Category Archives: Religion

Perspectives as of October 27, 2026 Concerning the Upcoming United States Congressional Elections

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The current probabilities, based on national polling aggregates and statistical models (using artificial intelligence as a research tool), with one week to go until the November 3, 2026 United States midterm Congressional elections, seem to project a significant “blue wave”, perhaps even a “blue tsunami”,  driven by slumping approval ratings for President Donald Trump and disapproval of his subordination of United States interests to Israel, especially with respect to the Pearl Harbor-like attack by the United States and Israel against Iran and United States support for Israeli genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine and Lebanon.  The following synthesized breakdown of projections from major polling agencies, forecasters, and betting markets outlines the current expectations for both chambers.  However, a caveat, rather than an exact science, polling has been largely converted into a tool for manipulation of results and thus results have, in the recent past, been wildly inaccurate.

In the House of Representatives (the “House”), Republicans currently hold 218 seats, Democrats hold 212 with one independent and four vacancies.  Projections imply that after the November elections, Democrats will hold between 229 and 242 seats while Republicans will hold between 193 and 206.  In the Senate, Republicans currently hold 53 seats with an additional vote by Vice President Vance in the event of a tie and Democrats and their “independent” allies hold 47.  That is projected to change after the elections with Democrats expected to hold between 51 and 54 seats and Republicans between 49 and 51 but, in the event of a tie, once more Vice President Vance would cast the deciding vote.  There is, however, a significant wild card, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman.  He is currently a Democrat but might well elect to caucus with or vote with the GOP.  There are also a number of Democratic Senators with deep ties to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (“AIPAC”) such as Democratic Party Senate leader Charles E. Schumer, Nevada’s Jacky Rosen, Californians Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, Pennsylvania Democrats Bob Casey and John Fetterman, Montana’s Jon Tester, Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono and surprisingly, Massachusetts’ Elizabeth Warren (among others), who are may join Republican Senators in matters of importance to Israel, the same being true in the House[1].

The following are the latest projections by major forecasting organizations:

  • As of October 26, Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) projected a 55% probability that Democrats would take complete control of both chambers (a unified Congress), with a 24% chance that Republicans would retain the Senate while losing the House and just a 19% chance that Republicans would hold on to both.  The projected seat breakdown assumes that Democrats will win 238 seats in the House and 51 seats in the Senate.
  • As of October 23, the Cook Political Report projected that a majority of House will be controlled by Democrats, placing 214 seats as solid, likely, or leaning Democratic—meaning Democrats only need to capture 4 out of the 17 unallocated “Toss-Up” seats to take the gavel.  As to the Senate, it places 7 seats in the true “toss-pp” category: Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas. To secure a 51-seat majority, Democrats must hold Michigan and successfully flip four of the remaining Republican-held states.
  • As of October 27, CBS News / YouGov Poll projected that Democrats would secure 229 seats in the House, an 11-seat buffer over the required 218 threshold.
  • As of October 27, PBS News / NPR / Marist Poll reflected a generic commanding 8-point lead (52% to 44%) among likely voters nationwide for Democrats in the upcoming elections. The poll highlighted strong enthusiasm indicators, with 71% of Democrats expressing high eagerness to vote compared to 61% of Republicans.
  • As of late October, the Polymarket & Kalshi Prediction Markets (a gaming platform) gave the Democratic Party a 91% to 92% chance of controlling the House and a 66% chance of capturing the Senate.

The foregoing may well be impacted on a personal level by the arrogance and lack of discursive objectivity of many Trump supporting Republicans in their interaction with potential voters who are not, “dyed in the wool” Trump supporters. I am among those who have been turned off by the hubris of Trump supporters, although, in all honesty, as an independent, I would never support any AIPAC backed candidate, whether Republican, Democratic, third party or independent.  Nonetheless, I am profoundly disappointed that so many United States voters who I respect and for whom I have profound affection, having studied with them or taught them, are among those who seem abysmally ignorant as to history, philosophy and international affairs and as to what communism, socialism or Islam really are, although they are totally convinced as to their expertise with respect to the foregoing.  It’s true that United States citizens have always tended to be unaware of a great deal outside the propaganda they are fed (and which I was also fed, and which, for a while, I taught) but they have become significantly more aggressive, counterintuitive and, in the long term (now heading towards the short term), bellicose in a counterproductive manner.  They seem trapped in echo chambers where they preach to each other as loudly and insistently as they can, disregarding contrary realities that they would need to understand in order to convince others, rather than to alienate them.  Perhaps given their current perspectives, that’s a good thing.

Many such people with whom I regularly associate and, outside of politics and religion, with whom I have a great deal in common, ironically consider themselves devout Christians while concurrently avowed capitalists, not realizing how incoherently inconsistent those positions are.  I am not a believer in the divinity of “Jesus” but am profoundly in favor of the doctrines which he is credited with espousing, doctrines such as “treating others as one would be treated”, acceptance of forgiveness and reformation as guiding principles and supporting the most disadvantaged among us, that, as contrasted with the intolerance and elitism favored by Saul of Tarsus who so thoroughly succeeded in distorting Jesus’ message.  I am a progressive democratic socialist, like Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Noam Chomsky, Salvador Allende, Clement Attlee, Olof Palme, Jawaharlal Nehru. Mohandas Gandhi, David Ben-Gurion, Willy Brandt, Eugene V. Debs, George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, Helen Keller and now, Zohran Mamdani, and thus, abhor both the Republican and Democratic parties.

At any event, regardless of the outcome of the upcoming elections, AIPAC’s control over the Democratic Party’s current and anticipated leadership means that even if Democratic Party candidates overwhelm their Republican opponents by historic margins, nothing is likely to change except for the political affiliation of the victims of lawfare.  That is so despite widespread voter dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party’s current leadership or with the control exercised by AIPAC over the Democratic (as well as Republican) Party.  Oddly, it is GOP dissidents who have become disenchanted by the Trump administration’s betrayal of his purported America First and antiwar pledges who espouse the most progressive, anti-AIPAC messaging.  People like Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, Joe Kent, Senator Rand Paul, former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Representative Mark Amodei of Nevada, Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina and especially, Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie.  It’s ironic that GOP dissidents and democratic socialists in the Democratic Party both seem to believe that the changes they view as existentially necessary have to be accomplished through internal reform of their respective political parties rather than through an alliance between them given that they have so much more in common with each other than they do with the AIPAC controlled traditionalist in their current parties.  But that’s how politics has functioned ever since the presidential election of 1860 in the United States, in the United States where democracy is quasi-legally defined as a bipartisan dictatorship through legally favored duopoly.  Thus, the likelihood following the Congressional elections is, as is usual in United States politics, that the more things change, the more they either stay the same or become even worse.

Don’t forget to vote and, as president Trump privately urges, vote early and vote often.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026 (except for the image which is the property of the New Republic); all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] In the current Congress, 247 Democrats and 268 Republicans in the House have direct financial support from AIPAC on record. Almost the entire current Senate has accepted pro-Israel PAC backing. The upcoming Congress will see a minor decline due to retirements and targeted general election dropouts where candidates have refused AIPAC alignment as a litmus test.

Assuming Any of the Following Is Accurate: A Prelude of Sorts

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So, is hegemonic divinity a curse or punishment rather than a privilege?

Given reality, that seems at least possible and perhaps probable; well, assuming hegemonic divinity involving the five traditional attributes exists.  The traditional attributes, at least to hegemonic, monotheistic Abrahamics are: eternal existence, without beginning or end; ubiquity, omnipresence, presence everywhere concurrently and permanently; omniscience, all knowingness; omnipotence, all powerful; and, the trickiest in light of the others, omnibenevolence, all good, perfectly so.

Imagine how incredibly boring eternal existence must be, especially eternal existence without peers or companions. 

But perhaps it’s much worse than just boring.

In one postulate, the divine experiences everything that anything and anyone experiences and does so perpetually, over and over again time being inapplicable thus, every single experience is permanent: all the joy and all the pleasure, sure; but also all the pain and all the suffering, all the frustration, all the betrayal, all the injustice, all the blame, whether fair or not. 

In a more scientifically sophisticated version, one predicated on string and quantic hypotheses, one where every possibility exists in an infinity of universes, that scenario is multiplied in infinite variations.  Would it be possible to remain sane in that context while being omnibenevolent?  If divinity were callous and indifferent, or even evil, perhaps.  But being omnibenevolent, and eternally so, sanity would seem quantically improbable.

So, what sane omnipotent and omnibenevolent divinity would voluntarily tolerate such eternal punishment?  It certainly seems as though the experience would be the ultimate punishment, the ultimate curse but if so, imposed by what?

Might it be that divinity, in addition to the five traditional hegemonic, monotheistic, Abrahamic attributes is a masochist?

That would seem the only answer and sort of explains the crucifixion of Yešu, assuming any of the foregoing is accurate.

I wonder how frustrated the foregoing would make masochists feel.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Of Counterintuitive Courts, Constitutions and Bibles

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Kritarchy (or kritocracy) is the term for rule by judges or the judiciary.  It seems the inevitable consequence of vesting the judiciary with the power to “interpret” constitutions and, when constitutions are deemed supreme, to effectively control government in the form once exercised by dictatorial political bureaus (politburos) and the central committees in one party states.  Unless the “judges” charged with constitutional control (control being the end result of purported review) are democratically elected for fixed terms, something which only occurs in Mexico and Bolivia (but even there, the nomination process is controlled by traditional branches of government and, in Mexico, the term is long, 12 years) they are obviously antidemocratic elites.  Kritarchy is thus a specialized form of antidemocratic oligarchy rather than an aspect of democracy which sort of makes sense, given that constitutions, by their nature, are inherently antidemocratic, in the sense that democracy requires majority rule.  However, given the reality that in purported democracies popular apathy is more the rule than popular participation, democracy as such is more a fable than a reality.  A majority is more than a plurality and when large segments of a population do not participate in democratic elections, real majorities (50% of the eligible electorate plus one) are rarely if ever attainable.

Kritarchy is defended as essential to protect human and minority rights from democratic abuse, an obvious fallacy as that assumes judges who prioritize such concepts and that is no more likely in a judicial tribunal than it is in a popularly elected legislature or even, in a popularly elected autocracy.  Since the Biden administration’s 2013 destruction of the selection of federal judges in the United States through political consensus via the filibuster (Murphy is still chuckling about that), federal judges in the United States have been more politically biased in their decisions than ever, making it clear, in the cradle of judicial review, just how wrong the infamous decision in Marbury versus Madison (really John Marshall versus his despised cousin, Thomas Jefferson) was.  And an incoherent Kritarchy such as that which runs rampant in the United States today is, procedurally, as bad a form of government as currently exists.

Thus we find ourselves, politically and economically, where we do, rule by judges bought and paid for by plutocratic kleptocracies with merit a sort of pejorative, except in the Hobbesian sense of merit, i.e., merit being equated with brute power.  It’s as ironic as is the reality that many, perhaps most, perhaps virtually all evangelical pastors are politically tied to Zionism which, when it involves religion at all, insists that the purported Christ, about whom such evangelical pastors incessantly preach, is deemed by their Zionist overseers as, at best, condemned to an eternity in Hell drowning in a pool of molten excrement.  Seemingly, the blind leading the blind would be quite an improvement over the deaf, dumb and blind simians who “guide” us today.

We humans are a strange, incoherent and evolutionally counterintuitive species.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflexiones sobre reflexiones

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«Ve’betarayin yehon qadmayin ve’qadmayin betarayin» («הָרִאשׁוֹנִים יִהְיוּ אַחֲרוֹנִים וְהָאַחֲרוֹנִים – רִאשׁוֹנִים» en hebreo); la primera frase estaba en arameo.  «Los primeros serán los últimos y los últimos serán los primeros», según se dice, eso proclamó Jesús —o más exactamente, Yešu—. Pero ¿qué hay de los que están entre esos dos polos? ¿Existirá una relación inversa en toda la escala? ¿Y qué decir de los que ocupan el centro: los insípidos, los tibios o casi fríos, aquellos que, buscando mantener abiertas todas las opciones, se niegan a tomar partido? ¿Dónde se situarán y cuándo?

Por supuesto, están los hipócritas, los mentirosos, los manipuladores; aquellos que adoptan una postura sin intención alguna de actuar en consecuencia y que, de hecho, a menudo actúan de manera totalmente opuesta a lo que dicen defender. Suelen congregarse en la política, el derecho, el periodismo y entre el clero.

Hay quienes consideran que los que están en el medio son los peores de todos: los cobardes, los cómplices. Claro que en ese punto intermedio hay diversas variantes, y tal vez distintos olores. La ambivalencia. ¿En qué se diferencia de la indecisión? ¿O de la apatía? ¿Y cuál podría ser la relación entre la apatía y lo patético?

Hay quienes afirman que «es mejor haber amado y perdido que no nunca haber amado». ¿Cómo se traduce esto conceptualmente en el caso de quienes expresan su opinión y resultan estar equivocados, frente a aquellos que, por miedo a equivocarse, nunca opinan?

¿Dónde te situarías tú?

Es solo una pregunta.

Se atribuye a Albert Einstein la siguiente frase: «El mundo es un lugar peligroso para vivir, no por causa de los malvados, sino por aquellos que no hacen nada al respecto».

Me pregunto qué diría Yešu.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; todos derechos reservados.  Permiso para compartir con atribución.

Guillermo Calvo Mahé es escritor, comentarista, analista político y académico residente en la República de Colombia. Aspira ser poeta y filósofo empírico y a veces se lo cree.  Hasta el 2017 coordinaba los programas de Ciencia Política, Gobierno y Relaciones Internacionales de la Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. En la actualidad, participa en entrevistas radiales y televisadas, foros, seminarios y congresos cívicos tabto en Colombia como en el exterior y edita y publica la revista virtual, The Inannite Review disponible en Substack.com/.  Tiene títulos académicos en ciencias políticas (del Citadel, la universidad militar de la Carolina del Sur), derecho (de la St. John’s University en la ciudad de Nueva York), estudios jurídicos internacionales (de la facultad posgrado de derecho de la New York University) y estudios posgrado de lingüística y traducción (del Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos de la Universidad de la Florida).  Sin embargo, también es fascinado por la mitología, la religión, la física, la astronomía y las matemáticas, especialmente en lo relacionado con lo cuántico y la cosmogonía.  Puede ser contactado en guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com y gran parte de su escritura está disponible a través de su blog en https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections on Reflecting

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“Ve’betarayin yehon qadmayin ve’qadmayin betarayin” (“הָרִאשׁוֹנִים יִהְיוּ אַחֲרוֹנִים וְהָאַחֲרוֹנִים – רִאשׁוֹנִים” in Hebrew), the first was in Aramaic. 

“The first shall be last and the last shall be first” Jesus, more accurately Yešu, is reported to have declaimed.  But, what about those in between?  Will there be an inverse relationship all the way through?  And what of those in the middle, the bland, the lukewarm or almost cool, those who, seeking to keep all options open, refuse to take a stand.  Where will they stand and when?

Of course, there are the hypocrites, the liars, the manipulators, those who take a stand with no intention of acting on it, indeed, who frequently act in a manner totally opposed to that they claim to espouse.  They tend to congregate in politics, and law, and journalism, and among the clergy.

There are those who feel that those in the middle are the worst of all, the cowardly, the enablers.  Of course, there are a number of flavors in the middle, and perhaps odors.  Ambivalence. How different is it than indecision?  Or apathy?  And what might the relationship between apathy and pathetic be?

There are those who assert that “it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”.  How does that translate in the context of those who opine and turn out to have been wrong versus those, who, fearing to be wrong, never opine at all?

Where would you place yourself? 

Just asking.

Albert Einstein is credited with saying: “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

I wonder what Yešu would say?
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television in both Colombia and abroad; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

A Mission Statement for Seekers Seeking to Grasp Divinity

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Is the following a heretical hypothesis, is it anathema and blasphemy or is it, well, … common sense?

First Postulate: That one single anthropomorphic, omnipotent, eternal, ubiquitous, omniscient and omnibenevolent divinity exists is extremely unlikely given, in mundane terms, the proof of the pudding, i.e., the history of humans on earth. 

Second Postulate:  That multiple non corporeal entities superior to us exist, limited as to when they came to be and that they are neither omnipotent, nor eternal, nor ubiquitous, nor omniscient nor omnibenevolent seems as likely as life existing or having existed outside of the earth, which is not to say that such entities or such life exists.

Third Postulate:  The foregoing is something on which it is worth speculating, on which it is worth reflecting and concepts concerning such “possibility” seem worth putting to the test, even if the principal postulate of the scientific method makes proof the existence of superior non-corporeal beings difficult, but not as impossible as proof of their non-existence.

Fourth Postulate: The Third Postulate almost applies to the much less likely proof of a single anthropomorphic, omnipotent, eternal, ubiquitous, omniscient and omnibenevolent divinity, the difference involving proof of its purported distinctiveness.

A mission statement for a society of seekers sending out an S-O-S to the multiverse?

I wonder how Richard Dawkins, the atheist prince and putative father of memes would react to the foregoing; memes, in a sense, being incorporeal beings possibly meeting quite a few of the requirements set forth above, as may be the case, in the future, with human created artificial intelligence.  As to the Dalia Llama; the Pope or the leaders of the thirty three million bickering variants of Abrahamic creeds (or are those Hindu gods, the one equals thirty three million avatars version), I’m pretty sure I know how they would react, although Pope Francis I might have found it interesting.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

A Bit of Reciprocity: a sort of prayer

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If he or she or it or even they exist, the divine, they and I are, I think, friends.  Mainly because I dare to interact with them as a sort of equal.  Not in terms of power of course, but in sensitivities and concerns and perceptions, seeing in divinity those same traits, albeit not easily admitted, especially to “believers” who insist that divinity is perfect: eternal, omniscient, ubiquitous, omnipotent and omnibenevolent, when the divine has or have, in all probability (assuming probability is relevant), doubts of his, her, its’ or their own, and perhaps quite a bit of guilt and remorse.

The divine, if the concept exists, desperately need someone with whom to communicate and not in prayer (which probably generates divine migraines) or devotion, but openly and honestly, without fear of being judged, but rather, hoping for empathy, in much the same way as humans should hope to relate with whatever concept of divinity they individually have.

Of course, the likelihood that divinity exists is rather slight but, all the same, even if imagined, it can be comforting. 

Or, terrifying. 

Terrifying if he, she, it or they are really, to any extent, omniscient, ubiquitous, and omnipotent but not omnibenevolent (eternal is irrelevant).  Given the world as it is and as it has seemingly always been, omnibenevolence obviously cannot coexist with the other attributes traditionally associated with divinity by purportedly modern humans.  The ancients, even the purported descendants of Abraham, knew that.  Their divinities were selfish, self-centered, prone to outbursts and as frequently wrong as they were right, regardless of what their sycophants wrote. Which explains why they were terrified of their divinities and sought to appease them, rather than to understand them.  Interestingly, similar fear seems to infest most Abrahamic religions, despite the love on which they are purportedly premised.

But I like my concept much more.  Ours is a hubris free relationship involving imperfect, perhaps insecure divinities that need us as much as we need them.  It is more comforting, more reflective of the best in us as humans (or is it we?).  Thus, I cater to the divine generously, open to whatever they need to get off of their metaphorical shoulders without expecting all that much in return, other than a bit of reciprocity.

Hmm, reciprocity. 

Isn’t that the essence of the so called “Golden Rule”?
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

Reflections on Good, Evil, Divinity and Efficiency

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Nature and nature’s god, if there is one, and if there is a difference between the two concepts, cares nothing at all about the human concepts of good and evil, or good and evil at all, caring only for efficiency and its maximization but, lacking omniscience, seeks to find efficiency through trial and error, through experimentation which is frequently not only unsuccessful, but results in devastating failures, that is where infinity and eternity create the ideal laboratory. 

We humans refer to the foregoing as evolution, which may well not be a bio-centric concept but rather, applicable to every process in the cosmos, or better yet, the multiverse or best of all, the omniverse, at least for now.  That concept expands as the concept (or fiction) of time is filtered in.

Of course, evolution in a cosmic sense was probably most prominent during the early stages of cosmic evolution, during the first zeptoseconds after whatever first occurred, but continued experimenting with energy and with the smallest possible particulate units which we currently believe to involve quarks and leptons but probably involved a series of predecessors, most of them failed.

I wonder what it was like before the first zeptosecond.  A concept, at least in human terms, that needs light and hydrogen atoms but which obviously had precursors, smaller and shorter until they sought to merge with a time before infinity or eternity had been posited as divine hypotheses, assuming, of course, the improbable existence of divinity.

It must be incredibly comforting to be unconcerned with good or evil, merely enjoying the creative frustrations of the quest for efficiency, a road like, the road to Hell, littered with positive intentions but unconcerned with damnation.

We humans, of course, believe that we know better.  We have concepts of good and evil contradictory to nature’s quest for efficiency and contrary to the dictates of cruel evolution.  We believe ourselves more enlightened, which more than anything confuses us as we have, to date, been utterly unable to abide by the morality and ethics we invent to discredited nature’s cruel quest for efficiency.  But then, comforting hypocrisy is our hall mark. One with which we imbue the verisimilitudes of divinity we create in hopes that those illusions will provide us with answers to unfathomable and hence unanswerable queries, and the most foul among us use the myths we create, to maximize control and power and wealth and hubris.  And they find that efficient, at least in the short term, and hence divine.

We humans, and perhaps all forms of life, are apparently aberrations nature has yet to categorize as failed experiments, failures which, or perhaps who, like Mordred, aspire to supplement their parentage, or progenitor, nature itself, and force it into our own image, one where good and evil exist as relative concepts, useful tools as long as they’re ignored whenever inconvenient.

Observations which my deistic friends of Abrahamic persuasions will find heretical and anathema, at best, but which Elphaba apparently grasped as, exposed to water, she slowly started to melt and in her personal, last instant epiphany, exclaimed: “What a world, what a world!”
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

On Palestinian Religious Evolution during the Past Two Millennia

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The following is a short primer on Palestinian religious evolution during the past two millennia dedicated to my unfortunately uneducated Christian Zionist friends who buy into the myth that God gave Palestine to Zionists.  All of this material was obtained in a quick, AI assisted search on the Internet and thus is easily verifiable.

Contrary to the claims of Zionists that “they” were promised Palestine, Jewish groups over a millennia following the purported time of Abraham and Moses, at the beginning of the Common Era, were highly varied and fragmented, lacking any single centralized religious authority. Instead, much like modern Christian sects, of which thousands of competing variants exist, many condemning their competitors as heretics, the “Jewish” population was divided into competing sects, political factions, and diaspora communities.

The primary ideological and social groups in first-century Judea included:

  • Pharisees: A group of scholars and laymen who emphasized rigorous adherence to both the written Torah and an extensive oral tradition. They believed in the resurrection of the dead and angels, and their teachings laid the groundwork for modern Rabbinic Judaism.
  • Sadducees: The wealthy, conservative elite, largely comprised of priests, who controlled the Jerusalem Temple and the Sanhedrin. They rejected the oral law, believed only in the literal written Torah, and did not believe in an afterlife or resurrection.
  • Essenes: Ascetic, separatist communities (such as those associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran) who withdrew from mainstream society. They practiced strict purity rituals and communal ownership, believing the Temple establishment in Jerusalem had become corrupt.
  • Zealots and Revolutionaries: Militant, nationalistic factions that fiercely opposed Roman taxation and rule. Groups like the Sicarii (daggermen) resorted to violence and guerrilla warfare against both the Romans and Jewish elites they viewed as collaborators.
  • Herodians: A small, politically motivated group of Jews who supported the royal dynasty of Herod the Great and, by extension, Roman authority.
  • The “Common” Jews: The vast majority of the population who did not officially belong to any sect. They sought to maintain basic Jewish practices like observing Shabbat, keeping kosher, and practicing circumcision while living their daily lives.
  • Diaspora Jews: Communities living outside the Land of Israel in major Hellenistic centers like Alexandria (Egypt) and Rome. These groups adapted significantly to Greco-Roman culture while maintaining their religious and ethnic identity.

Beyond the major factions, the beginning of the Common Era featured numerous minor, highly specialized, and localized Jewish groups. Historians like Josephus and early textual records identify several smaller groups that emerged from specific theological, geographical, or political pressures:

1. Ascetic and Mystical Offshoots

  • Therapeutae: Based in Egypt (especially near Alexandria), this was a communal group of Jewish ascetics described by the Jewish philosopher Philo. Similar to the Essenes, they abandoned their property, lived in isolation, and dedicated their lives to intense prayer, fasting, and the allegorical study of scripture. Notably, unlike the Qumran Essenes, their community included women.
  • Bana’im (The Builders): Mentioned briefly in rabbinic literature, they were an Essene-like group in Palestine. They were obsessively preoccupied with ritual purity, particularly ensuring their clothes remained entirely free of mud stains or contaminants.
  • Hemerobaptists: A minor group whose defining characteristic was daily morning baptism. They believed that immersing themselves in water every single morning was necessary to wash away sins and maintain absolute ritual purity before prayer.

2. Radical and Political Factions

  • The Fourth Philosophy: This is the term Josephus used to describe an ideological movement started by Judas the Galilean. While they agreed with the Pharisees on religious matters, their defining political belief was a radical refusal to call any human “lord” or king, viewing Roman taxation as direct blasphemy against God. This philosophy birthed the later Zealot and Sicarii movements.
  • The Sicarii (Daggermen): A radical, covert splinter group of revolutionaries. They hid small daggers (sicae) under their cloaks to assassinate high-ranking Jewish elites and priests whom they accused of collaborating with the Roman occupiers.

3. Early Messianic and Borderline Groups

  • The Nazarenes / Early Christ-Followers: In the first decades of the Common Era, the followers of Jesus of Nazareth existed strictly as a minor sect within the broader Jewish framework. They continued to worship at the Temple, keep kosher, and follow the Torah, but they held the distinct conviction that the Messiah had already arrived.
  • The Samaritans: Though distinct from mainstream Jews, they shared a common Israelite heritage. They rejected the Jerusalem Temple entirely, holding that Mount Gerizim was the only divinely chosen place of worship, and accepted only their own version of the Torah (the Samaritan Pentateuch).

The reality is that Christianity also emerged as a Jewish group, expanded by Saul of Tarsus to include non-inhabitants of the Levant, and later, Islam emerged as a fusion of Judaism and Christianity with the remnants of inhabitants of the Levant, the ancient “Jews”, converting to Christianity or Islam, or, in some cases, coalescing into an evolving form of orthodox Judaism, albeit unlike modern Reform Liberal or Conservative Judaism and certainly unlike Zionism, founded by European converts to Judaism who rejected its religious aspects in favor of atheism with cultural Jewish trappings.

Modern “Judaism”

Modern Judaism evolved from Rabbinic Judaism which coalesced out of catastrophic historical crises. Practically all major forms of Judaism practiced today, including Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform, share a similar foundational lineage.  The transition from a fractured, temple-based religion to the diverse structures of non-monolithic modern Judaism occurred across two monumental phases:

Phase 1: The Cataclysm and the Blueprint (70 CE – 600 CE)

Before 70 CE, most but not all of Jewish life revolved around the Jerusalem Temple, animal sacrifices, and the priesthood. A major division had already occurred when Samaritan Jews had rejected the centralization of Judaism in Jerusalem with the Temple there as the purported focal point of Judaism.  When the Roman Empire destroyed the Temple in 70 CE, the economic and spiritual heart of Jerusalem centered Judaism was obliterated.  But Judaism survived and coalesced due to a series of radical transformations:

  • The Shift to Yavneh: According to tradition, a Pharisaic leader named Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai was smuggled out of the Roman siege of Jerusalem. He negotiated a deal with the Roman general Vespasian to establish an academy in the coastal town of Yavneh.
  • Ritual Substitution: At Yavneh, the surviving sages detached Judaism from a physical building. They decreed that communal prayer would replace animal sacrifice, the synagogue would replace the Temple, and rabbis (teachers) would replace priests.
  • The Compilation of the Talmud: Over the next several centuries, Jewish scholars debated and codified these laws into written texts: the Mishnah (c. 200 CE) and the Talmud (c. 600 CE). This created a portable, text-centered religion that could survive in the global diaspora.

Phase 2: The Enlightenment and the Modern Denominations (1700s – 1800s)

For over a thousand years, the rabbinic system was the undisputed norm. However, the European Enlightenment and Jewish Emancipation in the 18th and 19th centuries granted Jews civil rights, shattering the walls of the traditional Jewish ghetto and forcing a new question: How do you remain Jewish while integrating into modern Western society? This crisis split Rabbinic Judaism into the modern movements we recognize today:

  • Reform Judaism: Emerging in Germany, this movement aimed to modernize the religion. They translated prayers into local languages, introduced organs into synagogues, and viewed Jewish law (Halakha) as an evolving ethical guide rather than a binding set of divine mandates.
  • Orthodox Judaism: This arose as a direct counter-reaction to Reform Judaism. Leaders like Samson Raphael Hirsch argued that traditional Jewish law was immutable and fully divine. “Modern Orthodoxy” emerged to show that one could strictly observe the Torah while engaging with secular culture and education.
  • Conservative Judaism: Formed as a middle ground, this movement argued that Jewish law is dynamic and must adapt to the times, but its core traditions and historical practices must be conserved and respected.

None of the foregoing have direct links to any form of primitive Judaism with direct interaction with Moses, or Abram or YHWH, any more than do any Christian or Islamic sects, nor, of course, does Zionism.

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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

“We the People” on the Concept of Oaths

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In the United States there are sacrosanct symbols, especially the Constitution and the Flag, perhaps also the armed forces.  All public officers are required to take a solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution; the citizenry at large is, at one time or another, required to do so in the form of the “Pledge of Allegiance” but I believe all of the foregoing are a mistake.  I believe it is a mistake because oaths are, or should be, not only solemn but sacred with consequences, serious consequences for their violation[1].  And the reality is that, as in the case of “sacred scriptures”, most people honor their oaths superficially, very visibly and audibly, but not profoundly.  Exceptions are the rule.

Take the Constitution.  The version promulgated in 1787 has been officially amended twenty-seven times, although amendments have sometimes cancelled each other out, for example, the 21st amendment repealed the 18th, and the 20th, 22nd, 23rd, and 25th amendments all redefined the election and succession processes.  However, unofficially, via purported “interpretation”, the Constitution has been amended thousands of times and each of the latter involves a violation of related sacred oaths.  The decision by John Marshall in the case of Marbury versus Madison where the concept of constitutional review was usurped by the Supreme Court[2] is a prime example but so was the Civil War (more accurately perhaps, the War Between the States).  The 16th and 17th amendments fundamentally altered the federal nature of the republic created by the Constitution as did, in a sense, the 13th, 14th, 15th, 18th and 19th each of which, in one sense or another, shifted power from the states to the federal government[3].

That violations of the sacred oaths involved may have been morally justified only emphasizes that the oaths to defend, preserve and uphold the Constitution should never have been required in the first place, especially given that the United States of America was founded on the principle of the propriety of oath breaking when circumstances deemed such violations of sacred honor justified.  All of the “Founding Father” broke their sacred oaths of allegiance to the British Crown.  In that respect, the case of Benedict Arnold is particularly meaningful raising the issue of which was worse, his initial violation of his oath to King George III or his violation of his subsequent oath to the Continental Congress?  And what of Robert E. Lee, placed in the impossible situation of either violating his oath to the federal government (which had, in effect, suspended the Constitution to which the oath had been made) or his oath to the State of Virginia?  Or what about Abraham Lincoln who clearly violated his oath to the Constitution in existence at the time he first took his oath of office and, of course, his pervious oaths as a Congressman and military officer which have been justified, properly perhaps, as required in order to fulfill his aspirations for a more just and powerful Union?

In my opinion, the only oath we should take is not to intangible symbols, usually too complex to comprehend and usually contradictory as well, but to “We the People”, a noble sociological and civic complex of interrelationships to which the symbols we revere should be inextricably bound.  But “We the People” is also a complex and frequently incoherent concept that seeks to meld contradictory beliefs such as “democracy” (the will of the majority), “liberty” (the autonomy of the individual, no matter what a majority believes) and pluralism (the protection of minorities in a quest for equality and equity) as well as to the amorphous, frequently contradictory concepts of legality versus justice; to due process and equal protection, to freedom of conscience, of expression and of assembly.  And what of the human tendency towards evolution?  Not only biologically but morally and ethically.  That which a society in one instant seeks to crystalize soon becomes calcified and obsolete.  Should a society be entitled to bind a future society through oaths to values that may become anachronistic?

Some of the concepts referenced above are reflected in the United States Constitution and, before that, in the Declaration of Independence, and many are embodied in the Charter of the United Nations[4].  But none of them encompass the totality of “We the People” although perhaps some guidance is provided in the Preamble[5] to the Constitution of the United States as to the role for which the concept of “We the People” was created; i.e., “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Based on the foregoing, perhaps, at least in the United States of America, the Preamble to the Constitution should be the crux of the only oath we should be asked to take.  One to the effect that, on our sacred honor we would each swear that we would  do all we can to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity”, understanding that “We the People” are not only those of us alive today but our ancestors and our descendants and that our actions and decisions need to take into account our traditions, our current needs and aspirations and the welfare and aspirations of our progeny.

Wouldn’t it be great if that was an oath not limited to citizens of the United States of America but to everyone, everywhere?  If we took such an oath seriously, as all oaths should be taken, then perhaps justice and equity and equality and the common welfare might indeed someday prevail in a world at peace.

Something that at least deserves our consideration.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2026; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet and aspiring empirical philosopher) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen). Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales. Previously, he chaired the social studies and foreign language departments at the Eastern Military Academy in Huntington, New York. He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review available at Substack.com; an intermittent commentator on radio and television; and, an occasional contributor to diverse periodicals and publications. He has academic degrees in political science (BA, The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina), law (JD, St. John’s University, School of Law), international legal studies (LL.M, the Graduate Division of the New York University School of Law) and translation and linguistic studies (GCTS, the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies). However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta, cosmology and cosmogony. He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.

[1] In this regard, perhaps the 3rd commandment of the Decalogue should be taken into account: “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain”, which refers to oaths using the “Lord’s” name as an enforcement mechanism.  Formal oaths in the United States are normally taken on the Christian Bible and in the name of the Abrahamic divinity (“So help me God”), notwithstanding the 1st Amendment to the Constitution’s secular requirements.

[2] See, e.g., Calvo Mahé, Guillermo et. al. (Jiménez Ramírez, Milton Cesar, editor, 2020): “Capítulo I. Evolución del control de constitucionalidad en los estados unidos.”; El control de la constitucionalidad en episodios: acerca del control constitucional como límite al poder; Universidad de Caldas, Facultad de ciencias jurídicas y sociales; Bogotá.

[3] See, e.g., Calvo Mahé (2023): “Motley Constitutionalism: a labyrinthine aphorism”; The Medium; July 30, 2023 available at https://guillermo-calvo-mahe.medium.com/motley-constitutionalism-a-labyrinthine-aphorism-9270c689f12d.

[4] Some aspects are also reflected in the Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations, i.e.:

We the peoples of the united nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, … to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbors, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples, have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims ….

[5] There are two very different perspectives with respect to preambles.  One is that they are merely aspirational without any binding effect.  The other, the one to which I ascribe, is that they embody the fundamental premises on which the promises and agreements which follow are based and to which they must conform, in the absence of which, the covenants embodied will have been extinguished.  In a constitutional sense, that would mean that no amendments could impact the concepts embodied in a preamble without destroying the constitution, and perhaps, at best, replacing it.  Something which occurred when the United States Constitution of 1787 unconstitutionally extinguished the Articles of Confederation, or, in the Republic of Colombia, when the Constitution of 1991 unconstitutionally replaced the Constitution of 1886.