How to make God Laugh by Gary Pearlman - There is Justice in Our Heart by Gary Pearlman

... “You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire, you build egos the size of cathedrals, fiber optically connect the world too every eager impulse, grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar green gold plated fantasies until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God...”

By Gary Pearlman

The next thousand years is right around the corner. Take a good look because we’re the poster children for the next millennium. You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire, you build egos the size of cathedrals, fiber optically connect the world too every eager impulse, grease even the dullest dreams with these dollar green gold plated fantasies until every human becomes an aspiring emperor, becomes his own God, and where can we go from there.

And as were scrambling from one deal to the next, it just keeps coming faster and faster, there's no chance to think, to prepare. We got a runaway train boy, we got a billion self serving aspiring Gods all jogging into the future, every one of them getting ready, as they reach out with their pristine cybernetic keyboards to tote up their billable hours and then it hits home ... you got to pay up, its a little late to bow out now.”

The movie was The Devils’ Advocate. Al Pacino who played the devil and ran a prestigious law firm, was preaching to his as yet, unaware son what the future would hold. On the brink of unimaginable progress and technological advancement perhaps this would be a good time to take a breath and think about what we as human beings are going to become as we race into the future. It's not so much where you end up sometimes as it is what you become on the way there. In this case we are advancing so quickly we do not really have the answer to either.

Soon we will be able to recreate humans and design them. We will be unable to distinguish machine responses from human responses as computers will pass the turning test and claim to be human. Our minds will be connected to technology that will give us access to all the knowledge in the world, in a split second. All the while our life span will grow until we approach immortality. What will we do with such power? The prospect is tantalizing and eerie at the same time.

While this is occurring all the systems we have had that lend stability to our lives are falling by the wayside. The events of the last century including the changes in family and relationship patterns have set us in motion against familiarity and tradition. We sit detached from the world at our Internet keyboards while reaching out further than ever before. What we need most as we cross this bridge, are the intangibles that have always remained beneath the surface giving life substance. They are love, compassion, reverence, the spirit of adventure and the need to create explore and develop a world from the thoughts that we hold in our minds.

It has been said that our greatest fear is not death, but to be alone in a cold unfeeling empty universe. Therein lies our hope. Imagine you are alone in the universe, that some circumstance has left you with only technology and science. You have the ability to create life with DNA. You can create, with your computer, a mind that will be indistinguishable from that of a human being. In fact the computer would claim to be as real as you. Of course we all would, we would go crazy all alone. The purpose of your endeavor would be the need for companionship. It would not matter what your belief system is regarding God or even if you believe in a God. What matters is that given the same set of circumstances you would act just as all the major religions say God did. The example is, itself, worthwhile.

And if the DNA strands you put together and the computer that you programed duplicating your own mind (Soon we will be able to copy our neuron network and download our brain to software. This software will think and act just as we would, with all the ability to think and make decisions. We would have created an entity in our own image) ignored you and decided that they had no use for you. Imagine the irony. After all the main reason you did this was for companionship.

At the heart of all life is togetherness, atonement (at–one–ness). It does not matter what eventually we will be able to do, if we lose touch with that at-one-ness. We are entering the age of destiny. The time when computers, genomes, DNA, anti-ageing, and prophecy are all converging in a mad dash, unveiling what we always hoped for, but could never prove. We are all going to be Gods. With the ability make life forms and reach out into the universe and create whatever our minds can imagine. Our life will be unimaginable. This world we are approaching can be magnificent. But we need to have reverence for and understand what The new Physics has learned. We are all connected.

The prophets tell us that there will be paradise for 1000 years. Our progress certainly will give us that opportunity. Of course first there is an interlude of destruction, the last lesson needed before we live as Gods. Whether or not that will happen, it does seem that the only thing standing in our way, is our insatiable desire for power and self glorification. Suppose all the incredible ifs come together and their is a God. We face the prospect that the reason we are here in the first place is because being a God is not about power but about companionship, creating worlds not destroying them.

As we gain God like powers, somewhere if there is a real God perhaps he or she will be laughing at a race that is finally going to understand why its here in the first place.

At the end of The Devils Advocate Al Pacino lures his son back by appealing to his desire to be famous. The last line in the movie has Pacino grinning maliciously, with these words. “Vanity, it's definitely my favorite sin.”

There is Justice in our Hearts

“This is a court of law, young man, not a court of Justice”
Supreme Court Justice.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

By Gary Pearlman

You know so much of the time we are just lost. We say please God, tell us what is right tell us what is true. Only there is no justice, the rich win, the poor are powerlessness. We become tired of hearing people lie and after a time we become dead, a little dead, we think of ourselves as victims and we become victims. We become weak, we doubt ourselves, we doubt our beliefs, we doubt our institutions, and we doubt the law. But today you are the law. Not some book, not the lawyers, not a marble statue, or the trappings of the court. See those are just symbols of our desire to be just. They are, in fact a prayer, a fervent and a frightened prayer. If we are to have faith in justice we need only to believe in ourselves and act with justice. See I believe there is justice in our hearts.

In the movie The Verdict, Paul Newman gave this summation to the Jury. He was trying to overcome the cynicism of everyday life and stand up for what was right. Unfortunately not enough of us stand up to those who have malice in their hearts. We rationalize away our dignity. “That's the way of the world,” we say, or, “it's a tough world.” But perhaps their is another answer. Jean Jacques Rousseau believed that men were intrinsically good and had justice in their heart, it is civilization that corrupts men.

Civilization he concluded is a disease. There is some truth there. Most people are good, they do have justice in their hearts. When others act with malice and greed, it forces the rest of us to follow. If someone cheats while you are honest chances are you will lose. When, in business and life we are confronted with that reality we become jaded. The progression of events that have followed from the actions of a few have multiplied into a way of life. Fairness and competition are not soulmates, but we can do better. And, the closer we get to a desire for justice, the closer we are to our true nature. The words to a Simon and Garfunkel put it this way: “...we are persons out of rhythm, couplets out of rhyme in syncopated time, couched in our indifference and lost in our dangling conversations and our superficial sighs, which are the borders of our lives.”

Our lives and the world we live in, are our creations. We can go against the grain if we wish. We are free to create societies and perhaps, soon universes as we wish. A remarkable reality, and all that is needed for justice be a reality is for those who are not injured to feel as indignant as those who are. For those who are not constrained by necessity, to help those who are, for those who have self respect to give it to those who do not.

Perhaps what we need now most of all are leaders. Everyday people as well as politicians in our communities who will stand tall. In his book, John McCain: An American Odyssey, Robert Timberg wrote, "Did you know that a nightingale will never sing its song if it doesn't hear it first? If it hears robins or wrens, it will never croak a note. But the moment it hears any part of a nightingales song, it bursts into this extraordinary music, sophisticated, elaborate music, as though it had known it all the time. And, of course, it had."

We need to hear that justice matters. We need to stand up to those who, “make us feel a little dead.” We need to expect justice from society not the courts, from people who realize that for long enough we have been at heels of those who are “out of rhyme.” And maybe, just maybe if you heed the call and speak the words, you will reach inside and touch others with a truth they have ignored too long, and then, they too will start to sing.