Seattle Discusses God’s Plan for Humanity
Seattle, WA – Twenty six Ambassadors for Peace (AFPs) and friends, including two new attendees, gathered at the Windermere House in Seattle on Thursday, May 21st to hear a speaker, network and share an excellent meal. After praying over the meal, the participants enjoyed a great dinner of salmon and salad.
The Emcee for the night was a recent AFP appointee, Mrs. Emma Herron, who performed admirably. Mrs. Herron is the Chairwoman of the Cascade Republican Women group, and a board member of the JakCares Charity. When most were finished with dinner, Mrs. Herron led each participant to provide a short self-introduction. She then introduced Mr. Ray McCready, Secretary General, UPF Washington State, as the speaker for the evening who spoke on title of “One Family Under God. Really?”
Mr. McCready spoke about the history of humankind from developmental, historical and spiritual viewpoints. For the developmental, the talk reviewed information based upon human DNA research and fossil evidence over the preceding 2.4 million years, showing that for all humankind there is less than 0.1% variation in DNA.
For the historical perspective, Mr. McCready reviewed information on the history of wars (the larger ones over the previous 1,300 years) using a chart from Wikipedia, to frame the cost of lives lost, even by looking at a portion of recorded human conflicts.
Finally, for the spiritual viewpoint quotes from Universal Peace Federation’s (UPF) Co-founder Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon were used, along with excerpts of his speeches.
Using the Founder’s words, Mr. McCready sought to illustrate the unique position of human beings and their importance within God, the Creator’s, plans. His conclusion was that based upon the information presented, it becomes clear that humans should strive to respect each other as brothers and sisters, elders and youngers, and to return joy to the Creator by acting like One Family Under God.
“How does UPF’s vision see being able to reconcile religions, which have different viewpoints, concerning things such as the divinity of Jesus,” asked a gentleman visiting from Nigeria, where there are clashes between Christians and Muslims.
“UPF works towards reconciliation by emphasizing the elements which religions have in common,” answered Mr. Ray McCready, with help from other attendees. “In this case, those elements are a belief in the Creator, the spiritual nature of human beings and that the family is a key institution in the Creator’s plan for humankind.”
Ambassadors and new attendees gathered by taking a group photo.