Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Monday, December 18, 2023

Rel22 and Personal Updates + the Continuation of Our Existentialism Series



Rel22 Website Update
by R.E. Slater

A month ago I began a series of articles on Process-based (Processual) Christian existentialism using Whitehead's process philosophy as versus psychological existentialism built upon non-process-based philosophies. Each will give meaning to us in their own way... although as a Christian/religious person my own meaning will derive from a theological framework as versus the nonreligious existentialist who may be agnostic to religion or completely atheistic to it.

Further below you will find the series I was developing before becoming slowed down by this year's foot-and-ankle surgeries. Thankfully, though I slowed down a little bit, I have been fortunate enough to work at document production between energy slumps and pain medications.

Lately, I've been catching up the Relevancy22 website covering this past summer's current events which I had missed. I've also have provided a shorten process series re Segall, Davis, Whitehead, and Cobb, among others.

However, this isn't necessarily bad as playing catch-up to missed series allows us to take these series in all-at-once. Whether in my undergrad or graduate studies, I tended to read and study my classroom projects in "batches" as versus chapter-by-chapter. By doing so I could see and understand the bigger picture rather than absorbing the minutiae of data segmented between subject material.

With the advent of livestream cable I can now do the same with Cable TV series and Internet streams... I can watch and think through series all-at-once rather than piecemeal a week at a time. Perhaps it's age but I think it makes things easier to remember and understand.

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My Health Update
by R.E. Slater

Pictures of Nursing (3X / wk) and festering foot infections
which have required several surgeries this past summer and fall...


What Open Wounds Look Like Before
and After Using a Wound Pump
April through August 2023




Resting Up After Prosthetic Removal
& Cleanout Surgery
September 2023



My latest surgeries have gone well. What started out as "maintenance surgeries" later become "removal and fusion surgeries". Through the summer my surgical infections from January 2016 never left and never got better. At first they did... but it took three long years. But they never went away. So after eight years of up-and-down health limitations I finally gave in to reality in September of this year.

Looking at my foot I was nursing three open wounds with several more rising to the surface... my management of wounds had come to an end. I called the doc, saw him a day later, and we planned a surgery for the first Monday of the next week. The infections were spreading and he-and-I both wanted the prosthetic gear out of my body post-haste.

And so, the motility device is gone as I use this fall and coming winter seasons to place life "on hold" to heal up and get better. My last recourse was an amputation but at least up to this point I've not had to consider this (excepting, of course, the discovery of Boston's Mass General where a MIT specialist removes limbs in such a way as to decrease phantom pain nearly to zero).

At present, the infected prosthetic is out of my body and it is responding very well to the drugs and healing. My ongoing fight with health issues may become a thing of the past but my real I had ever been to keep the motility device in my foot. This is not to be as there is a 35% risk of becoming re-infected with a replacement device.

So after this summer's cleanout surgeries in April (#1) and August (#2) along with a long, long, long losing battle with the several infections still ravaging my body, I finally agreed with Infectious Disease and my Orthopaedist to a series of "rebuilds" starting with (#3) the full removal of the foot and ankle prosthetic which includes a surgical cleanout  and the placement of an antiseptic cement ball into the empty space.

What came out - Internal Motility Prosthetic
September 2023
My Condition Presently between Surgeries
Nov 2023

the aftermath of a bloody surgical wound being cleaned up  in the med office

I bought two inexpensive knee walkers to get around the house

the splint behind the knee required a rag stuffed
behind it to relieve the chaffing going on

Structural Gear to be Implanted:
a Titanium ball socket with foot fusion
January 2024

refer to:



Then (#4) a fourth surgery with another reopening of the ankle area this past November with the main ankle-bone's partial removal + another cleanout + placement of yet another antiseptic cement ball into the open space.

And finally, sometime this coming January of 2024, a (#5) fifth and final surgery removing (and reuse of sic, cannibalizing of) the remaining anklebone + cleanout + the placement of a custom-built titanium structural device into the fully emptied area + the fusion of the ankle to the foot. This would complete all surgeries unless infections arise again.

Overall, the series of procedures which I've been dreading has gone better than I had thought. Considering all the many years of competitive sports I played it could've been a lot worse. This problem here was related to a fall I had down a mountain at 14 years of age where I had to stick my foot into a crevice lest I fall off the cliff which was fast coming up.

Since my father didn't "believe in" modern medicine at the time I've played sports all my life on a partially injured foot which lately was turning upwards. I had had an early total knee surgery many years earlier with no problem so the foot surgery in 2016 I wasn't concerned about. However, infection rates run 4-6% in modern hospitals and I was one of the unlucky patients to experience it.

All-in-all this medical health year has gone well... it has required a lot of patience and pain management. Further, the antibiotic drugs left me fatigued with stomach v.  nausea after-affects. I also had to undergo several iron-therapy infusions to offset the fatigue I was experiencing as my iron levels had dropped quite low.

But thankfully, I've never gotten any of the Covid variants my friends and family were getting even though I've had times where I felt like I may have contacted the mutating virus. In the area I live there are a lot of Trumpian republicans who adamantly refuse to wear a mask to protect me and others... and who also refuse to take their Covid shots... thus complicating our region's health factors along with my own lower resistances to Covid.

And yet, both my spouse and I have not been infected and have diligently kept up our vaccine shots so that this past July I got my sixth "bivalent shot" (re Covid-19's 4.0 and 5.0 variants), along with a pneumonia shot for older people and a season flu shot. Later, this coming January-February of next year I will receive a seventh  vaccine shot (for BA2.75 + EBB 1.50 mutations). As I tell my church friends, I "glow in the dark" in the evening! :) 

All for now,

Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
and remember our friends and strangers in Palestine, Gaza, Israel,
the Ukraine, Russian, and all the Migrating families from
South and Central America needing God's grace and help.

by R.E. Slater
December 18, 2023


Michigan in December



* * * * * * *


SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19
Charts and Data Information


Mapping the evolutionary profile of SARS-CoV-2
and COVID-19 using mutation order approach


SARS-CoV-2 variant biology: immune escape, transmission and fitness


Virus Mutations Reveal How COVID-19 Really Spread



* * * * * * *


Forthcoming Existentialism Series





What Gives Life Meaning, Part 2 - unfinished

Christian Existentialism, Part 3 - unfinished

More on Christian Existentialism, Part 4 - unfinished

existentialism in education
Existentialism in Education: Themes, Philosophers, Pros and Cons


Travel Series - Bill Gates "UnConfuse Me" Series



The message I’m taking to COP28
Bill Gates  |  2.37 min
Nov 27, 2023

I’ll be talking about progress on climate and what we
need to do next. Learn more at https://gatesnot.es/47ztcoi



Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates
My latest podcast is all about learning something new

What do you do when you can’t solve a problem? I like to talk to smart people who can help me understand the subject better. I call this process “getting unconfused”—and I think it is one of the best ways to learn something new. In my new podcast, I try to get unconfused about some of the things that fascinate me. Join me on my learning journey as I talk to brilliant guests about Alzheimer’s, artificial intelligence, the future of education, plant-based meat, the evolution of language, marijuana, and more.

Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates - Episode 5
Yejin Choi  |  31.50 min
11/16/2023 6:00:00 PM

Few people are better at explaining the science of artificial intelligence than Yejin Choi. She’s a computer science professor at the University of Washington, senior research director at the Allen Institute for AI, and the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. I thought her recentTED talk
was terrific, and I was thrilled to talk to her about how you train a large language model, why it’s so hard for robots to pick tools out of a box, and why universities must play a key role in the future of AI research.

Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates - Episode 4
John McWhorter  |  30.22 mim
9/7/2023 7:00:00 AM

I recently started learning French, and the process has made one thing clear to me: There’s a lot I don’t understand about how languages work. So, I turned to John McWhorter, a linguist who has dedicated his career to demystifying the roughly 7,000 languages spoken around the world. When he isn’t busywriting books

John is a professor at Columbia University, host of his ownpodcast, and frequent lecturer forGreat Courses. He helped me understand why English is so irregular, what the ideal language would look like, why all dialects are created equal, and more.


Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates - Episode 3
Questlove  |  31.36 min
8/24/2023 7:00:00 AM

Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson is the ultimate multi-hyphenate: He’s a musician, filmmaker, author, entrepreneur, and more. The Grammy and Oscar winner is also a plant-based foods advocate, so when I had some questions about the future of food, I knew I had to sit down with him. We had a blast talking about why he made ameatless Philly cheesesteak, how we make healthy food accessible to more people, Questlove’s insane record collection, how we got our nicknames, and our Wordle strategies.


Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates - Episode 2
Sal Khan  | 30.29 min
8/10/2023 7:00:00 AM

Sal Khan is a true pioneer of harnessing the power of technology to help kids learn. So, when I wanted to learn more about how artificial intelligence will transform education, I knew I had to talk to the founder ofKhan Academy. I loved chatting with Sal about why tutoring is so important, how his new serviceKhanmigo is making the most of ChatGPT, and how we can keep teachers at the center of the classroom in the age of AI. We even found time to talk about our favorite teachers and the subject we wish we’d studied in school.


Unconfuse Me with Bill Gates - Episode 1
Seth Rogen & Lauren Miller Rogen  |  35.24 min
7/27/2023 7:00:00 AM

Can Alzheimer’s disease be funny? I was skeptical, especially given the devastating experience my family had watching my dad suffer from it. So, I asked two experts in using humor to raise awareness—Seth Rogen and Lauren Miller Rogen—to help me see the light. We had a great conversation about their organization Hilarity for Charity,hope for the future of Alzheimer’s research, theimportance of a good night’s sleep, and why Seth started acannabis lifestyle company



I teamed up with actress and writer Rashida Jones to create a podcast that tackles some of the biggest questions facing us today: Is it too late to solve climate change? Does everybody lie? Is inequality inevitable? You can listen to each episode below and even access exclusive bonus content by becoming a Gates Notes Insider.

Bill Gates and Rashida Jones Ask Big Questions - Episode 5
12/14/2020 12:00:00 AM  |  51.13 min

2020 has been a year of change. From the presidential election to the pandemic, it’s clear that the world will never be the same after this year—and neither will all of us who experienced it. In the season finale, Bill and Rashida explore how progress hinges on society’s ability to evolve, how our view of the world shifts as we get older, and whether it’s actually possible to change someone’s mind. Then they’re joined by two people who are using their positions as artists to change the world for the better: Bono and Kerry Washington.


Bill Gates and Rashida Jones Ask Big Questions - Episode 4
12/7/2020 12:00:00 AM  |  50.45 min

Climate change is the most daunting challenge of our time. Tackling it will require unprecedented amounts of innovation, investment, and global cooperation. Are we actually making progress yet? Can we really stop the worst effects of climate change? In this week’s episode, Bill and Rashida take on perhaps their biggest question yet with an assist from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert.


Bill Gates and Rashida Jones Ask Big Questions - Episode 3
11/30/2020 12:00:00 AM  |  45.56 min

Honesty is a core value in most cultures. But humanity has always been obsessed with untruths, from little white lies to vast conspiracy theories. Bill and Rashida are joined by "Sapiens"> author and historian Yuval Noah Harari to talk about why we’re so willing to believe falsehoods and what these lies tell us about ourselves—both as individuals and as a society.


Bill Gates and Rashida Jones Ask Big Questions - Episode 2
11/23/2020 12:00:00 AM  |  45.75 min

2020 has brought to light a lot of issues, including growing inequality in the United States. We're seeing huge gaps in income, access to healthcare, and quality of education across the country. Economist Raj Chetty joins the podcast to talk about his groundbreaking research on opportunity in America. Then Mayor Aja Brown joins the conversation to talk about how she is leveling the playing field in Compton.


Bill Gates and Rashida Jones Ask Big Questions - Episode 1
11/16/2020 12:00:00 AM  |  44.02 min

Ever since the pandemic started, we’ve heard the same refrain: we need to get back to normal. But what does “normal” even mean after such a history-changing event? Bill and Rashida discuss how COVID-19 will forever change our workplaces, our schools, and even our social lives. They also get real with NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci about what we can expect in the months ahead.