Of course, nobody would deny the importance of human beings for theological thinking, but the time span of history that theologians think about is a few thousand years of human culture rather than the fifteen billion years of the history of the universe.
quote by John Polkinghorne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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You Tell Me Of Your Australian History
You tell me of your Australian history your ancestors were British and Irish pioneers
But your history in this Land is not an old history just two centuries and twenty years
And in time that may seem quite a long span though the combined life spans of three people nothing more
Your ancestors hardly were Aussies they came here from a distant shore.
The first Australians have lived in this Country for longer than most care to know
Their ancestors came here from Asia more than sixty thousand years ago
They are indigenous to this Country all others have links to elsewhere
Yet they still struggle for recognition and that to me seems quite unfair.
Dispossessed by the Northern invaders they never did get back their Land
And that they are now ruled by white people I find that hard to understand
You talk of the history of this Land as if it were only two hundred years old
But then suppose the history of the ancient Dreamtime by white people will never be told.
I was not even born in this Country which makes you more Aussie than I
And though I'm not Nationalistic or Patriotic my heritage I won''t deny
You talk of your pioneering ancestors but why talk of Human history at all
If the history of the first Australians you do not see fit to recall.
You tell me of your pioneering ancestors but one fact you tend to ignore
That they were not born in this Country they came here from a foreign shore
You''d swear by you the Human history of this Land was only two centuries old
But the true history of this great Country by your type will never be told
poem by Francis Duggan
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From History We've Not Learned
Men crucified the one millions now worship more than two thousand years ago
Yet many men they are as cruel today and any compassion towards others they never seem to show
And the gifts of compassion and empathy to the special few belong
And many far too many seemingly cannot tell right from wrong
Two thousand and seven years ago Jesus Christ was crucified
And nailed to a timber cross on Calvary slowly and painfully he died
Yet we have not learned from human history and it does seem sad to say
That nowadays many decent people die in the foulest way,
The war supposed to end all wars did not live up to it's tag
Young people dying in war zones every day for God and Land and Flag
Before we learn the lesson of history how many more must die
War men mock the sacredness of human life and many wars based on a lie
It has been more than two thousand years since Christ died on Calvary
And from history we've not learned a thing that's how 'twould seem to be.
poem by Francis Duggan
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The History of Now
The recording of culture is history;
but our culture is more than that.
It's the world of human action,
and the myths we make of the fact.
The recording of history is culture,
but our history is more than that.
It informs a hidden agenda.
Unconscious of motive we act.
It's the history of now, the history of now.
It's only the present that exists as endowed.
It's the history of now. The moment - KAPOW!
That knocks you right over and muddies your brow.
Through the prism of language, we know what we know.
We carry our baggage and stories of woe.
Victor and vanquished pride cannot budge,
the dead weight of hatred and ancestral grudge.
We fight our good fights with our hand on our heart;
the music is swelling as loved ones depart.
As sheep to the slaughter, the script cannot chart,
a course more ignoble: the propagandist's art.
The recording of history is culture,
but our culture is more than that.
More than the great individuals,
the scholars so love in their tracts.
The recording of culture is history;
but our history is more than that.
Not simple dates or statistics,
the full horror and gore still attracts.
It's the history of now, the history of now.
A strange contradiction that makes sense somehow.
It's the history of now, a mystery and shroud.
The past and the future: best fiction allowed.
poem by David SmithWhite
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Our Times
Our Times
13.7 billion years ago
4.5 billion years ago
3.5 billion years ago
200 thousand years ago
10,000 years ago
5000 years ago
3500 years ago
1800 years ago
500 years ago
50 years ago
One hundred years from now
Five hundred years from now
Ten million years from now
Ten billion years from now
We are where we are now
Where are we now?
Who are we now?
What will we be?
When?
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Billions Billions Alive Today
Officially half of all the human beings
who have ever lived are alive today.
The entire population of all human history
an equivalent of all humans who ever lived.
Half entire human race who were ever born
are alive on earth now living on earth today.
Asia China India regionally 2.5 billion alive today
in fifty years Asian population will double triple?
In fifty years planet earth will need to produce more
food than has presently by humans ever been eaten?
Are these food figures statistics not impossible odds?
Famine pestilence war pandemics what future awaits?
Will compassion seeds flower in collective soul humanity?
poem by Terence George Craddock
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All the beings in the universe are astounded
All the beings in the universe are astounded
that the almighty One
comes to earth as a human
and being God and human
are bonded in Him
and there’s a boy crying in clothes.
All the beings in the universe are astounded
that the almighty One
with angels all around
as human alone,
had to pay the price
and a Godly being dies in stead of everybody
and all the beings in the universe are astounded
poem by Gert Strydom
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Paranoid Android (Sorrow Poem)
Depressed and bored but not paranoid at all
Marvin had all the solutions for the Universe
But he was sad, with a billion years of boredom
Waiting tables nightly at the End of the Universe
While awaiting the arrival of his Heart of Gold.
We meet our paranoid Marvins every day
Friendless beings fearing mortal threats
From us, the great unwashed human herd
Suspecting everyone, enemies everywhere
Unconscious of their need for a real hug today.
poem by Ian Beckett
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Black History Month
In January...
There they are making history.
In February...
There they are making history.
In March...
There they are making history.
In April...
There they are making history.
In May...
There they are making history.
In June...
There they are making history.
In July...
There they are making history.
In August...
There they are making history.
In September...
There they are making history.
In October...
There they are making history.
In November...
There they are making history.
In December...
There they are making history.
But...
It's nice to know
The shortest month of the year
Was chosen to celebrate
The great deeds of African-Americans!
However...
It is those LEAP YEARS,
That really have the blacks jumping for joy!
Note: 'Black History Month' along with other
works of interest can be found in...
*'MindPrints from Untouched Places-VOL I'*
~Now available online at a PC near you~
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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When we, through our educational culture, through the media, through the entertainment culture, give our children the impression that human beings cannot control their passions, we are telling them, in effect, that human beings cannot be trusted with freedom.
quote by Alan Keyes
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We are at a major epoch in human history, which is that we don't need sex to recreate the race. You can have babies without sex. This is the first time in human history that has been true, and it means, for example, we could do some extraordinary things.
quote by David Cronenberg
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Like their personal lives, women's history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.
quote by Elizabeth Janeway
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time. It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago.
quote by Hannes Alfven
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Theologians have a great problem because they're seeking to speak about God. Since God is the ground of everything that is, there's a sense in which every human inquiry is grist to the theological mill. Obviously, no theologian can know everything.
quote by John Polkinghorne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The ugly human face
Wailing with tears and
Helplessly in commotion,
All of you’re telling to write
The history of hatred, enmity, killings,
The history of human ugly face.
My pen is dried up,
Tell me in which medium,
And language should I write.
Where to begin and
Where to end
Such history of human ugly face.
Oh! Betrayer
You’re telling me to wipe out from the history
Of such human ugly face,
That shattered and shook human conscience,
That haunts the face of those innocent people,
Killed and hurt; widows and orphans.
That hums: that reminds.
Telling me just to close my eyes.
But I’m not blind.
Telling me not to speak,
But I’m not dumb.
Telling me not to write the truth,
But I cannot write anything but the truth.
How can I deceive the history where I belong?
Human memory is short,
Tears would dry up,
The blood would be washed away with time
But the silent words, written in the heart of each human ugly face
Imbedded forever and immortal.
Let me dip the pen in the smeared blood,
The blood of all religions, caste, creed and colour, poor and rich,
The thick blood of those innocent persons.
poem by Dr.bhagya Chandra Rajkumar
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In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.
quote by Stefan Zweig
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.
quote by Salman Rushdie
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Better than anything else in our culture, it enables fathers and sons to speak on a level playing field while building up from within a personal history of shared experience - a group history - that may be tapped into at will in years to come.
quote by John Thorn
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Flyng At Night
five billion years away
a planet turns,
turning a million years
this side of the planet
and my heart beats
each beats
a million years
the other side of another planet
the distance that shortens
the years
as we watch a foreign body
five billion years away
a billion years passed
a universe caught in time
an eagle flaps its wing
each flag
a million years pass
that side of the planet
time is where you are
it walks away from you
as you walk away from it
inspired by
Flying at Night
Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like his.
Ted Kooser
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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Multiple Choice
One answer only, please
1) History is a record of the best in human affairs
2) History is a record of the worst in human affairs
3) History is neither
4) History is both
5) All of the above
poem by Morgan Michaels
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It is the recognition of history as a record of human experience which has inevitably resulted in the inclusion of this conquest of civilization within the framework of a complete human history.
quote by James H. Breasted
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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