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          %SCIENTISTS TECHNOLOGISTS AND SOCIETIES-1 860702

     Often people have prayed corporately for security. To
often  their prayers have been  for  a  victory in battle,
rather  than for a reconciliation of the conflict which is
the occasion for their insecurity.

     Insecurity  is occasioned  by unreconciled  conflicts
among ideals to which the peoples are committed with great
sincerity.    The  heart of the insecurity is the lack  of
hope that the conflicts among ideals may be reconciled.

     Often insecure  people literally  can  not hope  that
their  conflicts  might  be  resolved because their ideals
demand  that  their  conflicts  not  be  resolved  through
personal reconciliation.  People's ideals too often demand
that  their conflicts be resolved through victories  which
are  essentially  alienative:   such  resolutions  do  not
entail  reconciliation  of  either peoples  or  conflicts.
Victories   tend   to   lead   to   alienation,   not   to
reconciliations.    To  pray  for victory is to  pray  for
alienation.

     The essence of both corporate and  private prayer  is
searching  for both  private and corporate integrity.   To
pray   is  to  search  for  both  private  and   corporate
integrity:   both together,  not one at the expense of the
other.   It is impossible to have either private integrity
or  corporate integrity at the  expense of  the other.   A
prayer for one without the other lacks integrity and lacks
power because it leads away from power.

     Love,   power and justice go together with integrity.
Only through love,  power and justice with  integrity  can
individuals  and  communities enjoy security.   People who
pray   for   victories   over   their   enemies    without
reconciliation  lack love,  power,  justice and integrity,
and therefore do not enjoy security,  whether in battle or
in  victory.   Their victories  over their  enemies do not
bring reconciliations of peoples, values or ideals.   Such
victories do not bring security.

     Scientists,   technologists  and  societies that seek
technological   success  without  seeking  for   ways   to
reconcile  people  and their  highest ideals are doomed to
failure in the most tragic ways  possible.    Technologies
can  not  bring  security when they are used to  threaten,
coerce,   manipulate  and  control  others---because   the
essence  of security  is  the  freedom to be vulnerable in
intimate   relationships   with  those   whom   you   most
fundamentally disagree.  How can scientists, technologists
and society survive?
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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