{ "item_title" : "The Unifying Forces of Humankind", "item_author" : [" Jerry Stoffer "], "item_description" : "Why are we still around? Unifying Forces of Humankind: Of One Body, One Mind, and One Spirit answers this question with an expansive big history chronology of the 11 forces which trace the journey from our origin as a species 300,000 years ago, prehistory, and the earliest civilizations that began to bond us together, and enduring into contemporary history. These forces act as capacities of our body, mind, and spirit that define what it means to be human. As a behavioral science professor, a U.S. Navy psychologist, and a lay minister, Dr. Stoffer is well-suited for this reevaluation of human history as unity rather than conflict to challenge the historical focus on the more typical division and fragmentation.Our body anatomy, brains, and molecular structure of heredity are remarkably similar. Among the adaptations for survival are superficial biological characteristics such as skin pigmentation. Genetic research lends no support for biological superiority based on race, sex, or place of origin. Our biological evolution does not mean that we all look the same. It does mean that we share the same biological capacities of the body as a profound unifying force.Our minds enable common patterns of behavior, including the freedom of universal language and creativity through generativity and recursion to produce nearly infinite and unique sentences. By age two, humans begin to acquire naturally a theory of mind, the basis for our nearly continuous attempts to understand the thoughts and feelings of others - to take the perspective of another person and to be charitable - the neurological basis for compassion. Given freedom, the mind of our species is highly creative - inventing and reinventing applications of unifying forces such as talking and writing, the wheel, spiritual impulse, systems of money, legal systems, mass printing systems, intercontinental trade and transportation systems. - and even the beginning of time itself based on international agreement, and electronic systems accessible to nearly all of us to communicate anytime and anywhere. We share the same fundamental psychological capacity as a profound unifying force.Most of the world inhabitants exercise a spiritual impulse in various forms as a freedom to believe in a power higher than either the body or mind of man. Most organized religions also generally promote a universal value and dignity of the individual deserving of charity when needed, and worth saving into a future afterlife. The book also bridges the divide between science and faith by arguing that both the priest and the scientist are engaged in a search for truth, and that search will ultimately bring us closer together as a species. Present-day neurologists write about the spiritual brain, described by neurotheologists as an indication of a locus for the universal spiritual urge. The spiritual impulse, accessible by free will, does not mean that this impulse dictates its form of expression, or any external expression at all. It does mean that we share the same capacity for expression of the Spiritual Impulse as a profound unifying force.On the whole, the forces in this essay share a common element of increasing freedom. The final chapter, the Future of Humankind as One Body, Mind, and Spirit, retells and extends the forces of freedom beyond the power centers of the world and into a future of enduring and edifying connections. This history of our human experience as a hopeful history of becoming more fully human just might leave you feeling good about our history - and anticipating our favorable future.The book is richly illustrated in color with 190 photos and other illustrations and is thoroughly documented with references.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/9/79/898/731/9798987318492_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "34.95", "online_price" : "34.95", "our_price" : "34.95", "club_price" : "34.95", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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