One of the challenges in Africa is to turn subsistence farmer into a viable commercial farmer.

Farming in livestock will be used as an example, but the same basic principles can be applied to grain or any other farming operation.

The experience of one company, LOCAL PODUCERS TRUST will be used, but the principles and challenges are so pervasive in Africa that the solution serves as a viable model for sustainable development in Africa and upgrading the farmer from subsistence to small-scale commercial.

Creating small scale commercial farmers results in:

• a dramatic increase of income for the farmer;
• African Farmers changing farming operations from environmentally destructive to environmentally acceptable practices; and
• African Farmers increasing their productivity and thereby lowering food production cost in a region of the world where food production is under constant pressure;
• Generally subsistence farmers have problems of access to markets, unproductive farming techniques, scale restrictions (i.e. a lack of economy of scale) and a lack of capital to funds cash flow and growth.

Overcoming these problems seems like a daunting task.

DE KOMPER ENTERPRISES is a Minneapolis based IT, Brand Development and Supply Management Company, working in Africa through a South African company, DE KOMPER TRUST.

Part of the brand value that DEKOMPER TRUST associated with all its retail brands is the fact that even though brands are nationally and regionally managed, produce sold under the brands are LOCALLY produced under a stringent set of “best practice-norms” most appropriate for each market and LOCALLY sold.

This allowed DE KOMPER TRUST to offer access to large formal markets to subsistence farmers and for consumers to purchase food products that have been produced LOCALLY.

DE KOMPER’S first approach was to try and organize a number of subsistence farmers into “production units” to produce food at consistently high quality and quantity. It saw its role in terms of production, primarily as that of “coordinator of production” according to a set of minimum standards and “coordinate supply” from subsistence farmers.

It thought that by offering market access to subsistence farmers, it could dictate production standards to farmers and that farmers would support the venture based on the opportunity to grow its output considerably by its access to large, lucrative LOCAL markets.

The vehicle, set up to achieve this is the LOCAL PRODUCERS TRUST or LPT, which was set up to manage supply quality and quantity.

LPT is responsible to organize local subsistence farmers to supply local commercial processing operations that would in turn process the livestock and sell it to the formal retail industry under DE KOMPER TRUST brands.

By creating a separate entity in LPT to focus on the food production, DE KOMPER TRUST would be freed up to focus on marketing the brands and for building the brand value under the umbrella of “LOCALLY produced food, produced according to “best practices”, sold LOCALLY”.

LPT is tasked to deal with food production problems and had its work cut out for it!

The problem that LPT ran into was the fact that subsistence farmers is not primarily “subsistence” due to their lack of farming expertise (even though this is a problem), but the biggest challenge of the subsistence farmer is its lack of cash flow and the fact that the farmer lives from-hand-to-mouth.

The subsistence farmer is under constant pressure to sell or use their produce prematurely to provide cash for food for them to survive day-by-day.

LPT signed contracts with subsistence farmers to supply a certain quality and quantity of animals at a certain date that would be sold to local food processing plants. Before the animals reach the desired weight (at a certain fat to mussel ratio) the subsistence farmer would need some cash for itself and would sell its animals prematurely to their traditional customers at reduced income levels to itself or would simply slaughter some of the animals for private consumption.

There was under contract a certain minimum number of animals that LPT had to supply to local food processors in order to make LPT viable as a new production channel.

(The problem relates to a requirement to at least fill trucks with animal carcasses and that the number of carcasses had to be enough to fill up production capacity at processing plants for at least a certain number of production shifts. Failure to do so made the local subsistence farmers products simply to expensive for the formal food industry.)

The problem was so pervasive that LPT was unable to supply any stock to local food processors.

LPT realized that the fundamental problem with the subsistence farmer in Africa is not in the first place a problem of farming expertise, or even a lack of economy of scale advantages (although these are real and daunting challenges in and off themselves), but a problem of capital.

Capital (as in money in the bank) would stop the subsistence farmer from selling its livestock prematurely. If they are able to hang on to their livestock until the right time, they will be able to supply contracts according to large, formal market-requirements and they will be able to get a better price for their animals due to the fact that when they sell their livestock prematurely, they generally worsen their position by not just failing to supply according to contract-requirements on quality and quantity, but also by discounting their animals.

LPT’s role evolved into managing the cash flow requirements of local subsistence farmers in a way that would provide security for investors and cash to subsistence farmers when they need it.

These cash flow requirements are distinctly different from commercial farmers and the legal and infrastructural frameworks had to be created to manage this in a 3rd world context.

These frameworks were created by an integration of the principles of capitalism and social responsibility.

Capitalism:
Investors are given a fixed annual return on investment at a rate that reflects the inherent risk involved in the investment.

Management of the investment is done by LPT who operates under legal supervision from formal structures in the South African judicial system as well as local government agencies.

LPT and DE KOMPER TRUST jointly negotiate and manage supply contracts with lucrative formal local markets.

LPT not just manages the contracts, but also physically manages the logistics and day to day execution of these contracts. This allows LPT to provide investors with a detailed income statement on a weekly basis of the commercial trading activities.

Social responsibility:
Subsistence farmers contribute livestock according to contracts to LPT. This allows for a dramatic increase in revenue to the farmer.

Each active supplier is also appointed as a beneficiary of the trust (LPT). As such they are formally “members of the trust” and in addition to income from their sale of livestock to the trust, they also receive a profit share, thereby further increasing their income position.

Their profit share is offset against cooperative ventures with suppliers of farming inputs such as veterinarian services, lease on land and equipment, etc.

LPT assists the subsistence farmer in their relationship with local government and Non-Governmental Agencies who are essential partners in any social context in Africa.

The net result is that subsistence farmers are changed into small-scale commercial famers by providing cash flow in accordance with the needs of someone who lives “from-hand-to-mouth” and by providing a safe investment opportunity for investors who seek solid investment opportunities and not just investors who want to make a social-investment.

This model is currently being implemented in one region in South Africa. If successful, it can provide a workable model for development across Africa.

 

The thought hit me. . .   gifts . . .   what I receive or what I give?  

It strikes me that vectors are part of every aspect of our lives.

There are always momentum and direction.  Its never static.  

 The question evokes visions of energy flowing into the system called "eben" and flowing out of the system called "eben".  Never static.  And space-time is part of our everyday experience.  We can not even think abstractly if it is not done from a certain vantage point, at a certain point in time. 

 "At this point in my life, from the vantage point of gifts that i RECEIVE. . . ."  

I wonder why space-time seems like such a strange concept.  It is all around us.  It is how we think.  It is how we are.  Space-time explains not just the world around us, but the conceptual world inside us. 

 I smile when I think about the concept of "true" gifts.  It calls for a value judgment, which is predicated upon something else.  A matrix of values which exists in our mind. 

 What is flowing through me at this moment in space-time is life and exploration, love, fear, ecstasy, desire, creativity . . . . . 

I glace up at a schematic representation of a concept I am working on.  A plan to make farming in africa sustainable for small-scale farmers.  I realize that the description that I gave above about my gifts is like my schematic representation of the master-food-plan.  Its a representation.  Its an idea.  Thought.

 Will it feed anybody.  Will it be a "gift" to anybody else?  Who knows.  lets meet at another space-time and we will see.

 

 

- the ideology of “best practices”



The relationship between the developed West, the newly developed countries and the third world has always been strained. The strain is in large due to a clash of ideologies. The clash in ideologies is in turn due to the fact that each society finds itself on a different cultural and economic development trajectory.

There is a further complicating reality that there is no single developmental trajectory, but this is another matter altogether that will be considered at a later stage.

Let’s focus our attention firstly on the existence of different ideologies.
It is ideologies that carry “development” and before we understand “development”, we must first understand the carrier of developmental culture through ideologies.

The first point to remember is that the development of ideologies happens primarily internally. Each country can be seen as a small, largely closed system. It feeds back into its wider environment such as regional neighbors, their economies and cultures, and secondly, even further into the wider world economy and culture.

However, each system, each country, is not totally open and a myriad of barriers cause ideological development to happen first and foremost internally, irrespective and completely apart from ideological developments in the wider world.

In this entire process, ideology is of the utmost importance. It is ideology that drives the actions of countries. Ideologies such as democracy, socialism, capitalism, etc.

To complicate matters further, ideologies bearing the same label often times look completely different in various countries. Take democracy for example. It looks completely different in China, India, the USA, Iraq and Afghanistan, just to mention a few examples.

Some people take these differences as a mere curiosity. No more than a dinner conversation topic. To be given no more than a partial consideration before we move on to more pressing and immediate matters.

But if anybody wants to influence development they must not only understand the importance of ideologies, but that there is no “universal” ideology. Ideologies are local and it is an exercise in futility to try and impose any local ideology onto other regions.

Before change can happen, a local ideology must be developed that will solve the problem, but before THAT can happen, the local problems must be thoroughly understood.

The company deKomper Enterprises is a company that seeks to re-examine and re-design supply systems from a local perspective. From producers, through the processing of the food, its distribution through the most effective channels to the markets and in the end the pick up of the products by consumers.

deKomper seeks to assist farmers to produce food in a sustainable way, both financially and in terms of the impact of the farming activity on the environment. Then to distribute the food along channels that represent responsible earth-citizenship, and finally to deliver the products to the end-consumer at the lowest possible price.

In order to develop these new processes, deKomper realizes that it must first of all assist in the development of new local ideologies that will effectively address local problems.

The biggest obstacle in this process of re-examining and developing new, local ideologies, is overcoming and neutralizing some of the incorrect and counter-productive ideologies that are being imposed upon any society by others – mostly developed countries.

The first critical consideration is the world wide concept of “international best practices”.

“Best practices” is something that company executives like to write into mission and vision statements. But as deKomper interacts with local farmers and food processors across Africa, it had to confront the concept of “best practices”.

“Best Practices” is one of those ideological cornerstones that is defined by developing countries and then preached to developing and third world countries. It is a premise that is very hard to argue against since this concept carries with it the inherent claim that it represents the “better option”. And who will not choose a “better option”?

One example of such a “best practices” concept is that of HACCP, a food safety standard that is sweeping the food processing industry.

Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, is the mountain of my dreams.

It is one of the oldest mountains on earth. Six times older than the Himalayas and five times older than the Rockies.  It told me this itself!

I am no geologist. I understand these matters not even in part. More like - not at all!

But I am told that at around 800 million years ago, magma that was working its way to the surface of the earth hit some sedimentary deposits that stopped its march to the surface while still under water and granite was formed.

Water eroded the sediment that covered the granite. All this became part of a super continent of sorts. In fact, where I sit right now at the tip of what we today call Africa, was the middle of this super continent. Right centre of the whole dam thing!

But our chunk of granite was still at sea level, in the centre of the land-world-thingy magig and rivers started to dump more sediment on top of it. And so, soft sandstone layers formed on top of the granite.

Then the super continent started to break up and parts started to drift away from Africa and South America broke off right at this chunk of granite, which is now stuck on the tip of Africa!

Huge forces started to play havoc with the earths crust! It was like rolling a piece of pizza doe! The pressure from the roller creates folds right in front of the roller, in the dough!

This, amazingly is what happened to the crust of the earth! Mountains were literally "folded" into existence!

This is easily observable where we live on the tip of ..Africa... One can see the folding right in front of ones eyes if you take no more than half an hours drive from Cape Town in ANY direction!

But our granite chunk was not about to be folded! It was way to strong and resisted. The energy had to go somewhere - so it went down and the granite chunk with its sandstone deposits sitting on top of it was lifted right out of the ground - forming a mountain more than 1000 meters above sea level!

Remember that the continent that drifter south and one drifted west from Africa and broke off right at this granite chunk.

Table Mountain was then right against the sea! And as the eternal, relentless waves crashed against the soft sandstone deposits covering our granite chunk, the face of the mountain was pulverized into a straight and impressive cliff face.

But I skipped over an important construction phase of my dream mountain. During the ice age, when the top of what later became Table Mountain was still level with the rest of the land, huge ice glaciers scraped over the soft sandstone - making the top flat.

And amazingly, deposits from these glaciers can still be seen at the summit of Table Mountain.

This then how this amazing structure was created! One that is visited by more tourist every year than almost any other site on Africa!

Every week I climb this magnificent structure!

And every week I am amazed at the long time that it took to construct this mountain.

But I am reminded that even this impressive structure is collapsing on itself as the storm winds and the persistent winter rain keeps on carving away at the mountain of my dreams!

I swear, at night when I sleep, the mountain talks to me!

in august i was ready to pack up everything in south africa and move to the americas to start a new adventure there.  my family don't insist that i live with them all the time and so, i have the unusual freedom of being 21 every year.

but the company that i worked for in johannesburg insisted that i give them at least another year in cape town to work on... well, whatever the hell i want to work on.

and so it happened that since August this year i have been working on a few food projects from cape town. 

I developed two new food brands and a few product lines for every brand.  the bottom end products for the mass african market are all import-based products.  meat that i process here in cape town and will sell, but now, after the considerable effort that I expensed on bringing these products to life, I am unable to finally take them to market due to the fact that Brazil is unable (unwilling - ?) to supply me at all this year!

very, very frustrating!

the other brand is upmarket.  these products are south african produced, but for various reasons supply is also a problem this year.  and it seems the products were about a month to late to go to market. it is December and no retailer is in the mood to take on new lines.

very, very frustrating!

my client told me yesterday to go to the beach for the rest of the week :-))

and then, out of the blue, the bountiful earth we live on and the rich relationships and channels to relationships we have started to feed my starving vanes with high-energy, oxygen enriched super blood!

out of the blue i met a few amazing poets on myspace.  especially connie (Connie's profile)  and brett! (Brett's profile)




conny...  an amazing published poet who did her phd research for 6 years in morocco.  (Connie's profile)

i read her poetry.  i see her mind.  i feel her emotions.  my mind kept wondering back to her words, over and over and over again...repeating words and phrases from her poems.

her thoughts echoes with the deepest recesses of my soul!

as a child i dreamt about the middle-east and arab-lands and i was re-captivated! and she is the master kidnapper!

if connie is the sage, brett is the athlete! 

i see connie reading her poetry in ancient palaces in istanbul, or in palaces in france. 




but, brett (Brett's profile) i imagine crossing the atlantic in a sail boat and reporting his experiences in poetry.  connie is a sculpture of the english language with history and the beauty of the old and romantic; brett is the energy of a good national geographic documentary or the volvo ocean race. or a Joe Cocker or ACDC concert!  his poems are crisp and powerful and engaging!

                                                                         i love it!

when i was not reading great poetry, isabel matrins from recife in brazil were teaching me portuguese;

when i was not learning a new language i was trying to teach my son afrikaans so that he can pass the exam that he wrote yesterday!

if i wasnt doing that i was with julie in hospital where she had a very painful operation...

and if not that, i was planning with my friend, dawie (dawie's profile) a new product we want to launch with the theme:  "now that we are free from all religious and other crap; now that we have no absolute ax hanging over our heads - how then shall we live life to the full!?

as if that was not enough, i got an unexpected e-mail from another new friend of mine, AJ.  a young man from south africa with some very definite thoughts on what it means to be alive!  some great and amazing thoughts from a very talented young man!

the end of the week came and i am glad  for every single moment i could live this past week!!

life....what an amazing experience!

The US election is over and the world waits in great anticipation for Mr Obama to be the savior of all men, especially believers!

At the same time, the world has good reason to utter a collective sigh of relief for the fact that Sarah Palin did not come close to playing any significant role in US foreign policies.

I came across this delightful article in the South African Cape Times on the day of the results which I share with you with the authors permission.

Let me set the scene:
 
Robben Island is a small Island just off the Cape Town coast that was home to the most notorious prison, established in 1961.  The most well know inmate was Nelson Mandela who spent 27 years of his life imprisoned on this island.  Shortly after Mandelas release the prison was closed and turned into a Museum.

The island is also home to a population of around 10 000 European rabbits.  These rabbits are responsible for devastating the islands ecology and the museum management decided that most of the rabbits will be culled in November this year.  

The second fact that you must know is that Cecil John Rhodes brought a number of Himalayan tahrs to Cape Town.  The tahrs soon escaped from the Cape Town zoo and flourished on the cliffs of Table Mountain in Cape Town.  For various reasons most of these animals were also culled, but a few elusive ones still roam the cliffs of Table Mountain.

So, with this as a brief background, enjoy John Scott's collumn.

The most common experience of humans is probably the experience of consciousness. We are self-aware, we are aware of others and we are able to think in abstract terms by thinking on behalf of a real or hypothetical "other". We construct thoughts that may or may not have any basis in reality.

A good example of this are geometric shapes. For example, the triangle or the square - there are no examples in nature of a perfect triangle or a perfect square. These concepts exist only in our mind. In a hypothetical world.

This leads us to the question of reality. How do we know what exists and what exists only in our mind?

What about the laws of nature?

Ariel Caticha and Carlo Cafaro from the Department of Physics at the University at Albany wrote a fascinating paper called "From Informal Geometry to Newtonian Dynamics" in which they examines the notion that physics are not laws of nature but rules of inference.

"The objective of this paper is to use well established principles of inference to derive Newtonian dynamics from relevant prior information codified into a statistical model. The challenge, of course, is to accomplish this task without assuming what we want to derive. One must not assume equations of motion or principles of least action, and in particular, one must not assume the concept of momentum and the associated phase space, and not even the notion of an absolute Newtonian time".

The thesis that physics are not laws of nature but rules of inference struck me.

Is it possible for humans to reason without prior knowledge (real or assumed)?

My gut feel tells me that it is imposable!

So, when we reason, we base our reasoning on prior knowledge. How fundamentally this is true of humans becomes evident from Caticha and Cafaro's paper. More fundamental than I ever thought!

But how do we know?

The proses is very simple. We first believe. I believe that I will be in Cape Town later today climbing Table Mountain. If my faith in what I am about to do is true, i.e. I actually go and climb Table Mountain, then I can look back and my faith will become knowledge. True knowledge. I did climb Table Mountain.

Since Sunday this week I have been suspecting that this is the mechanism for all human discovery. We first believe. Scientists may say that we present an hypothesis. Then we observe. We learn. We test our theory. Our faith. If it proves to be true, it becomes knowledge and this knowledge becomes part of the matrix that we access when we reason.

Another very simple example: A few weeks ago I decided to develop a new product. Despite much opposition to my proposed product (many thought it was not doable), I believed that it was possible. I would only know if my faith is true faith if I am able to make a success of the product. Then my faith will turn into knowledge.

I had many other products in the past that I believed would work and now, years later I can look back and see how they failed. In many instances my faith was proved false. It did not translate into knowledge. (Even though I learned many other things - my particular faith in the success of the specific products proved to be false-faith that could not be translated into the knowledge that "the products will work").

The importance of this discovery lies in the fact that it exposes a fundamental aspect of human thought and as we understand human thought in general and human consciousness in particular, this leads to better design of systems around us. Systems that we create because we are self aware and because we think in abstract terms and live in abstract worlds (the family or a nation).

My good co-explorer and myself have been frustrated for years now with the fact that our thinking of faith systems such as Christianity is done in negative terms. We feel that we want to approach the matter of our existence in a positive light by answering the question "what is true life/ existence" as opposed to exploring the fact that Christianity represent a false system. An example of false faith that leads to disinformation - no knowledge can come from Christianity since the faith proved to be false.

But it was my evaluation of Christianity that lead me to the knowledge that Christianity is based on presuppositions that are false which renders the entire system ultimately false. This lead me to consider human though generally. How much of our thinking are based on untested presuppositions?

This lead me to Caticha and Cafaro and their paper on inferences, which confirmed my "faith"/ suspicion that all of human reasoning are inferential in nature - even when we talk about "the laws of nature"!

As long as our evaluation of Christianity leads us to a deeper insight into the human mind and the rules we use to process data I think that it is and will remain a highly productive topic of discussion.

I would love to interview Mr's Caticha and Cafaro and understand how their position influences their world-view!

We live in a world where very few things are truly in an absolute sense the way we perceive them! There are some business people who build empires on this understanding! Abraham and his descendants build at least two very influential (and FALSE) faith systems on this. The United States will elect a new leader today based on it!

The life we life is based on how we see things in our mind and faith is our hope and dreams that keep us moving forward on the march of progress. Nothing more than that. It is one spoke in the wheel of progress!

i live in africa. i breath the challenges of this great land.

i realise that the game of life is not played with skill if one hopes on god to come and win the day. no...it is really all up to us.

i embarked on a journey a year or so ago along with my best friend, dawie, where we wanted to implement a new vision for food distribution.

the plan is simple. produce locally, but have national brands. the national brands dictate uniform quality and consistency. and distribution, production and marketing resources that are typically only available to large, national companies are enforced at all production facilities and distribution hubs.

i invited my many mySpace friends to help me choose a brand. in the end the choice fell on the brand names: BEST as our 'mass market brand' and WOODY'S as our upmarket or premium brand. thank you to every person who enthusiasticaly contributed suggestions from all over the world.

i will post some of the product packaging art work on my site over the next few days! it looks amazing!

the next step was to get a world class tehnology partner who can assist me in putting the technical prouct specs together. i found such a company in Deli Spices who has an amazing technical capability to not just set product standards, but to also assist producers to comply with our very strict requirements.

lastly, one of the most exciting food distributions companies in africa, Bread Stop, is taking ownership of the entire project and is making their distribution capabilities available to the project.

to compliment all of this, i am setting up a sales, merchandising and promotions team in every area.

the end result will be food produced locally, sold locally! every aspect of this - from manufacturing to distribution and when the product is served on the clients table at home is done according to best practices from around the world.

the model further provides for very particular lessons and success formulas from countries like China and the USA to implemented all over africa.

it is a remarkable project and you guys are a part of it! i am humbled by every e-mail of support and every suggestion. thank you!!!!!!

it is time in my life to move from evaluating christianity to living life!!!

and it is as if everything i have done in my past have been preparing me for the greatest challenge of my life. to put this together and implement it - region by region, country by country, never implementing a carbon copy of the previous, but adjusting the plan to compensate for shortcomings and draw on strengths of each individual region. amazing! how much fun can one have?

forgetting the past, i dare to live life to the full and to have the most fun that any person can have!!

SEE:  eben's business web and deKomper site

I quotes Dawie's blog in its entirety because he makes amongst other an excellent point of setting "nature" as the the "Southern Cross of truth". This notion is not that far fetched if one understands our interconnectedness with our environment.

A year ago I was travelling from Tzaneen, a very small town in a picturesque part of South Africa to another small town called Waterval Boven in another beautiful part of the country.

It was late at night and I had to cross several mountain passes to get to my destination. Not only was it pitch dark, but mist settled over the mountains making it almost impossible for me to see further than a few meters in front of the car.

I was driving at a snails pace, straining my eyes to try and see through the mist when the thought hit me out of the blue that the world we live in carries little "actual connection" with the physical world around us.

I realised that the world we live in, in our minds is a world that is almost entirely constructed by ourselves with abstract concepts such as democracy, faith, justice, right and wrong, economies, etc. and that there is a profound disconnectedness between this mental world and the world we find ourselves in.

I was wring blog posts called "Anatomy of a Sceptic" at this point and so strong was this concept that I started every entry with a short discussion of this very point.

Our mental world dominates.

With Dawie's blog post that I just quoted still ringing in my ears, I came across the following superbly insightful part in Capra's book, The Web of Life. Capra talks about the human condition in Chapter 12 and writes:

"Human beings evolved from the upright walking 'Southern apes' (genus Australopithecus) around two million years ago. The transition from apes to humans, as we have learned in an earlier chapter, was driven by two distinct developments: the helplessness of prematurely born infants, which requires supportive families and communities, and the freedom of the hands to make and use tools, which stimulated brain growth and may have contributed to the evolution of language.

Maturana's theory of language and consciousness allows us to interlink these two evolutionary drives. Since language results in a very sophisticated and effective coordination of behaviour, the evolution of language allowed the early human to greatly increase their cooperative activities and to develop families, communities, and tribes that gave them tremendous evolutionary advantages. The crucial role of language in human evolution was not the ability to exchange ideas, but the increased ability to cooperate.

As the ability and richness of our human relationships increased, our humanity - our language, art, thought, and culture - unfolded accordingly. At the same time, we also developed the ability of abstract thinking, of bringing forth an inner world of concepts, objects, and images of ourselves. Gradually, as this inner world became ever more diverse and complex, we began to lose touch with nature and became ever more fragmented personalities.

Thus arose the tension between wholeness and fragmentation, between body and soul, which has been identified as the essence of the human condition by poets, philosophers, and mystics throughout the ages. Human consciousness has brought forth not only the Chauvet cave paintings, the Bhagavad Gits, the Brandenburg Concertos, and the theory of relativity, but also slavery, witch burnings, the Holocaust, and the bombing of Hiroshima. Among all the species, we are the only ones to kill their kind in pursuit of religion, free markets, patriotism, and other abstract ideas."

Capra continues:

"The Buddist doctrine of impermanence includes the notion that there is no self - no persistent subject of our varying experiences. It holds that the idea of a separate, individual self is an illusion, just another form of maya, an intellectual concept that has no reality. To cling to this idea of a separate self leads to the same pain and suffering (duhkha) as the adherence to any other fixed category of thought.

Cognitive science has arrived at exactly the same position. According to the Santiago theory, we bring forth the self just as we bring forth objects. Our self, or ego, does not have any independent existence but is a result of our internal structural coupling. A detailed analysis of the belief in an independent, fixed self and the resulting 'Cartesian anxiety' leads Francsico Varela and his colleagues to the following conclusion:

Our grasping after an inner ground is the essence of ego-self and is the source of continuous frustration. . . . This grasping after an inner ground is itself a moment in a larger pattern of grasping that includes our clinging to an outer grounds in the form of the idea of a pregiven and independent world. In other words, our grasping after a ground, whether inner or outer, is the deep source of frustration and anxiety.

This, then, is the crux of the human condition. We are autonomous individuals, shaped by our own history of structural changes. We are self-aware, aware of our individual identity - and yet when we look for an independent self within our world of existence we cannot find any such entity.

The origin of our dilemma lies in our tendency to create the abstractions of separate objects, including a separate self, and then to believe that they belong to an objective, independent existing reality. To overcome our Cartesian anxiety, we need to think systemically, shifting our conceptual focus from objects to relationships. Only then can we realise that identity, individuality, and autonomy do not imply separateness and independence. As Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan reminded us, 'Independence is a political, not a scientific, term."

When we look for God, we are looking for something that don't exist. But we refuse to accept this because there is behind this search for God an even more profound conviction that we hold - that of our own independent existence. Thus it happened that it is not God who created us in his image, as the story goes, but we who created God in our own image. And the existence of God MUST be independent because if it isn't we are faced with the possibility that not even ourselves may have an independent existence.

Is this a depressing thought? Not at all!! It is exhilarating!!! I'll explain....

The discussion about consistency as it relates to the matter of "truth" and how we practically and consistently apply this to life is one of the most fundamental questions we can consider. It impacts our lives on a multiplicity of levels and is the reason why I find the discussion on Christianity and its many fundamental failings so relevant.

The case against Christianity is fundamentally not made by people who do not want to submit to a Holy God as Christians claim, but is made on rational grounds by people who cherish consistency and truth.

I am not alone in this approach.

My best friend and fellow explorer of life, Dawie, has posted a remarkably insightful article related to this very subject on his site: Idea Arsonist

Here is his posting:

The Case for Passionate Non-Dogmatic Conviction

Whilst it is true that a number of people can hold divergent views, and that in some way they could all be holding "a truth", a personal rendition of the matter, it is not true that truth is perfectly subjective.

Those who hold to certain viewpoints as a matter of Faith, for instance hold to their convictions on the basis of a Scriptural, or Ecclesiastic Authority, or the (untested, unproven) notion that holding to a Traditional way of looking at reality is More Right, or More Safe. Such a viewpoint is different in every way, from one who holds to their conclusions and convictions on the basis of ongoing investigation and inquiry, and an openness to allow more discovery to completely change their conclusions.

For the former, the matter at hand is settled and sealed. All that needs to be known is already known. All that needs to be understood is understood. The only matter that remains is to hold steadfastly (under the belief that doing so will grant some protection, or some blessing) to this supposed "tried and tested" truth. Of course no such truth exists. What was considered the bed-rock of society just 100 years ago is today seen as a grotesque violation of the deepest of human dignities. Just consider how Christains viewed Women's Rights, Minority Rights, and how Christians treated and viewed children in the family 100 years ago, and consider how much our orthodox views have changed about that.

For the latter, the matter is never settled and sealed. It is open to further inquiry and refinement. It is not a meaningless meandering, however. Conclusions based on solid facts are reached, for sure. But the basic stance is that there is a Great eagerness to explore more, a desire to find deeper, more precise answers. The former Needs Certiany so much they are liable to invent it or adopt it from some tradition, if they can't find it. The latter is so in Awe of the world, and the Wonder in it, that the quest is never-ending.

The former is afraid of ignorance, and wants to get to a system of answers (beliefs) and cling to them. The latter embraces ignorance and seeks to become less so yet knowing full well that the ignorance will never fully be eradicated.

In the matter of romantic love, we find a great example of this. The dogmatic view on love is that of monogamy. Our culture is filled with countless mythologies and moral cautionary tales all designed to Preach the virtue of monogamy. No matter how much it bumps up and grinds against the grain of reality, of the facts about human nature, regardless of the countless shattered lives of adults and the endless suffering of children in marriages shattered because Such Lofty Castles were Built on a False Foundation, and in the collapsing from such preposterous idealism, there is broken spirits and wounds everywhere. Regardless of all of this, monogamy is held to as a Faith, unalterable. This is the Divine Order. Period. No other way of men relating to women can ever be useful or good to the human race.

This is said against the overwhelming evidence that the human species is not monogamous at all. Furthermore, the kind of love that is most ardent in its commitment to monogamy is understood by countless scientific studies to be of a primitive kind – the kind of love the infant shows to her mother, a completely self-centered clinging to the beloved with a raging jealousy and unwillingness to share. An unsettlingly high rate of monogamous relationships are co-dependant to a large degree, and an astoiundingly high percentage end up in divorce, whilst the vast majority of the remainder seems to languish in a discontent that boggles the mind.

The facts point in a very clear direction. We are meant to reach out to a larger social context than just our immediate family. It is only in the rarest of exceptions where this is not the case. The facts also, about highly creative people is also very well documented and very well established. They , more than most, have a real and not imagined need, for ongoing variety and stiumaltion. They need to be allowed to explore deep and far.

"do you seriously think I will not take my sense of poetry and spirituality, my inquisitiveness, my infinite exploration of "what is beyond the horizon"; do you seriously think I will not take that with me into every aspect of my life: my work, moy play, nin the office , in recreation, to my bedroom and my sexual expression, to my choice in fashion, to my very sense of Life and art?"

So While it may be said that we can all choose to see truth the way we want to see it, none of us can truly live consistent with that which is contrary to nature. The doctrine of eternal damnation is such a huge fabrication that no single believer in it has ever been able to live with its reality – if it is true that an eternal punishment awaits the unbeliever then no other activity on earth other than the never-ceasing pleading for the unbeliever to turn can be justified, even if just a fraction of compassion exists in the heart of the believer. This belief is unsustainable. The abstinence preached through the ages, at the threat of the gravest of punishments, nevertheless did not stop people from extramarital sex and the conception of babies. There has never been an place or an era in the planet where orphanages did not fill up with abandoned babies, or daughters were punished even killed for bringing supposed shame on a family. This blind holding to a moral imperative, is clearly something that should be abandoned in the light of the evidence, and hopefully eventually will.

Do we hate or do we love? Do we choose to possess our loved ones, or do we walk a path with them and seek ways to give and share in their Life-path. Do we seek to manipulate them to get our way, or do we seek to co-operate with them to create Partnerships of deep mutual benefit. Do we expect others to behave in accordance with our views of morality, or do we seek to understand that others do not see things our way always and therefore Love is to Share, Love is to be Flexible, Love is to make room, Love is to say – even if I don't understand .. here, here is a cup of Cool water – a permission to explore and to Live and Move and Have your Being.

Yes we can choose either of these ways, and in either case it will activate a set of causes and effects which is not the effect of God's blessing or curse, but rather merely the outworking of the Laws of the universe.

As sure as the monarchy was an imprisonment of the soul, regardless of all the lofty defenses fabricated for it through the ages, so it holds that our views of monogamy, our views of marriage and love, our views on child-rearing, stand to be corrected by what we have discovered about the human spirit and behavior. And it is still true, that is seems most would rather opt for the convenience of traditional thought (blaming all its negative outcomes on some sinister mostly non-descript evil force at work) than to change behavior in the light of the facts.

I truly want to live in the light of new discoveries. I do not think I will hold the same views I do today in 10 years. I hope with everything in me that I shall not! I want to change, and get closer and closer to what is True and what is Real; what brings the greatest potential for Community, Sharing, Real Connected Give-and-Take Love where the dignity of every human being is held high, and our various needs are honored with joy and Gratitude, and where the childish jealousies and possessiveness and narrowness of "here is my little family and this is where I will pour my energies" disappear. We are after all One Family.