There are two main points to this question – this matter has aspects that relate both to the people of guidance who are attached to God, and to those who are not.

It is the duty of the people of guidance to communicate to other people the truth as they believe, the truth they have found and had a taste of; the truth they are satisfied with or a view with which they mature with, and to guide them to peace. First and foremost, this is a debt of conscience we owe to humankind. A person who knows these truths, the content of which has been bestowed to our consciences as a divine favor, should communicate them to those who do not know and open for them the doors leading to God.

Now, let’s have look at how God has commanded about this matter: “The believers, both men and women, they are guardians, confidants and helpers of one another. They enjoin and promote what is right and good and forbid and try to prevent the evil” (Qur’an 9:71). Another verse reads: “O you who believe! There must be among you a community calling to good, and enjoining and promoting what is right and good and forbidding and trying to prevent evil (in appropriate ways). They are those who are the prosperous.” (3:104). God has always referred to those who promote what is right and good as an honorable community: “You are the best community ever brought forth for (the good of) humankind, enjoining and promoting what is right and good forbidding and trying to prevent the evil, and (this you do because) you believe in God” (Qur’an 3:110).

These divine lights considerably clarify this obligation towards humanity. This matter is clarified by many other verses and hadiths and it is so open and clear that it does not require any further interpretation or explanation. Therefore, we can gather from these verses that we are responsible for communicating the divine truths. This is such a compelling responsibility that if there was no one left on earth one day in future, then we will entertain the possibility that there might be people living in a colony near Sirius or some distant planet around some unknown star in the Hercules constellation and somewhere in the Milky Galaxy, and with an urge that is unique to human species to reach out to them, we will build colonies and cities as interim stations on our route toward them, and we will communicate our heart-felt inspirations to the people there (if any). We will intermingle and sympathize with them and we will show them the roads that will lead to God. We will say, “Say, ‘There is no god but God,’ and be saved and be prosperous,” as the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, put, and this will always be our main motto. This is our duty. On the other hand, their duty is to lend an ear to this call of ours that invites them to peace and to search for the straight path wherever they are and everywhere they go.

If we do not fulfill our duty, we will fail to comply with our obligation towards God. Then, Almighty God will ask questioningly: “You knew the truth, but you failed to communicate to other people? You knew God, but you did not introduce Him to other people? You could see the straight path, but why didn’t you show it to other people? You were aware of the light, but why didn’t you turn other people to look toward that direction?”

In the light of divine revelations, I can say that on that day, Almighty God will say to them: “Although you satisfied all of your animal drives to the full, why didn’t you search for the way which would provide you with full gratification? Even during your most troubled and distressed times, you did not think for an instant to experiment this way? In other words, you have resorted to all sorts of recipes for your worldly welfare, but why didn’t you consider making the truth which you somewhat heard about even for once?”

In the final analysis, Almighty God will hold every individual against his or her own sins. Since we are responsible only for communicating the truth to them, we will be questioned only for our faults in fulfilling this duty of ours. On the other hand, they will be questioned for failing to search for truth or lend an ear in a sincere manner to the truth, if they have already heard about it. May God save us from falling tumbling down by failing to enjoin and promote what is right and good, and forbid and try to prevent the evil while having capability to do so!

According to a study by researchers of the Human Footprint Project [1], humans have influenced 83% of the earth’s surface. The study is based on four factors: population, travel routes, land use, and lights. One of the findings of the study shows that an average American is responsible for more carbon emissions in one year, than a person in Tanzania in a lifetime. This significant difference is certainly related to the average lifespan, income, culture, and climate. However, do any of us have the rights to disturb the environment more than others? Are we consuming something that doesn’t belong to us, and leaving an unsustainable environment for future generations? To answer these questions, it is imperative that we understand and acknowledge exactly what we have inherited, what we are responsible for, and what we will leave to future generations.

Our influence on the earth and environment in a general sense is not limited to the consumption of goods. One of the most influential yet less-visible traces is the footprint we leave in the digital environment. There are active or passive traces left in a digital environment by personal activity. An active trace is left when personal information is released by a person himself, whereas a passive trace (digital shadow) is left when personal data is collected during personal activity. These traces, also known as digital footprints, can spread very quickly and may reach to millions in a very short time. One can leave digital traces by simply visiting a website, sending a blog post, or posting a photo or message to a friend’s website.

Our digital traces affect the environment in many ways. Every trace takes our time to generate it and for others to read it. It consumes storage and network resources on the server that increase the costs, power usage, and eventually our carbon footprint, or the total greenhouse gas emissions. We need to seek a balance in our use of digital media in order to utilize the benefits efficiently and to minimize our consumption of time and other resources.

Have you ever wondered “how often a person leaves digital traces behind every day?” or “how much of our privacy are we sharing with others?” A recent study reveals some figures about the size of the digital universe as 281 billion gigabytes (GB) for 2008 and 1.8 billion terabytes for 2011 [2]. The digital trace generated by the average person on a daily basis was about 45 GB in 2008. This includes private information such as emails, photos, VOIP calls, and instant messages.

How about passive digital traces we leave behind by credit card purchases, bank accounts, phone records, web searches, general backup data, medical and hospital records, surveillance cameras, and so on? There are more passive traces collected than our active digital traces, which provide more personal information.

As of 2006, there were over 1 billion Visa credit cards worldwide and counting [3]. Credit cards give a lot of private information about a person: stores we prefer, movies we watch, places we travel, books we read, prescriptions we take, rent and utility fees we pay; mainly our lifestyle is hidden in our credit card statements. It might contain a lot of details we want to keep private. We can easily learn a lot about our social life just by analyzing one of our credit card statements.

Web searches provide more insightful information about a person. 113 billion web searches were conducted in July 2009, a 41 percent increase compared to 2008 [4]. Besides all the information we leave with our credit card, web searches may show things we have not actually done. They contain information about our future plans, such as travel, job search, health related issues, meetings, and education. Websites can provide smarter search results and personalized advertisements according to our search habits. Search engines even know how fast we type or process information, our typos, languages we speak, how smart we search, and even our physical location from the IP address.

Today many cars have GPS (Global Positioning System) capabilities and smart phones have GPS sensors. GPS devices can show our exact location anywhere in the world, provide turn-by-turn instructions from one location to another, provide a list of nearby stores, and warn us about traffic problems. A recent market research [5] estimates that the mobile location technology market that crosses the US will be $75 billion by 2013 with growing usage of GPS capabilities in automobiles and consumer electronics. Beside all the benefits, GPS devices leave an important digital trace behind, our exact location, which can be stored for later use or tracked by third parties.

Even if a person doesn’t have a GPS sensor with him, there are cameras all around the city that can help capture one’s location. We can see cameras inside and outside of the banks, stores, traffic lights, and even closed-circuit TV (CCTV) surveillance cameras in some cities. The total number of CCTV cameras in England is 4.2 million, or one for every 14 people according to an estimate. According to Scotland Yard, one crime per 1,000 CCTV cameras is solved in a year [6].

The number of smart phones increased 13.9 percent worldwide, compared to 2007, and reached 139 million in 2008 [7]. Many smart phones have real-time video streaming capabilities and are widely used. Users upload hundreds of thousands of videos per day to YouTube about themselves or people around them. Considering that there are thousands of video sharing websites like YouTube, sharing videos on these websites lies at the center of important privacy concerns. There are websites to share videos, photos, music, location, blog posts, and personal updates. With the rise of the micro-blogging trend, we can see real-time updates about a person on websites like Twitter. This allows us to track every minute of a person’s life.

Social networking is a new way of communication. Many websites provide tools to build online communities of people, who want to share and learn interests and activities of others. We can build our friend list and share photos, videos, and updates about our life. According to Nielsen Online’s report on Internet usage in June 2009 [8], users spent an average of 4 hours and 39 minutes during June on one of the most famous social networking sites, Facebook, which has 87 million visitors. Normally these websites provide privacy settings to limit who can access our friend list, photos, or other information. Since most of the people don’t refuse friend requests, it is very easy to be added as a friend and get access to all the private information of people we do not even know. Once we get accepted by a person as a friend, it gets easier to be accepted as friend by his/her friends, since we have mutual friends. These connections increase our friend list exponentially.

I had known about this process for some time, so I wanted to confirm it myself by setting up an account with fake information and identity on Facebook in 2008. I selected a college and input random personal information to my profile. I visited some group pages on Facebook and joined them. Then Facebook started to offer possible friend lists that have common interests with me. I started to make random friend requests to many users on these lists. In one day, I had around a hundred friends in my list that I don’t know personally. As a friend on their list, I have access to all information they share with others. Most of the users are using default settings and are not aware of privacy issues. Even if we are careful about all these settings and our privacy, our information is accessible by website managers. Digital traces left by users are valuable commercial assets for companies, and most of them share or sell this information to third party companies which provide online advertisements, products, and services.

There is a positive side of these digital traces. Websites provide better recommendation of products and services, targeted advertisements, smarter search results, and personal news. Entertainment businesses can provide appropriate suggestions by using location services. However, erasing our digital traces is difficult or even impossible in some cases. To protect our privacy and identity, it is essential that we are aware of places our personal information is stored. It is the responsibility of websites to protect user’s data. However, it will be a good start to be aware as users of our traces on the digital universe and to share personal information carefully.

With various effects on our natural and social environment, digital traces are one of the most influential and yet less known by-products of consumption. It is an important responsibility for us to decide how we affect our environment, how we spend our time, and what we are going to leave to future generations. With all the unique values given to humans, we need to learn to make meaningful contributions and carry more responsibility for our actions, especially in the digital world where boundaries are unlimited.

Acknowledgment: This article is produced either in part or a whole at MERGEOUS [9], an online article and project development service for authors and publishers dedicated to the advancement of technologies in the merging realm of science and religion.

Halil I. Demir is an internet entrepreneur and freelance writer.

References

1. Wildlife Conservation Society [http://www.wcs.org/humanfootprint]
2. EMC Report, “The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe,” 2008.
3. Visa USA Internal Statistics, Q4 2006.
4. ComScore Press Release, August 31, 2009.
5. RNCOS Market Research Report, “World GPS Market Forecast to 2013,” April 2009.
6. Telegraph, 24 Aug 2009.
7. Gartner Press Release, Worldwide Smartphone Sales, Mart 2009.
8. Nielsen Online’s Report, June 2009.
9. Mergeous [http://www.mergeous.com]

It is only with the thought of Paradise that children, who form a great deal of humanity, can endure all the deaths around them, which appear to them to be grievous and frightening, and strengthen the morale of their weak and delicate beings. . . . It is only through the life of the hereafter that the elderly, who form another considerable part of humanity, can endure the proximity of the grave, and be consoled at the thought that their lives, to which they are firmly attached, will soon be extinguished and their fine world will come to an end. . . . It is only the thought of Hell-fire that checks the turbulent emotions of youths, the most vigorous element in the life of society, and their violent excesses, restraining them from aggression, oppression, and destruction, and ensuring that the life of society continues tranquilly. (The Ninth Ray, First Point)

If a society is deprived from the above benefits of belief in the Hereafter, people will try to find other ways to satisfy this search for immortality, as in the example of ancient Egypt. The fear of death and the desire for immortality are symbolized by the ancient Egyptian practice of mummification. The word “mummification” is derived from the Latin word mumia, meaning black bitumen. Bituminous materials were used extensively in the preservation of the body from the twenty-sixth dynasty of the Pharaohs onwards.

The ancient Egyptians believed that the body of a person was to live in the afterlife, therefore, mummification was developed; the total process took seventy days. Due to the expense of the materials involved in mummification, the pharaohs of Egypt, members of the nobility, and officials were the only people to be mummified, and they were usually buried in elaborate tombs. For religious reasons, some animals, such as baboons, cats, birds, and crocodiles were also mummified.

Mummies were placed in tombs that were designed to help the deceased live in the afterworld. The tombs were filled with all the necessities of life, such as food, tools, and treasures to ensure that the soul would return to the body, enabling the mummy to live happily.

The mummification process was used by many societies in an effort to cheat death and to achieve immortality. Modern society is no different from these ancient societies with respect to the desire to reach immortality. The only difference is the modern technology that is used to achieve immortality. Cryonics, a modern mummification technique, is a term that stems from cryogenic, the more general term given to the branch of physics that deals with extremely low temperatures. Cryonics is the practice of freezing the body of a recently deceased person to preserve it for possible resuscitation in the future. The body, which is in a state of “cryonic suspension,” is cooled to the point where molecular physical decay completely ceases. When a cure for the disease that caused the death has been found, the person may be revived and restored to good health later on.

This is not a new idea. In early 1967, a California psychology professor named James H. Bedford decided to try it. When he died of cancer, he was frozen in liquid nitrogen at 321 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. After Bedford, over a period of a few years, several dozen people were frozen in liquid nitrogen. After a while, the relatives stopped the flow of money to the cemetery crypt in Chatsworth, California. By 1987, the frozen bodies, one of those being the body of Bedford, kept in liquid nitrogen had dropped to only three in the United States, due to financial reasons. By 1994, the number of frozen bodies once again had risen, climbing to about a dozen. Another two dozen had chosen the cheaper alternative of having only their heads frozen after death. They believed that future technology would be able to provide a new body by using their DNA. Cryonics organizations have been growing rapidly, with several hundred people now being legally signed up to be frozen after death.

The type of death is very important for cryonics. Real death and legal death are not the same things. When it is no longer feasible to restore the blood circulation (i.e. restart the heart), legal death occurs. Real death occurs after the cells have irreversibly deteriorated in the minutes and hours that follow. Due to the fact that so much cellular information is lost after real death, cryonics begins after legal death has been declared.

After legal death, the body is hooked to a heart-lung machine to supply oxygen to the still living tissues. At the same time the blood is drained and some chemicals are circulated to minimize the damage caused by freezing. To protect the body, all chemical reactions are stopped by hindering translational molecular motion. This motion is stopped at 130 degrees below zero Celsius, that is “glass transition” temperature. The human body is cooled to the temperature of liquid nitrogen, -196 degrees Celsius (-320 degree Fahrenheit). The bodies are then placed in a vacuum-insulated flask, head down, so that in the event of a problem it would be the feet that would thaw first. While to date no human being in cryonic suspension has been revived, it has been proven that the bones, the skin, some tissues, the red and white blood cells, the bone marrow, human embryos, and sperm survive under deep freezing and thawing.

Some special techniques are used to reduce the damage caused by freezing. Using a procedure called vitrification, a mixture of cryoprotectant (antifreeze) compounds replaces more than 60% of the water inside the cells to prevent the tissue from freezing during cooling; the tissue becomes rigid like glass, with no ice crystal damage. On the other hand, high concentrations of cryoprotectant are toxic to cell metabolism. It is hoped that this problem will be solved and reversed in the future by nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is the technology that has been developed in order to work with atoms and molecules in the future. By using this technology, the damage in the cells caused by freezing will be able to be repaired. In addition to nanotechnology, therapeutic cloning developments and stem cell research discoveries will be important in making cryonics successful. Taking into account the speed of the development of these technologies, some experts have estimated that it will take 20-100 years before humans can be successfully thawed out.

Such a process requires a great deal of money; it is not cheap to freeze oneself for future life. Prices range between a fee of $28,000 to $120,000 annually. By freezing merely the head, this price can be reduced by half.

Be it the ancient mummification methods, be it the latest expensive techniques, all these point to the unchanging human nature. Cryonics try to reach immortality in “this life”; however, this is an impossibility with today’s technology and is merely speculative with future technology. But there is a way that is possible now, and does not require great expenditure or mind-boggling technology. Bediuzzaman, in his book, The Rays, explains how we can achieve such immortality:

For example, human beings have an intense desire for immortality. Only One Who has disposal over the whole universe as though it was a palace can answer this wish; only One Who can close the door of this world and open that of the hereafter, like closing the door of one room and opening that of another can do so. Humans have thousands of desires, both negative and positive, which like the desire for immortality spread throughout the world and stretch to eternity. It is only the Single One, Who through the mystery of unity holds the whole universe in His grasp, Who, by answering these desires of human beings, can cure the two gaping wounds of impotence and want.

In other words, the ability to find immortality is something that has always been with us; it resides within us. The ancient Egyptians and modern science both spent large sums of money and much time trying to attain immortality; if only they were aware that every human has the same chance. All we need to do is to just look within ourselves

References

• Iskander, Zaky, An X-Ray Atlas of the Royal Mummies, University of Chicago Press, 1980.
• Harris, Steven B., “Many are cold but few are frozen.” Available online at http://www.cryonet.org
• Ettinger, Robert C.W., The Prospect of Immortality, Ria University Press, 2005.
• Nursi, Said (Bediuzzaman), The Rays, Sozler Publications, Istanbul: 2002.
• http://www.ancientegypt.co.uk
• www.levity.com/alchemy/islam25.html
• http://www.alcor.org/
• http://www.cryonics.org/ 

In a dialogue, it is as if the meaning flows in separate rivers running beside one another in their own channel. This stream has a dynamic nature; it changes and grows. At times these rivers join together in a reservoir with a communal semantic or a lake of reconciliation.

The aim of a dialogue, in spite of differences of opinion and conviction, is to gain understanding and acceptance. The word “dialogue” is therefore distinct from the word discussion. Those who engage in dialogue do not seek to defeat or silence the other person, nor do they adopt a defensive attitude at the outset. They seek to find out, to learn and to understand collectively.

Dialogue implies being amenable to another person’s point of view. It requires that one pay attention and listen to another individual so that the heart and the mind might “open.” This mutual acceptance makes it possible to understand each other, learn together, and make a collective contribution. A wise person once stated, this process causes an endless deepening of meaning like two mirrors that reflect each other.

Dialogue is also one of the most effective means in the struggle against negative conditioning, prejudice, and fanaticism.

Certain qualities are essential if a dialogue is to be effective, and these qualities are: sincerity, humility, and epistemic curiosity.

Sincerity

Goodwill engenders trust. Mutual trust is the most important condition for the expression of deeper thought and feelings. Openhearted people do not fear communication with or the influence of others.

Humility

One of the greatest virtues is being able to set aside oneself for the sake of others. Sincerely humble people are aware of the limits of their abilities and always back away from transgression.

Humility implies the notion that we know little and still have much to learn. It also implies the willingness to change and develop in accordance with all that we have learned.

In dialogues that are governed by humility, both sides search for the boundaries of their available knowledge and notions and, they both depart to discover unknown places. They travel from the familiar to the unfamiliar.

Epistemic Curiosity

The nature of people enables them to be curious and search for truth. This basic drive should be a primary component of a healthy foundation for dialogue.

Together we can search for the answers to these questions among many others:

• Who are we?

• Why do we exist?

• What is our origin?

• What is the destination of our journey?

• What is our relationship to the Creator?

• What is the relationship among people, life, and the universe?

• What is the relationship between faith and science?

• How should we interpret critical thinking?

• Are their metaphysical laws, just as there are physical laws?

Most likely, the deepest desire of a person is to bequeath to subsequent generations, who will inhabit this aged earth until the end of time, something essential and of fundamental importance, thus giving to his own transiency an aspect of something that is long lasting.

Affection, virtue, compassion, fairness, and concord are universal aspects of spiritual enlightenment and happiness that will never lose their value. They are the conditions of a meaningful and blessed life and comprise the best legacy we could wish to leave others.

When a honeybee discovers a new source of honey within about ten metres of the hive, she returns to the hive and regurgitates drops of honey which are eagerly drunk by other bees. Then, in order to indicate the source of the drops they have just drunk, she performs an interesting sequence of movements we call the ‘round dance’. She dances round in a circle, first in one direction, then reversing and going round in the opposite direction, again reversing and so on. During the performance, other bees follow her about, holding their antenna against her abdomen. After the dance, she flies back to the food source, normally a particular flower or group of flowers. The other bees who followed the dance do not fly after her but fly out in all directions. However, fairly soon, a great number of them find the new source. They do so because they have smelt the scent of the flowers that clung to the dancer’s body and so to recognize the right kind of flower. Observing this procedure of the bees’ communication with admiration, Frisch reported that the ‘round dance’ tells the other bees to go out and search in the near neighbourhood of the hive; and the scent on the dancer’s body tells them which flowers to look for. In one experiment, bees informed by a dancer at once found the right flowers in a section of Munich Botanical Gardens where 700 different plant species were blooming.

But honeybees search for food at a greater distance than 10 metres. They have been observed to fly more than 13 km in search of honey. Remembering the average that a honeybee is only about 13 mm long, that 13 km for a bee is the equivalent of about 1,600 km for a human being. It is clear that, even for distances considerably less than 13 km, the round dance would not be much use. If the discoverer of a new food source informed the other bees to go out and search in all directions for over several kilometres, they would never find the flowers. Thus, when a bee finds food at a considerable distance, say over 100 metres from the hive, she returns to the hive, offers the honey she has found, and then performs a different kind of special dance. She dances along in a straight line for a certain distance, wagging her tail vigorously and buzzing away by means of slight vibrations of the muscles that flap her wings in flight. At the end of this wagging run, she stops buzzing and wagging her tail, circles round to one side back to where she started, does another wagging run, circles round to the opposite side, does a third wagging run and so on. This sequence of movements is called ‘tail-wagging dance’. Showing special interest in wagging runs, a number of other bees follow her round. It is known that bees cannot hear sounds in the air, however they can feel the buzzing vibrations through the surface on which the dance is performed. Like the round dance the ‘tail-wagging’ dance tells the followers of the dance that there is food available, and what flowers to look for, from the smell. But it tells them much more than this; it tells them precisely how far away the flowers are, and in exactly what direction. And so, the bees who study the dance can fly with precision to the spot indicated, even at a distance of kilometers, and find the honey-bearing flowers.

The distance to the food is conveyed by the tempo of the dance. A quick-step tempo means a relatively nearby food source, a slow tempo means a more distant one. More precisely as the distance increases, so does the duration of each wagging run. The bees who follow the dance study several wagging runs and then appear to calculate the average duration which they then translate into distance by a mathematical rule.

The ‘tail-wagging dance’ is sometimes done on a horizontal surface just outside the hive. When this happens, the dancer indicates the direction of food by aiming her run in exactly the direction of the food. She can do this if she can see the sun (or the polarized light of the blue sky, which indicates the position of the sun to bees, though not to us). So, actually she is taking up a position in which she sees the sun as the same angle as during her flight to the honey source. The wagging run makes the same angle with the sun on her outward flight did. But the dance is normally performed in the dark inside the hive, on the vertical surface of the honeycomb. Here the angle between the flight path and the sun is translated into the angle between the wagging run and the vertical direction straight upwards.

Another remarkable fact about the bees communication is that if the bee reached her goal (and returned from it) by an L-shaped detour, she uses the angles and lengths of the two sections of flight to calculate the true direction of the goal by straight-line flight, and this is the direction she conveys in her dance, even when she did not this direct route herself.

As for the bees who are following the dance, they are working literally in the dark and can only use touch to find out the angle of the dancer’s wagging run against the vertical. They translate this back into a visual angle with the sun, fly off in this direction for the distance signaled by the wagging run tempo, and look for the flowers of the scent they smelt on the dancer.

So far we have described the language of the Carniolan race of honeybees according to the findings of Frisch. Other races have different ‘dialects’. German, North African, Caucasian, Italian honeybees all indicate distance and direction by much shorter dances than the Carniolans. How the honeybees have learned to communicate with each other is certainly remarkable! However, it is not a true language, because the system used by bees, unlike human languages, cannot generate new combination of structures and symbols to describe novel events. One example of their limitation is that bees appear to have no way of communicating height or depth beyond a few meters. Thus, if you take a bee to a source of food in a place, say 10 metres above ground level, she will return to her hive and try to indicate the food source by means of her dance. Then, the other bees will all fly out in the direction she indicated, but they will never find the source. No matter how near the source is, even if it is just above the hive, the result will be the same.