THE NEW GOLDEN EVOLUTION: The Creation and Development of Religions

Day 121 of the Lower Puna Eruption, and here is a time-lapsed clip of Halemaumau, the prime crater of Kilauea Volcano.

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While religions are aplenty, there six major groups:

All religions have a god or more, with an afterlife of some kind.  As there can be no proof of either, everything is, thus, based on faith.

In the beginning, either God made us, or we made him.  In any case, it has long been my opinion that religion was important to the initial survival and resultant progress of our civilization.  Religion was a logical evolution for Humanity.

Simply, Homo sapiens, and probably, too, other earlier species, quite early in development, linked families into communities.  It was inevitable that security became necessary.  Hunting and gathering eventually led to stable farms and cities, something that could not happen unless there was order.  

What better system than an all-seeing, omnipresent god that kept people honest?  Plus, offer an ultimate reward, like Heaven, underscoring the penalty of Hell for not being part of the common good.  Raise this morality plan to a high level of respect, in time, documenting the best ideas so that a platform could be built for worship.  Beautiful, a strategy that cannot be disproved, based on faith, which could well be the greatest miracle of all, for it worked.

That takes us to 2000 years ago.  The concept mushroomed, with a variety of un-related gods, for a wide range of religions began to prosper.  

Much of the next two millennia began to be dominated by Christianity, although Genghis Khan seemed to have fostered omnism, what could well become religion sometime in the far future on the way to The New Golden Evolution.  Atheism, in a sense, made two major stabs, with Hitler and Stalin.  Then, the Middle East wars advanced Islam.  Now the year is 2018, faith still generally prevails, and there are more religions than ever.  By one count, 4300.  Incredible.  God gene or not, family upbringing perhaps, there still seems to be a universal compulsion for some psychological supremacy.

The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel Huntington foresaw a future stage, where Islam and China link against the West, with Russia, Japan and India as swing societies.  In this transition, religion will be subsumed by culture and common interest, a key stage for The New Golden Evolution, which will ultimately lead to world peace in a secular society.

This is an aha moment for me, as SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity suggested that, perhaps, the world religions would someday work out a solution towards omnism.  It seems now that events shaping society will ultimately produce The New Golden Evolution.

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Super Typhoon Jebi is now the strongest ocean storm of the year at 175 MPH, strengthening an additional 110 MPH from 65 MPH in just 48 hours.  Now northwest of Guam, the current projected path takes this monster to Japan, probably on Tuesday.  Hurricane Maria destroyed Puerto Rico at 175 MPH a year ago.  The prefectures of Mie, Aichi and Shizuoka are particularly endangered at this time.

Hurricanes Miriam and Norman to the east of Hawaii are both expected, at this time, to move sufficiently north of Hawaii, bringing some more rain.  However, there are two more disturbances , Olivia and Paul east of them, needing to be watched.

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YUM CHA, BRILLIANT OX and MARUKAME UDON

Day 120 of the Lower Puna Eruption brings an announcement that the final emergency shelter in Pahoa will close on September 17.  The 45 individuals living there was once up to 550 in May and June.  720 homes were destroyed by lava.

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My desktop is filling up with food photos, so today I will bring you up to date on what I'm eating.  I'll begin with a relatively new restaurant, Yum Cha (Chinese dim sum), meaning drink tea, which occupies the Uraku Tower site on Kapiolani Boulevard of previous restaurants like L'Uraku (French), Elua (French/Italian), Padovani's Grill (steak) and Sapori (Italian).

I started with watercress dumpling:

This was a disaster because nowhere was shrimp mentioned, and I'm allergic to crustaceans.  So they replaced it with an excellent beef look fun dish:

But I went for the Shanghai Soup Dumplings, which was outstanding:

All in all, a bit pricey, but excellent.  Yum Cha replaces Yauatcha at the International Market Place, for this higher class similar establishment will close for good tomorrow.

Next, another new place, Brilliant Ox at the Ala Moana Shopping Center Ho'okipa Terrrace, an American-Asian gastropub with no ox-related meals.  If you didn't know this was the former location of Pearl Ultralounge, you will have difficulty finding this restaurant.  Somewhat confusingly, it is located one level below the other restaurants in this area, on the third (top) floor parking lot near Macy's, but in the Ewa/Target direction.

Chef Brian Bremillion comes from New York City and San Francisco.  Service is from 11 AM to 2 AM.  I only ordered the bone marrow:

My nails were at the stage requiring maintenance.  My wife, Pearl, took care of this need in the past, something I find abhorrent.  One option I'm considering is to just go to a foot doctor, who will cut your toenails for free.  My medical plan supposedly picks up the tab.  Somehow, this seems demeaning, and I'm not quite at this stage of life.  So back I went to Dashing Diva, the #1 nail/beauty shop in Hawaii, located at the Fort Street Mall.

The whole process, where you seat in a massage chair with foot bath, took an hour and twenty minutes, for you get the full treatment, including grating your food bottom and sides with what looks like a turnip/wasabi grater.  Then, a scraping with what must have been a wire brush.  The manicure and pedicure is followed by a full massage of your hand and arms up to my elbow, and same for the legs to the knee.  My feet have never been cleaner.

A few yards away is Marukame Udon, where I had my lunch and watched the Honolulu foot traffic walk by.  This is kind of the prime path of Hawaii Pacific University:

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Let me start in the Atlantic, where a disturbance will become Tropical Storm Florence on Friday, then, a hurricane, and head for the Caribbean:

In the East Pacific, Hurricane Miriam, now at 80 MPH, and, as predicted, is beginning to move north.  However, just behind is Hurricane Norman, suddenly up to super hurricane status:

Norman will head for Hawaii, with the current projection a general weakening and path just north of the state.

Typhoon Jebi is at 110 MPH and also could reach super typhoon status:

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DEATHS: Mother Nature Versus Guns

Day 119 of the Lower Puna Eruption, and all is quiet, with activity at the lowest level in more than a decade.  Getty photo to the left when there was activity at Halemaumau.  The Hawaii Civil Defense Service said:

It is common for eruptions to go through periods of diminished output, or to pause completely, only to reactivate days, weeks, or even months later.

Re-activation could occur at any time, with little to no warning.

The death toll remains at zero.

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Similarly, Hurricane Lane left a lot of rainwater, but no one was killed.  Puerto Rico, which for the longest time reported only 64 dying from Hurricane Maria, is now up to about 3000 deaths.

Speaking of mortality, JAMA, which stands for the Journal of the American Medical Association, just released a report dealing with gun deaths, which had so many assorted statistics that I got lost in the details:

• 195 countries and territories were studied.
• Gun deaths increased from 209,000 in 1990 to 251,00 in 2016.
• If I read this correctly, the rate of deaths decreased about 1% during this interval.  That is, the population increased more than gun deaths.
• Further, in 2016, gun homicides accounted for 64%, with 27% from suicides.  I would guess that actual war deaths were not counted.
• In this quarter century period:
• Firearm suicides decreased by 1.6% per year.
• But in 124 of those 195 countries, the suicide rate either stayed constant or experienced significant increases.  
• Someone, anyone, explain to me what this means?  Click on that article and read it.
• To repeat:

Conclusions and Relevance  This study estimated between 195,000 and 276,000 firearm injury deaths globally in 2016, the majority of which were firearm homicides. Despite an overall decrease in rates of firearm injury death since 1990, there was variation among countries and across demographic subgroups.

Not sure why they used the term "firearm injury death."

Additional information about guns:

• U.S. manufacturers have produced 150 million guns since 1986, or 4.7 million/year.  In 2016?  11 million guns, of which 4 million were rifles.  The National Rifle Association estimates that 25% of those were AR-15s or some other type of semiautomatic.  Did you know that AR-15s were illegal from 1994 to 2004, but that Congress, with perhaps some input from the NRA, let the ban expire?  These are the weapons used during mass shootings:  Sandy Hook Elementary School, Parkland, Las Vegas concert and so on.  Firearm sales dropped last year because gun advocates felt assured that President Donald Trump and Republicans would fend off any attempt by Democrats to control sales.  Every time there is a major shooting, sales zoom up for a while for fear of losing the Second Amendment.

• With 2% the world population, Americans own 40% of all the guns in the world.  MORE THAN THE NEXT 25 COUNTRIES COMBINED.  Including the military, there are more than one billion firearms in the world, and American citizens (not including the Department of Defense) have 393 million of them.  That is 1.2 guns/person.  Yemen, a country at war, is next at 0.53.  Canadians are #5 with 0.35.  But they do a lot of hunting.  Japan and Indonesia are at the 0.01 level.  Why do we own so many guns?  The best answer is because we can, although most will say it is for personal protection.  Here, with minimal check, we can walk into a gun store and buy one.

• The most popular gun is the Ruger lightweight compact pistol, a semi-automatic handgun.  You can find one for $260.  Ruger is short for Sturm, Ruger & Company, with headquarters in Connecticut, which happens to be where Sandy Hook Elementary is located.

• You can't go to Amazon.com and buy one, for they don't sell firearms, liquor, eyeglasses, tobacco, lottery tickets, fuel, cars, pets and second-hand clothing.
• You can click on Budsgunshop.com and get a Ruger LCP 6+1 380ACP 2.75" for $186.  It weighs 9.6 ounces, but there is no manual safety.  Safety check?  Read this.  Confused?

I tried to find some data comparing Mother Nature versus guns in the USA, and the best I could find was a 2012 study by Fareed Zakaria of CNN reporting that She caused 1/10th (3168 in 2008) that of guns or traffic, where there were a few more vehicular (34,485) deaths than by firearm (31,347):

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Ocean storms:

Jebi just attained typhoon status, and seems likely to become a super typhoon (150 MPH).  If you're going to Japan, or happen to live there, there is a chance Jebi could make landfall about a week from now...or not:

In the Pacific, Hurricane Miriam will reach Category 4 strength, but move north before getting close to Hawaii.  Maybe some rain in five days.

However, Norman just became a hurricane, and here are those dreaded spaghetti models:

Over the next ten days, anything can happen, but the consensus seems to be a path just north of Hawaii.

The Atlantic is at this time calm, but conditions are ripe for something to happen:

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THE GOLDEN EVOLUTION: Feng Shui

Day 118 of the Lower Puna Eruption and there is now only one tiny rivulet of lava flowing into the sea.  The USGS has downgraded the alert level for Kilauea Volcano from warning to watch:

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Yesterday I reported on the marriage of Midori and Eddie, with Sharon as his best man.  First female version I've ever seen.  Aside from golf, their relationship is somewhat linked to Chinese geomancy, more popularly known as feng shui.  To sound educated, pronounce that term "fung schway."  To quote:

The meaning of the words feng shui, wind and water, is a metaphor for the power that nature has in our world. It teaches the fact that mankind must respect the mighty power of nature and the universe. Practitioners and consultants throughout the history of feng shui have worked to generate chi energy to promote health, happiness and prosperity by living in harmony with nature and their environment.

Much of the practice, which began 6000 years ago, is related to marshaling invisible forces binding the Universe, Earth and Humanity together, or Qi.  Taken with some seriousness by many architects, buildings, other structures and items in a room are oriented and shaped in an auspicious manner, in harmony with bodies of water, stars and even a compass.  The main gate to Hong Kong Disneyland was shifted 12 degrees to accommodate the concept.  In 2009 county officials in Gansu, on the advice of feng shui practioners, spent $732,000 to move a 369-ton rock to ward off bad luck.

I even have had postings in the past on which direction your head should face when you go to sleep.  Feng shui suggests that pointing in the northern direction will result in terrible dreams and loss of willpower. 

One doesn't dare make fun of a Chinese belief now ongoing for six millennia, but Wikipedia refers to feng shui as a pseudoscience.  You can equate it to horoscopes, astrology and religion, which also has been around a very long time and maintains considerable influence today, even coming with tax breaks.  The list is long and even includes acupuncture, ancient astronauts, the Bermuda Triangle, dianetics, climate change denial and chiropractic.  It would not at all be surprising if many reading this posting would beg to disagree.  Me?  Well, this is just another of my continuing series on The Golden Evolution.

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There are four ocean storms, but Tropical Storm Miriam, to become a hurricane, should turn north before reaching Hawaii:

However, Tropical Depression 16-E, will also became a serious hurricane, and at this time appears headed straight for Hawaii.

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THE MARRIAGE OF MIDORI AND EDDIE

Day 117 of the Lower Puna Eruption, and I can't seem to find anything in the media.

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The last time I went to a wedding was about a decade ago, and, of all the coincidences, I sat next to that couple at a featured table with the family of the bride.  A few photos that largely describe themselves:

The groom?  Eddie Chiu, who was in our Saturday foursome for a very long time with Carleton and Sharon (who recently won the election to become the State Senator from Waikiki and Kakaako--she still has a general election, but should win by a landslide over the Republican opponent--and served as the Best Woman to Eddie).  All three of them ran the Honolulu Marathon, and Eddie was amazing, as he never trained and just showed up to run on those Sundays.  And he did that for at least ten marathons.  Midori, who is from Tokyo, to the right:

The newly-wed couple met through tango, and they are now competing for national and world championships.  Sharen and Gaylen (who was a Republican Hawaii House member) are the ones who got married almost ten years ago.  Below, Midori with her father, mother and brother to the right, and peeking nephew, who sat close by me, and the age of 2, is already on an i-Pad.

The Halekulani buffet is always fabulous:

A short program, with a slide show, cake cutting and a lot of dancing, featuring the tango:

Over the weekend, the Honolulu little league team beat South Korea for the world championship, while the University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors somehow survived a road trip with a victory over Colorado State.  Two near miracles.  Add the departure of Lane, who we thought dissipated, but, instead regained strength south and west of Kauai, and could well again become a hurricane.  Hurricane Miriam to our east will turn north before reaching Hawaii.

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