Time for a New Year

This is the time of the year when we review the past and look forward to the future.   

Written about in song and poetry, time marches relentlessly to some unknown point or place or end that…who knows?  We relate to the spread of time through past, present and future or yesterday, today and tomorrow.  Our view of it is mostly forward looking unless, of course, you are a historian.  Time in the future is forecasts, predictions, and horoscopes.  It is hopes, dreams and plans.  Time in the present is now, fleeting, ephemeral.  It is deadlines.  We say we’d like to live in the moment, to be present.  Time in the past is memories, experiences and history.  We learn from the past.   

“Yesterday is history.  Tomorrow is a mystery.  Today is a gift.  That’s why they call it the present,” goes the popular saying.            

Time on Earth is measured in time zones marking the passage of the sun across lines of longitude on a spinning, tilting and wobbling globe.  Only time enjoys all the future.  It existed long before and will exist long after humankind.  Our universe is thought to be about 13.75 billion years old and is still expanding from the singularity also known as the Big Bang.  Our earth is thought to be about 4.5 billion years old or older, some say. 

From Threes, Chapter Three, “Threes in Science” 

Three Wise Men

Gaspar, Balthasar, and Melchior, the three Wise Men or Magi, visited the Christ child in Bethlehem bearing gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  The three gifts had a spiritual meaning: gold as a symbol of kingship on earth, frankincense as a symbol of priestship, and myrrh (an embalming oil) as a symbol of death.  Sometimes this is described more generally as gold symbolizing virtue, frankincense symbolizing prayer, and myrrh symbolizing suffering.  All three are ordinary offerings given to a king.  It has been suggested also by scholars that the "gifts" were medicinal rather than precious material for tribute.  The three wise men were probably priests from Persia who traveled a long distance, perhaps 1,000 miles, on their pilgrimage to Bethlehem.

From Threes, Chapter Four, “Threes in Religion and Mythology” 

The Holy Trinity

The symbol of the trinity representing the father, son and the holy ghost or holy spirit is a part of Christian doctrine that defines God as three divine persons.  They exist as equals.  God exists as three persons but is still one God, meaning that God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have exactly the same nature or being as God the Father in every way.  Whatever attributes and power God the Father has, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit have as well.  God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are also omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, infinitely holy, infinitely loving, infinitely wise and eternal, according to Christian doctrine.

From Threes, Chapter Four, “Threes in Religion and Mythology” 

Abraham and Threes in Religion

Many believers in some of the 12 recognized classical world religions worship multiple gods. Buddhists, Hindus, ancient Egyptians and others are or were polytheists.  Other believers worship just one god.  Christians, Muslims and Jews are monotheists, and including those who do not believe in any god, then, one group of threes emerges:  atheists, monotheists and polytheists.  The transition from the worship of many gods to the worship of one god or many gods and nature as one began with the appearance of prophets and teachers Jesus and Muhammad, and it can be traced to the forebear of the current monotheist traditions—Abraham.  Much of this shift coincided with a period in Europe and the Middle East during which Rome became the dominant power. 

 

For Jews, Abraham is a revered patriarch, referred to as Our Father Abraham, to whom God made several promises including one big one that guarantees Abraham would have numberless descendants and they would receive the land of Canaan, the "Promised Land.”  For Christians, Abraham is a spiritual forebear rather than a direct ancestor.  For example, Christian iconography depicts him as an early witness to the Trinity in the form of three "angels" who visited him.  In Christian belief, Abraham is a model of faith, and his intention to obey God by offering up his son Isaac is seen as a foreshadowing of God's sacrifice of his son Jesus.  In Islam, Ibrahim is considered to be the first Muslim and part of a line of prophets beginning with Adam.  Abraham is called Our Father Abraham as well as Ibrahim al-Hanif or Abraham the Monotheist.  Islam holds that it was Ishmael rather than Isaac whom Ibrahim was instructed to sacrifice.    

From Threes, Chapter Four, “Threes in Religion and Mythology”

Three Types of Attitude

Anything, we are taught, can be accomplished with the right attitude.  Attitudes, though, come in varying degrees, particularly when they are part of a relationship with another person. 

There are three categories of human attitude, writes Meera Seshadri.  The first category includes those who have a ''You're right, I'm wrong'' attitude.  The second category has an ''I'm right, you're wrong'' attitude.  The third group believes in ''You're right, so am I.''

Those under "You're right, I'm wrong" category are generally subservient and agree easily with views of other people.  Those who belong to "I'm right, you're wrong" category are often vocal and vehement.  They often embark on 'sparring sessions' with everyone just to prove what they believe is universally true.   

Those who believe "You're right and so am I" are the most prudent, pragmatic and wise.  Though they are prepared to assimilate good points from other people (and even acknowledge another’s good qualities), they live life on self-dictated terms.  Being good listeners, they respect other viewpoints but finally do what they deem to be right.  They never take devious routes to attain success, nor do they pull someone down so they to climb the ladder.  They are so confident of themselves that they don't bother proving their skills and intelligence before others.   

Three Traits of a Psychopath

“James Fallon admits he has a lot in common with serial killer Ted Bundy and Columbine assassin Eric Harris.  He is aggressive, lacks empathy and is a risk-taker. 

“Fallon, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California Irvine, accidentally discovered what friends and family have suspected for years--he has all the genetic traits and brain scan patterns of a psychopath.

“’When somebody gets mad at me, I never show it--they can't read it on my face,’ Fallon, 66, told ABCNews.com.  ‘I never get even immediately, but four years down the road, I get them with revenge.’

“’I don't have special emotional bonds with those who are close to me--I treat everyone the same,’ he said.  ‘I am involved in a lot of charities and good works, and my intentions are good for the world.  But I don't have the sense of romance or love I am supposed to have for my wife.  It's not there.’ 

“But Fallon is not a mass murderer and in his new book, The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey Into the Dark Side of the Brain, he tries to understand why.” 

From Yahoo News today