[Joseph]
How did you, at twenty-two
acquire such expertise?
[Marlene]
Robert got it right.
Age is of no consequence
for experience
’cause time ain’t reality,
but now you should know that Cole
and his company’s
thought process did not flow past
their prevailing need.
We should heed their misfortune
and proceed toward the beacon
that illuminates
the path that propagates
their helpful insights.
Consilience is the key
to ignite flights of fancy
from academic
dogmatic segregation
of revered logic
over the sublime lyric
constructing two opposing
mythical visions
of reality that seals
humankind’s ordeals.
[Joseph]
Is this constructive beacon,
the consilience you prize?
[Marlene]
What would you advise
as that part of a human
which abides learning?
[ Joseph]
The brain of course, but thus far
this discourse is completely
elementary.
To force some haste, I’ll state that
emotions reside
in the heart to impart love,
kindness and one’s empathy.
[Marlene]
It is curious
to me to see that you need
tangibility
to learn to discern vital
distinctions critical to
comprehend what needs
to mend inconsistencies.
We could easily
drown in the particulars
bound together to compound
that dreaded danger
of loosing one’s head when we
tread on the quicksand
of trying to understand
the anatomy of one’s
personality
and what body parts contain
each specific strain.
I prefer a quicker route.
My intended pursuit needs
to bar blind-deaf-mutes
whose condition convolutes
forging a straight path
to navigate one’s astute
comprehension of human
communication.
The norm forms the basis of
this inquiry.
You, Joseph, and I, Marlene,
have preened each understanding
of given topics
by expanding the basics,
but brain and heart aren’t
the reservoir for thinking
and feeling, but that’s before
science would explore
more deeply the components
from cell to system
with each element, function
and relationship of each
to each will then reach
an integrated whole soul
and human body.
The brain and the heart retained
the fame for being the throne
for thoughts and feelings,
but now the inquisitive
tone is organic
chemistry, specifically
biochemistry; which means
this discourse has moved,
for better or worse, toward deep
discoveries in
neuroscience with focus
on neurobiology.
So, you see we’ve weaved
a series of inquiries
from simple human
anatomical structures
to a careful review of
a plethora of
scientific data gleaned
from years, decades and
many centuries and lives
applied to perceive, record,
reflect, interpret
and postulate assumptions
about the true state
of homo sapiens’ role
enhancing or degrading
Earth’s reality.
Accordingly, my life is
insignificant
with limited history.
Absent immortality,
how can I cut through
such an extensive review
to highlight what I
knew would be tough to pursue?
I have only one lifetime
and a shorter stay
with you today to say what
must be said to you.
[Joseph]
You talk as though you’ve stalked me
to embark on this display
of your keenly phrased
probing questions that smoothly
flow as if you know
the response I might bestow
upon this spontaneous
inquisitiveness.
[Marlene]
Own up and confess, Joseph.
You’re extremely smart
and can easily refute
that which you internally
dispute, but I am
not here to recruit or force
your blind compliance.
I do not seek persuasion,
rather verification
is, not only my
objective, but is our
common incentive
when we seek acquisitions
for the greater expansion
of each of our
developing consciousness.
I know very well,
as you do too, via your
astute cognitive prowess,
having correctly
worked, quickly, its calculus,
that proper questions
asked in the proper sequence
summons the essence of one’s
indicated quest
while false inquiries make
a great hinderance
with answers that cut false paths.
Do the math. You’re smart and schooled
and I am no fool.
There’s no blame. We’re on the same
quest to explain why
Tina derides gentlemen
but gravitates toward coarse brutes.
You and Cole and his
company voiced an acute
perception when they
mentioned the critical fact
that religion’s primary
importance is its
role to move human action
to align with the
sublime teaching, holy laws
and material support,
but did not resort
to assess the flaw of all
current religions
from fear to transgress against
the holy ordained whose mess
compounds the distress
with the threat of damnation
or with salvation
as punishment or reward
for walking toward their beliefs.
So consilience,
the beacon, is the brilliance
of integrating
all human thoughts into a
pliable doctrine replete
with consistency
internally and able
to transform its form
without compromising its
devout adherence to its
strong abhorrence for
internal contradictions.
Impossible tasks
need a supple fix to nix
rigid stubbornness that halts
the cleanup of the
mess that religion makes when
it fully forsakes
new revelations outside
its contrived dogmatic facts
packed to maintain its
absolute control of those
who would otherwise
be free seekers after their
own verifiable facts
that impact holy
inconsistencies blessed as
divine mysteries.
As a sober exercise
to realize the power
of consilience,
let’s consider religion
as our focus
to converge scientific
methodology with the
artistic displays
of creative expressions
to convey unique
ways to understand Tina’s
identified dilemma.
Joseph, the science
that’s occupied your thinking
for many spent years
with no intent to use its
religious significance
’cause the Holy Pope
voiced his immovable stance
that scientists can’t
rant about discoveries
backed mathematically
about the making
of our reality.
Ask the great Stephen
Hawking by partaking of
his Brief History of Time*
* A Brief History of Time. Stephen Hawking. Bantam Books, Toronto,1988. Page 116.
to find the exact
proclamation that enacts
the invented line
that binds religion and the
sciences into cages
that enrages free
thinking seekers longing for
skilled accuracy
rather than autocracy.
Recall the black robed speakers
that taught you about
Saint Thomas Aquinas and
his creative thoughts
that brought about God’s new name,
Uncaused Cause of the First Cause,
formed via applied
logic impeccably used
to ignite the fuse
of his reversed engineered
quick trick to form his cryptic
new divine label
that enables the merger
of faith and logic.
[Joseph]
But logic is not science
which exists from reliance
heavily upon
critical, empirical,
measurable proof.
Faith has no such provisions.
Its position, in fact, smacks
of strong contempt for
needing verifiable
attempts to explain
their divine revelations.
Their holy priest cast must last.
[Marlene]
Where would all the kings
be without divine decrees.
Ask Henry the Eighth
whose line has yet to resign
its autocratic design
to consume the best
of what the rest of England
owes the royalty.
Clearly religion composed
of blind faith is open to
manipulation
and misuse to produce gains
in secret cravings.
Mathematics and logic
will act very well to check
opinions with facts
that back empirical proof,
but science is not
without a degree of faith.
To make this case, consider
juxtaposition
as the literary tool
that can duel well with
science to clearly enhance
the advancement of learning
which is the bedrock
upon which the pyre of
evolution burns.
Suppose you boast expertise,
but I fear I’m being fleeced.