed to answer.  Whatever answer Claire got from her dad at that point of her  life may not have mattered much to a young girl . She was likely to have forgotten the answer anyway and soon she would have outgrown that moment of curiosity and go on to other things.

What if she didn't? And if she keeps on asking, will she find better answers? Perhaps she took her dad's answer to heart, whatever it was  at that moment, but she may have kept thinking about it into her later life - pondering and re-thinking the different iterations of the question and the answers she got from other people and from reading. What would Claire have found if indeed she kept asking?

Claire went about the second half of her childhood as most of her friends did. Her family was Presbyterian, her mom sang at the church choir, her dad a deacon. By her senior year in high school Claire decided she wanted to major in history in college, to the slight disappointment of her parents but they didn't show it. Claire had applied to and was accepted by several colleges.

That summer she spent a good amount of time at the local library to read when she was not at her summer job. The question she asked her dad when she was nine kept intruding into her thoughts so she concentrated on researching middle eastern history - part of her preparation for college and to further her young childhood curiosity. 

First, she quickly found that around the world, across different nationalities and cultures,  there were quite a number of religions, cults and sub-cults and indigenous belief systems and superstitions. There were written texts, structured practices around each of the major religions and invariably established places of worship. Long before monotheism, belief in just one God, paganism that worshiped many gods and different deities was the prevailing belief system of empires for thousands of years of human civilization up to the time of the Pharaohs in Egypt.

Claire took the less traveled road back in time, where she found that it was 6000 BCE when the Nile valley was first inhabited. In 4000 BCE, the earliest depiction of gods were on the walls of tombs. The Egyptian empire did not begin until about 3000 BCE.  The pyramids were built between the 2600 to 2500 BCE.

 From the World History Encyclopedia, she read: 

"2000-1700 B.C.E.: Abraham, spiritual founder of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is born in southern Mesopotamia.

According to tradition, Abraham (the Bible refers to him as Abram and later Abraham; the Koran refers to him as Ibrahim) is chosen by God to spread the message of monotheism. Abraham's wife, Sarah, unable to have a child, tells him to conceive a child with their Egyptian servant Hagar, and Ishmael is born. Sarah, however, later has a son, Isaac, with her husband. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all consider themselves Abraham's spiritual descendants. Muslims claim descent from the firstborn son, Ishmael; Jews track their descent through the line of Isaac and his son Jacob".

Claire surmised that all three major religions must have been rooted from one main trunk, as if they were all branches from the same tree. And like everything, as in language and cultural evolutions, faith and belief systems went through many tributaries from and along the same river of time.

Jesus of Nazareth was born approximately 2000 years from the time of Abraham's estimated birth. It had been another 2000 years or so to today since that moment in time in Bethlehem. In that period, world empires changed hands many times. Nazareth then was part of Judea that was part of the vast territory of the then pagan Roman Empire.  

Followers of Jesus and his disciples all through the succeeding generations became the first Christians; but because of their beliefs they were persecuted which forced them to go underground.

That all changed when Constantine (for whom Constantinople in what is now in Turkey was named after) became Roman emperor. He stopped the persecution of Christians and by 313 AD he endorsed the Edict of Milan allowing for Christians to worship freely. Constantine's mother was a Greek Christian who may have had some influence later on the emperor's "conversion".  There was no evidence of that nor was there proof of the story that the emperor saw an image of the cross in the sky before a crucial battle.

What is true is that from Constantine's reign emerged The Holy Roman Empire. 

Claire had Catholic friends and on a few occasions she had a chance to attend their church services during Christmas holidays.  She on one occasion asked one of her friends why there were statues or sculptures of several Saints inside the church that were treated with reverence inside and during street processions. She asked, "Doesn't the Second Commandment prohibit that?" She quoted:

"You shall not make for yourself any graven idol, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water below the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God .."  

                                       -- Exodus 20:1-17  (MEV, Modern English Version)

Her friends did not have an answer, except to say that it was the tradition they grew up with. Claire went on to read up on it. She found a plausible explanation. The conversion of the Roman empire after Constantine was slow in chronological time but it was a rapid change in the ideological sense. The old Roman temples, like their Greek equivalent of an earlier era of the Greek empire, had many gods attending to the people's needs. National Geographic dedicated one issue on the subject:

"The Roman Empire was primarily a polytheistic civilization, which meant that people recognized and worshiped multiple gods and goddesses.. They believed that these deities served a role in founding the Roman civilization and that they helped shape the events of people’s lives on a daily basis".

It's plausible, Claire read the explanation of some scholars, that an accommodation was made during the conversion to not subject the people to an abrupt, perhaps even traumatic, and complex change from temple worship to the new idea that was Christianity. Methodically, the statues of the gods were slowly changed to or renamed after Christian saints and martyrs to adapt to the new concept of monotheism and, henceforth, to preaching Christianity.  Being what they were to the worshippers, the images and sculptures, steeped in tradition, remained in the traditional places of worship, patrons to different needs of the people. Plausible but perhaps not conclusively established.  Claire kept that to herself and not make it a judgment wedge between her and her Catholic friends, although the vexing question of the Second Commandment in Exodus 20: 1-17 remains.

The Roman Empire was vast. It was all of Europe and the Middle East and parts of Asia. Like the Greek empire before it, the Roman Empire was influential in how culture and the sciences and religion were spread and developed. Roman Catholic doctrine  spread throughout the empire. Italy today was where the seats of power used to be at the time of the Caesars (notably, twelve of them in succession) from the last century before the birth of Jesus Christ to the end of the first century after his death.  Rome and where the Vatican is today was the seat of Roman Catholicism. The empire's influence was such that much of the languages in Europe evolved from Latin, which was the language used during the Catholic Mass until the Vatican Council decreed  the end of its use in 1963-64; by 1969 churches worldwide stopped using it to conduct the mass completely. 

Fast forward to 16th century Germany.  In 1517, one hitherto unknown priest named Martin Luther caused  what started as a minor stir by challenging a Dominican friar's preaching, "that the purchase of a letter of indulgence entailed the forgiveness of sins".  Luther's concern was that it could lead to a slippery slope where rich people  could conceivably buy their way out of sins, i.e., a large donation or an outright offering of a tract of land to build a church could buy salvation. That little disagreement led to more and what followed was known as The Great Reformation.

Martin Luther pushed and succeeded in having the Bible translated from Latin to the German vernacular to allow the common people to read and understand the "written Word of God" and interpret them in ways not dictated only by the religious leaders. On June 13, 1525, already out of the priesthood and actively involved in the movement of Reformation, Luther married Katharina von Bora, herself an ex-nun when she and several other nuns escaped from a monastery to join the  movement. Luther hence decried the practice of celibacy because it was not a Biblical requirement  for anyone who professes to preach and spread the Gospel. 

To make a long story short, the movement to reform the church led to peasant protests. That started to split among specific area and jurisdictional churches into several splinter groups of protesters, henceforth labeled Protestants.

Claire soon found a very long list of different denominations of churches under the main umbrella of Christianity, so many to list here.  Claire was intrigued by the Amish. Where did they come from? In America, the general public recognizes  them for their traditional attire, horse drawn black carriages, coexisting as an anachronism in a modern society, who speak German at home but speak English to conduct their trade and engage in commerce.

Claire was actually led to the Amish when she first read about Anabaptists. They were one of the splinter groups who called for re-baptism, because the protesters were all baptized at infancy but learned from Biblical passages that Jesus was baptized as an adult by John ..

"Mark 1:9–11, 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan river. 10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son;1 with you I am well pleased.” 

The Anabaptists, therefore, merely followed the scriptures once they started reading the Bible.  Baptism hence was done as a total immersion in water on adults only because infants were not only deemed innocent they were unable to speak to confession, and whose faith were yet to be determined. "The Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites are direct descendants of the early Anabaptist movement". 

Anabaptists were persecuted in Germany. Many escaped to other parts of Europe.  Generations of them later made it to the newly created nation called America where they were and are free to worship freely.

Claire read:

"Because the Amish do not have church buildings, they hold church services in their homes. Every other Sunday, the members of the local district meet in the home of one of their members. Services rotate among the homes throughout the year, coming to each household about once a year depending on the number of households in the district".

There are no altars, stained glass windows, not even hymnals because they sing from memory (in German), etc.

Claire could not find any reference in the New Testament that Jesus referred to worshiping in a physical church.  Instead, she saw Jesus as a reformer who did not call for people to be in a specific man-made structure in order to worship God. In fact, she read, from Matthew 6:6 ESV, Jesus proclaimed,

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is  in heaven".  Jesus also spoke in parables.

"6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Claire was  overwhelmed by the number of Christian denominations - from the various Catholic  and Protestant denominations all over the world worshipping in small and mega churches and cathedrals. By that time Claire was not so much confused as she was exhausted after she read from Matthew 24, 

"And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many..

Claire then believed that the last portion of the Biblical quote above led to the question she had asked as a child that could be interpreted to predict the spread of so many who will call themselves Christians but not least of all are the other prevailing belief systems - Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, each with several subsets. 

In the end it was not so much that Claire found her answer but that it gave her a more profound resolve to read the Bible for spiritual guidance and leave history where it belongs - in the past. 

Before the summer ended she decided that she will change her major from history to chemistry or biology, to the delight of her parents who knew of Claire's affinity to and proficiency in math and the sciences, graduating valedictorian. Her Dad asked, "Why the change of heart?"

Claire replied, "I believe I have sufficiently enough of history that I need. I'd like to focus on the future.  I hope to do well and go on to medical school but  I promise, you will only pay for my undergrad and I will be on my own towards a post graduate degree".  Her Dad assured her he has enough saved for that already and not to worry.

We can only wish Claire the best as she finds herself at a crossroad in a world where uncertainty dominates her future despite the seeming abundance of answers.

. 

  

  

Leap of Faith

Religious or not, people often use or invoke the word faith in a variety of affirmations toward what they strongly believe in. It can be a solemn declaration of trust in someone or something.

Common dictionary definition: "The word faith is to refer to belief in something despite lacking any evidence for it."

One Biblical definition goes: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen". Hebrews 11:1  (KJV)

Faith. Ordinarily, we've expressed it in varying circumstances as in, "I have faith in you, you can do it", as a declaration of total confidence in someone's ability.  Likely, however, in everyday life, we are not using the word in its proper context. Even in the first example, if we have seen the skill or talent of the individual, then faith does not apply if we have witnessed one's ability to accomplish the task.  On the other hand, in the expression, "This restored my faith in politics", or "I have faith in this or that politician", we may have a more appropriate reason for using it, if we have not previously seen any  evidence among politicians to warrant the restoration.  Generally speaking, anyway.

If faith is already an unconditional affirmation, leap of faith raises it to another level, though not always in a good way.  It is a bold thing but it can also be considered foolish under a certain set of circumstances.

The Great Leap Forward in Chinese history was such an economic disaster that caused an estimated 20 million deaths due primarily to famine from 1958 to 1962 when the communist regime instituted a drastic communal industrialization across the country.  It was a leap of faith by the communist politburo to emulate a Soviet style  industrialization via a communal system; an untested theory of drastically converting farm lands and farmers into manufacturing industries and industrial workers, respectively, overnight.

After an economic recovery a decade later, largely through aid infusion from the Soviets, China went into another program of reform -  The Cultural Revolution. It was another leap of faith in the aging Mao Zedong in 1966. It was during that time that an attempt to completely eradicate traces of capitalism and western culture. The Red Guards, mostly young people, brandished the Red Book (compilation of Mao's sayings) as they went about going after literature and all literary sources connected to capitalism and western thought.  Even classical music and musicians were targets of the purge. Western theater and movies were banned. It was "cancel culture" on steroids.

The Cultural Revolution too failed.  Unfortunately, in the neighboring country of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge in a leap of faith in its leader, Pol Pot, did the exact same thing between 1975 and 1979. Over two million Cambodians were killed in the process - 25 per cent of the total population.

China pivoted from the last socio political experiment to where it is today. It is now a major military power with an economy second only to the U.S.  How did it do it? It became a sociopolitical hybrid by running its government in the traditional socialist system but conducts its economy the capitalist way. Gone are the Mao jackets and the ban on everything "bourgeois". Western movies are in, classical concert halls are back, and in 2016 Disneyland Park opened in Shanghai. Tennis, gymnastics, aquatic sports and soccer that used to be abhorred by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution are getting government support and world class results.

"On the morning of February 21, 1972, US President Richard Nixon landed in the People’s Republic of China".   That visit 51 years ago was hailed as "the week that changed the world".  Looking back, it was the week that changed China. If one will look at the photos of that week, Chinese officials were in their Mao jackets.  Check the photos today and you will see that from President Xi to every male bureaucrat and white collar worker, western coats, shirts and ties are the norm.

It was a combination of first, a huge leap of faith by western capitalists to invest in China and in return took advantage of cheap and unlimited manpower (figuratively speaking) and second, China's new government stepping away from pure communist ideology.  Contrast that with Cuba whose government still insists on communism circa 1950s.  Instead of being the tourist magnet like most of its Caribbean neighbors, it is stuck in a 1950's economy, despite being only 90 miles away from the world's largest economy.

In a subtle way, the west today is undergoing a sort of cultural revolution of its own, if we look closely. We hear certain young politicians constantly invoking "tax the rich", young activists bemoaning against capitalism, politicians caving in to climate activists who are pushing for the banning of gas stoves and ultimately all fossil fuel powered vehicles, shutting down fossil fuel industries as certain groups go about deflating tires of or vandalizing parked SUVs to drive home their message.  Certain books are banned; if not totally, they are revised to edit or remove certain words for content to be aligned along a perceived socio political agenda for today.  As a result, the west seems to be saddled with a panoply of revolutions at the same time: Language, Gender and Neopronoun, and Transgender Revolutions, and so on, including the potential for men to get pregnant a reality.

"The American Medical Association floated a trial balloon for uterus transplants for biological men who identify as transgender, pushing the next phase of "Frankenstein tech" for cross-sex procedures".

----Washington Examiner, August 15, 2023

The AMA is not some crackpot organization but it is getting carried away along this long winding river of revolutions sweeping the west. 

These examples are by no means the only identified phases of these new revolutions.  Much of the world can only hope that these too shall pass like the Chinese Cultural Revolution. 

Meanwhile, it is conceivable that China could become the No.1 Economic and Military power, following the historical trajectories along which empires grew and faded in the last several centuries. 

Almost two years ago I wrote about, "2050:The Ebb of the Tragic Trajectory of a Once Powerful Nation"

The reader, if so inclined, may want to read that: (copy, paste  the link below in your search bar)

https://abreloth.blogspot.com/2021/10/2050-ebb-of-tragic-trajectory-of-once.html

"The End Of Time"

In one of his "Yogism", the much beloved baseball great said,

“It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”

                                                                                         ― Yogi Berra

As early as  the first millennium, people have been predicting the end of the world; the first recorded one predicted that it was to occur between 66-70 A.D. After that, many more predictions followed during each millennium, more so in the current century. There were bracket-years predictions, i.e. 1368-1370 as predicted by a French alchemist in 1366. Others were more specific  to the month and day and even time - October 19, 1533 at 8:00 a.m. by a mathematician named Michael Stifel.  

By one count a total of 196 "published" predictions by those with considerable following - from religious leaders, spiritualists, psychics, astrologers, cult leaders, yes, even mathematicians. Nostradamus and his quatrains  predicted July 1999. Charles Manson chimed in with his own prediction for 1969.  Well known psychic/astrologer Jeanne Dixon, known to have predicted JFK's assassination, was a best seller author and syndicated columnist, predicted April 4,1962 then later revised it to 2020. They were all wrong. 

Of course, we know now, at least through today anyway, since you are reading this, that indeed none of those predictions happened.

Now, why were they taken seriously at first, or at least up to the moment they were proven wrong? Several reasons.  Some had  charisma, religion played a role, cult following and mass hysteria, etc. In some cases, psychics and astrologers made so many predictions that if a handful somehow came vaguely close, or interpreted to be close enough, they were highlighted by their proponents while  ignoring the rest that were even blatantly wrong.  In the case of Nostradamus, his predictions were so vague that it was all about how they were interpreted and made to fit certain actual events.  

Keep in mind the power of numbers.  Let's say ten million people read their horoscope every day.  Even if one horoscope proved correct for just 1% of the readers on that day, that would still have been 100,000 people. The following day's horoscope, with the same 1% rate of accuracy, would have another 100,000 people getting correct predictions (some  from the previous number, some would be new "hits") .  Over time that will multiply into some kind of meaningful statistical mass; enough to keep readership at a sustainable level of interest, including those who read them purely for  entertainment.

At this point, we can assume, given the level of incredulity over past end-of-the-world prophecies cited above, that any future predictions along the same path are likely to be wrong.  But wait, we still have several waiting for the next centuries to unfold. One scientist predicts 2026, two spiritual leaders have 2026 and 2028 predicted - one due to an asteroid hit, and another based on the rapture. 

There are three predictions for the 22nd and 23rd centuries. Two have specific dates of Dec. 30, 2129 and another for Sept. 30, 2239.  Egyptian-American biochemist, Rashad Khalifa, predicts 2280. Most predictors usually refer to their prophecies to occur during their lifetime.  The last one stuck his neck out to a specific date two hundred years from now.

Then there are far out into the future predictions that will be beyond any reasonable fact checking because the earliest is 300,000 years  to a few billion years from now. Then there's one that simply predicts a mathematical number of 10 followed by 100 zero years into the universe's future. For certain, our sun has a finite mass that it loses at the rate of 4000 tons per second. It will be a matter of time before it ends it's energy giving existence, albeit, not for another 2-3 billion years. 10 followed by 100 zeros are the number of years for when the universe will be so spread out that all of  space will have zero energy.   So, there we have it.

Now, how about actual events long before we were here from fossil evidence that led to the decimation of innumerable species. Mass extinction  happened at least five times.  However, each "end-of-time event" did not occur as one day events, except for one.  Climate changes took thousands of years to complete.  There were intense volcanic activities, changes in solar radiation, plate tectonics, severe changes in ocean chemistry, prolonged drought, all kinds of ecological imbalances, etc.  Then there was that one-day event 65 million years ago when an asteroid hit what is now the Yucatan Peninsula on the Gulf of Mexico. It wiped out the dominant species of dinosaurs. Extinction of 50% of all species followed, which then ushered the rise of warm blooded animals, including mammals, from which our earliest ancestors arose.

So, end-of-time events did occur a few times. No written records of any kind of predictions from dinosaur-prophets because even though they  ruled for perhaps 160 million years none of them could write.  But there were plenty of fossil records from that one event and prior to and after, which allowed scientists to piece together a history of several end-of-times that resulted in the extinction of 99% of all species that ever lived. 

Natural calamities happened and will happen again.

We have our own history, replete with humanity's proclivity to make war with one another.  But only now, the present time, when we actually have the ability to unleash the most powerful weapons against each other.  Mass casualties never before experienced in battle happened during the last two world wars, Chemical weapons were used in WWI and in WWII two atomic bombs were dropped over Japan that ended the Pacific War, just three months after the European conflict was put to an end.  

Today, with the amount of nuclear weapons stockpiled in the hands of several nations, humanity has finally achieved the ability to wipe out life on earth several times over. This is the modern-day sword of Damocles hanging over the entire world. Generally speaking, such worries do not preoccupy everyone's thoughts constantly but every now and then it has a way of sneaking into people's consciousness or loudly intrudes in conversation of either sociological  or political  nature. What is the average person to make of it?  How does anyone know?

There remains one resource coming from the world's several religions, including from the three major faiths of Islam, Judaism and Christianity. Almost without exception, each of them has a prediction on end-of-time future events written in  texts that when taken together seem to follow along the same vein.  The most common theme being that of the return of the Messiah or Mahdi.

Without leaning one way or another, basis our own personal faith, there is a way to synthesize what appears to be a general common theme, in a non-prejudicial manner. First let's get in here a not-too-familiar word but will be quickly followed with a definition: Eschatology is defined as "the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind". It is therefore the study of “last things” 

In almost every religious eschatology, apocalyptic texts are always part of the entire message. Given that almost all of them were written in the early centuries A.D., some of the predictions, according to some religious and geopolitical analysts alike, could only be referencing to today or the near future.  While the world had always been visited by catastrophes like earthquake, famine, diseases and the regularly occurring wars in the past, most opinions from the same analysts seem to point to  calamities that can happen only today or at some future time.

Do they have a point? Well, we can ponder a few things. By no means that  these are the only ones.

As mentioned earlier, the world today, not  centuries ago, has the capability to destroy itself with weapons of mass destruction not limited to nuclear but chemical and biological as well.  We know now from the Covid experience that the rapidity of transportation and ease of movement across boundaries can easily disperse pathogens several times more quickly than how the Bubonic plague and the Spanish flu did.  Intentional dispersion by warring nations will only intensify the speed.  

The quote from Matthew 24:6, "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.." can only be true in today's world-wide-web of the internet; clearly not so in ancient times or even as late as the 19th century when news across borders moved at glacial pace.  During those times, only those geographically close to the conflict would hear about wars and only later when historians would write about them that people would know about wars.  Today's instantaneous cable news and social media make hearing about "wars and rumors of wars"  a timely reality. 

With 8 billion people and counting, it is not difficult to imagine the severity of famine that is predicted in  the apocalyptic texts of many religions. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and other versions of carriers of doom in the other texts, will seem to have a clearer path than at any other time previously. The third horseman symbolized "a food merchant, rides a black horse symbolizing famine and carries the scales."

Let's stop with the gloom and doom at this point because as bad as the amount of tribulation being dispensed by the various eschatological texts, there is in every case the moment of redemption that is more hopeful. That is the good news. Unfortunately, this is even more a point of contention between belief systems that only results in more division. Let us not forget that several conflicts in the past were precipitated by religious differences, either as the whole reason or in part.

What we are left with is back to Yogi Berra's charming thought about prediction.  In truth, predicting is not only hard, it is impossible, in human terms, that is. 

We will not be able to predict when the end time is. However many texts  there are from various sources of faith, that moment is and cannot be known.  The New Testament that Christians around the world refer to, says exactly that.

Mark 13:32. King James Version .. But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

That is where we are today.