God, Power, and Man

By Dr. Safwat Bishara and Dr. Dalwat Bishara

God created man and bestowed power on him. Man was given dominion over the fish, fowl, and every living thing.

Then evil entered the world. The second generation saw Cain slew his brother Abel. The cruelty and aggression of man did not stop there. It just took different shapes and forms.

Even the religion of peace and love suffered from mans obsession with destructive power. For centuries, the pope in Rome exerted enormous control over the spiritual and social lives of Christians. Dissent was dealt with harshly.

The innate human impulse for control persisted in Islam since its inception in the seventh century.

The love of money has destroyed men and corporations. A blessing could become a curse if money is viewed as a goal rather than a means.

Social media offered a platform for mans vanity, but it also brought sadness and agony for teenagers targeted by classmates armed with false allegations. Some succumbed to depression and took their lives.

The digital revolution of the 1990s contributed significantly to our daily lives. Communication, health care, and shopping have been improved and made easier. But the power grid became vulnerable to hackers. For efficiency, the national grid is interconnected to allow more supply for regions with high demand at specific times. The dilemma is how to choose between efficiency and security. The first option is the logical choice, but mans uncanny ability to do harm has led many high-ranking officials to warn against the vulnerability of the grid. Obviously, life would essentially stop if the grid is brought down by a major cyberattack.

Abuse of power by men over women is still dominant in some parts of the world. On a different scale, the Communist parties in China, Vietnam, and North Korea have a tight rein on more than 1.3 billion people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546232339

Dr. Safwat Bishara

The principal author is a Fulbright scholar with a doctorate degree in chemistry and a United States patent. He published 60 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals in the U.S. and Europe. He taught at Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas; Missouri Southern State College, Joplin, Missouri; Northwestern College, Orange City, Iowa; Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman; and Mosul University, Mosul, Iraq. The coauthor has a doctorate degree in physics and worked as a senior programmer analyst with Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services, Topeka, Kansas. The authors have three grown daughters. They have college degrees in medicine (M.D.), chemical engineering, and journalism. The authors are now retired, and live in the Florida panhandle. They have six grandchildren who live with their parents in Kansas.

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© 2018 Dr. Safwat Bishara,Dr. Dalwat Bishara . All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/22/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-3234-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-3232-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-3233-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018903626

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

King James Version (KJV)

Scriptures were taken from the King James Version of The Bible - Public Domain.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Epigraph

Acknowledgment

Preface

PART I: POWER OF RELIGION

Chapter 1 In Christianity

Chapter 2 In Islam

PART II: POWER OF MONEY

Chapter 3 On Individuals

Chapter 4 On Corporate Performance

Chapter 5 As a Curse

PART III: POWER OF CONTROL

Chapter 6 Control of Nations

Chapter 7 Control of Corporations

Chapter 8 Political Power

PART IV: POWER OF THE INTERNET

Chapter 9 Founders and Developers

Chapter 10 A Positive Tool

Chapter 11 Unintended Consequences

Chapter 12 The Vulnerable Power Grid

Chapter 13 Spititual Impact

PART V: POWER OF AUTHORITY

Chapter 14 Over Women

Chapter 15 Over Humanity

Chapter 16 Over the World

Summary, Conclusion, And A Brighter Perspective

DEDICATION

To men and women the world over

EPIGRAPH

"Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos,

but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. Thou shalt love the

Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have forgotten what we really are."

G. K. Chesterton

"God is like the Sun; you can not look at it, but without it you can not see

anything."

G. K. Chesterton

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Thanks are due to Sarah Vaillancourt for editing this work. Her effort are greatly appreciated.

PREFACE

In the beginning God created…. GENESIS, 1:1. "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." GENESIS, 1: 26-28.

The Word of God makes it clear that God gave man dominion over all creatures: fish of the sea, fowl of the air, cattle, all the earth, and every creeping thing. The Bible conveys the heavenly intent of purpose by first telling it in verse 26 and then repeating the same command in verse 28.

Granted, not every man believes in creation. But whether man was created by God or is the end product of a random selection process, the fact remains that man is actually in control of his/her world.

The question is: How did man exercise his dominion over other creatures? Most significantly, how did man get along with other humans? Did man prove worthy of the power bestowed upon him by the Creator?

God aside, history is replete with stories of aggression, hostility, and betrayal.

GENESIS, 6: 5-12 says, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Ja-pheth. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth."

At the fullness of time our Lord Jesus Christ took the form of a man and lived among us—a sinless life that brought salvation to those who believe in Him.

But not everyone did.

The Apostle Paul writes, As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. ROMANS 3, 10-12.

In ROMANS 7, 18-19, the Apostle goes from the general to the specific as he states, "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do."

Not much has changed ever since.

We tend to think of Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin as if they were uniquely evil persons, but the truth is everyone on the planet would have done the same if they believed their philosophies and were not accountable to anybody. Many a dictator forgets that the purpose of the state is not to govern the individual but to protect him/her. AGENDA 2, MASTERS OF DECEIT, Agenda documentary.com, DVD.

On a different scale, Robert Clark, THE ECONOMIST, November 2, 2013, p. 21, offers a suggestion on how to deal with present-day politicians. He proposes creating the Large Ego Collider in which our congressmen are accelerated into ever higher-energy collisions with their oppositely charged colleagues. The goal is mutual annihilation and the creation of a new particle, the theorized but hitherto unobserved Electable Moderate Centrist.

The aggression of man is boundless. No wonder about one-sixth of the earth’s land surface is protected in one way or another. THE ECONOMIST, October 26, 2013, p. 50. This contrasts with marine reserves that, at most, cover three percent. The American-based Pew Charitable Trusts are proposing to designate the Exclusive Economic Zone around the Pitcarin islands in the South Pacific as a marine protected area. This would ban fishing in 830,000 square kilometers (320,000 square miles) of sea around Pitcarin. The island makes a perfect choice; it is scarcely populated (65 people) and quite removed from other areas—4,800 kilometers east of New Zealand and 6,000 kilometers west of Ecuador. The hope is that these precautions are enough to keep man away.

Man realizes that he has to protect marine life from man. Laws, law enforcement, and courts protect man from man. The Word of God seeks to protect man from himself.

And the Creator has designed physical protection for the newborn. An article in THE ECONOMIST, October 26, 2013, p. 91, reports on research that identified a protein in mothers’ milk that protects infants against the dreadful HIV infection.

It has long been known that mothers’ milk has all nutrients necessary for the baby. Many believe that it also has vaccines against illnesses the weak body is yet unable to handle. What has recently been proved is that mothers’ milk has some proteins that suppress the HIV virus’s reproduction.

Researchers at Duke University in North Carolina have found that a single protein called tenascin-C… disables HIV by locking onto a protein on the virus’s surface. It was observed that only ten percent of HIV-infected mothers did transmit the virus to infants through suckling. This could be explained by the fact that tenascin-C in mothers’ milk is as effective at locking the HIV virus as antibodies generated by the immune system for that specific purpose.

THE ECONOMIST’S article claims that it is a complete coincidence that tenascin-C has the right shape to attach itself to HIV’s envelope protein. It goes on to say because AIDS is such a recent disease that evolution could not have had time to throw up a novel anti-HIV protein of this sort, then it seems to be a complete coincidence that tenascin-C has the right shape to attach itself to HIV’s envelope protein.

Is it really a coincidence that two proteins happen to have the right molecular structure with oppositely-charged atoms coming together to bring about the forces of attachment? Or it is the Creator’s design to provide protection for those who can not defend themselves? Is AIDS a recent disease or did people die from it a long time ago but no one then knew why?

Whenever evolutionists are confronted with new scientific facts, they usually claim coincidence.

God created man and gave him dominion over creatures of the air, in the sea, and on land. The Creator sent prophets to assuage man’s inclination towards sin. When all this failed, He sent His only begotten Son. For three years He lived a sinless life, and performed all miracles even raising the dead—not one but three different persons. Yes, He came to be the sacrificial lamb. His crucifixion and resurrection offer hope for an otherwise doomed human race.

How and what man did with the power entrusted him is the subject of this book.

PART I

PART I: POWER OF RELIGION

One might think of God at the top of a triangle, where power and man form the base. But when God is left out, power changes into tyranny. History, old and recent, is replete with instances of good (constructive) power as well as abusive power.

The I AM has always been, is, and will ever be on His throne. His love for humanity is on display everywhere since the creation. But man’s response to the Creator has not always been in kind.

In it all, God never lost hope in His creation. He sent prophets to help man get back in touch with his Creator. When all failed, He sent His only begotten Son. He was crucified by man. His ascension to heaven is man’s hope for an eternal life. The Lord Jesus Christ reconciled the sinful man to a holy God.

CHAPTER 1

IN CHRISTIANITY

JOHN 3:16 says, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

God cared about man’s life on earth and beyond. Who is more qualified than a medical doctor to describe the miracle of the human body?

Dr. Richard A. Swenson, MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE, Navpress, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 2000, writes, When God set out to create humanity He put His genius on display…. As a scientist with training in both medicine and physics, it is easily apparent to me that the majesty of God is revealed in the human body. His fingerprints are, in fact, all over us.

Swenson, M.D., lists some figures about the human body.

There are forty-two thousand fewer neurons in the right side of your brain than the left side.

At any given moment, one has 18.755 billion trillion air molecules in his/her lungs.

Ninety percent of our atoms are replaced annually. Every five years, one hundred percent of our atoms turn over and become new atoms, isotope studies reveal.

The human body contains 10 to the power 28 atoms (1 followed by 28 zeros), according to David M. Baughan, M.D., CONTEMPORARY SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES AND FAMILY MEDICINE, Volume 19, January/February 1987, p. 42.

The details are staggering. The human brain is a three-pound organ but it is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe. Isaac Asimov, IN THE GAME OF ENERGY AND THERMODYNAMICS YOU CAN’T EVEN BREAK EVEN, Smithsonian Journal, June 1970, p. 10.

The human brain has ten (some say a hundred) billion neurons. Each neuron is… in contact with ten thousand other neurons for a total of 100 trillion neurological interconnections, writes Dr. Swenson.

The brain has the capacity to hold information equivalent to that contained in twenty-five million books.

Within the neuron (brain cell), "the signal is electrical. But where one nerve connects with its neighbor, in a connection called a synapse, the signal switches into a chemical message… ferried across the synapse by a