Dear President Obama, Just a few months ago you ran on a platform of change; real change you said, change in which we can believe. Well, how many changes have you made which can be considered real? Something so real that it can be believed in ? Something so real that it might inspire us to make a few changes ourselves?

Oh, yes, Mr. President, everybody in a position of leadership knows that we Americans need to change. Without making changes in our cynical, wasteful and extravagant lifestyle, the problems we face today in America and the world cannot be solved. But you can help by showing us your resolve to make changes.

We have become cynical, Mr. President. Today, we have hardly any ideas, philosophy, or principles to believe in; no convictions to guide our lives and enable us to make real changes. How did it get this way? There have always been materialist among us with their hedonism and epicurean philosophy of eat, drink, and be merry, but their influence was limited. Then starting in the nineteen fifties, there came the scientific materialists, and with the discovery of the DNA’s double helix structure scientists became emboldened to challenge faith in unprecedented ways. First came the assertion that we can understand life itself starting from molecules. We will synthesize life in the laboratory, they said, and show that no vital force is necessary, and certainly no God to make little green apples.

Then came high energy physics and their extravagnt claim of, “Show us the money for high energy machines, and we will show you the elementary particles that are the building blocks of all things. And knowing that, we will investigate biology and psychology from first principles. Nothing will be out of reach of our mathematical savvy.”

Finally, came computer science and the search for artificial intelligence; computers with minds. By producing mindful machines we will demonstrate what we have been suspecting all along, that we human beings, also are machines. Here comes the proof, here comes the proof….

Three strikes and God seemed to be out, out far enough from everybody’s belief system for them to become cynical. If God does not make little green apples, why bother about ethics or principles with which to live by or do business? Take care of numero uno. There is no meaning; the physicist has said so. “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.” Therefore pay attention to real things like real estate, and this excessive attention will produce boom and bust in the housing market, so what? Cheap credit is available to Americans, why not? We are worth it! Do, do, do; buy, buy, buy; make money no matter that you no longer care why you are giving up your precious leisure time to make the money.

The philosophy that came out of this cynicism is existentialism which asserts that there is no real meaning and value to live by, but we must pretend that there is. But philosophy itself has been undermined relentlessly by its growing irrelavence. Who reads philosophy these days? With our economists and political leaders telling us incessantly that we need consumers and their spending to keep our economy going, the littlest hesitation people had about spending on their credit line gave way.

It is we consumers who demanded big cars and gas guzzling SUV’s from Detroit. We brought down General Motors. We produced the bulk of greenhouse gases which threaten climatic catastrophe. It is we who indulge in unhealthy habits and refuse to engage in preventive, positive health practices to keep disease away and reduce health care costs. It is we who develop the chemical dependence on drugs (for temporary relief) which supports the pharmaceuticals and raises health care costs.

It is we who became so fearful after 9/11 that our leaders could manipulate us into unneeded wars. It is we who bought into the materialist scientist’s line about love being reduced to sex and brain neurochemicals, and lost the potencies of the energies of love when we most needed it to balance our fear.

And it is we who jumped the gun and bought into the materialists’ bold declarations without waiting for delivery. Have they delivered? Biologists have not gone very far in the attempts to produce life in the laboratory. Artificial intelligent researchers have failed to build a computer that can process mental meaning. True, elementary particles of matter have been discovered. But to discover the mysteries of life and mind based on that knowledge diminishes the grandeur of the universe toward a myopic view to which only a blind-faithed materialist could cling.

But a new dawn is coming and a few of us are already appreciating its early light. There is now mathematical proof that matter cannot produce life in the laboratory, cannot process meaning. There is mathematical proof that we need nonmaterial interaction (call it downward causation) to make quantum possibilities (the outcome of material interaction which is called upward causation) into actual events. This downward causation comes with properties like non-locality (signal-less communication) and quantum leaps (discontinuous jumps without going through intervening steps) which material interactions can never simulate. And these special properties are just what our great spiritual teachers, like Jesus and Buddha, have attributed to God and God’s interaction with the world. And guess what, Mr. President? There is now plenty of experimental and empirical evidence in favor of downward causation, and by inference, of God. In fact, the data keeps growing.

Alright, I will concede that these theories and data are far from being accepted by a scientific consensus, and a majority of scientists still believe in the axiom of scientific materialism: that matter is the ground of all being, not consciousness. What is alarming is that these establishment scientists refuse to engage with our alternate models of reality. Why this seemingly benign neglect? The new science says that to be a scientist of consciousness is to be more conscious. We have to practice what we preach; walk our talk. But materialists are cynical; like the Washington establishment, the scientific establishment is resistant to change.

Please don’t underestimate this power of benign neglect, Mr. President. The church sat on Copernicus’ paradigm-shifting discovery for one hundred years. Here is where you can help. In the sixties, President Kennedy promised us a trip to the moon, and he delivered in just ten years. But today we need God. We need God to believe in, to believe in ourselves and in our ability to change. To change our bad habits of consumerism we need new economics, a new worldview and access to real freedom of choice. All this requires discontinuous changes of quantum leaps—the Grace of downward causation.

So here is my proposal, Mr. President. Give us God. Declare a scientific emergency. Convene scientists from the new paradigm as well as from the old, give them research grants, with one objective in mind: to settle the question of God. Since we already have a good theory of spirituality based on quantum physics which has already passed the test of scientific rigor, this should not be too hard. We also have some pretty convincing data. If we can muster even half of the American ingenuity that took us to the moon, we can scientifically settle the question of God. Forever.

Our founding fathers wanted to define the “American dream” as having unlimited access to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All people are created (with) equal (potential); so they should have the opportunity for realizing that potential; or so our founders thought. Under the aegis of materialism, the American dream became narrow: big house, great car, and unlimited access to consumerism. That is all. But your election changed that Mr. President. On that electrifying night of November 4, 2008, the old American dream was revived if only for a few moments. If the son of an African American and a white middle class woman growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia, spending the bulk of his youth in the south side of Chicago being a community organizer, can be president, then any American can fulfill his or her potential.

The new science can help us to realize God. If God comes back into our belief system, if freedom and creativity come back with downward causation in our belief system, we can forever believe that the American dream is about fulfilling our potential. We may then get on with it, make changes and fulfill our potential. Goodbye cynicism, hello change.

Now this is change we can believe in, Mr. President. It heartens me that you seem to be a God believer, and you see the subtleties in the God question that the new science is discovering. On the question of conquering evil, you said that evil makes you humble. This is all the proof I need to make my claim that your God is that of the New Testament. Also, you showed courage in publicly proclaiming that you will attend church for offering prayer.

A journalist recently asked me about these letters I have been writing to you. “Is your intention to convert Mr. Obama into a quantum activist?” To this I answered, “Mr. Obama may already be a quantum activist.”

But you don’t have to be a quantum activist to see merit in my proposal. Mr. President, we have made enormous progress, we have a viable science of spirituality. All we need is consensus. Ultimately, truth will stand the test. But by hastening the process, you can hasten what you want: to bring real change in how America and the people of the world think, live, and make their livelihood.

If we can go to the moon in ten years, why can’t we settle the God question in the eight years of your presidency? Yes, we can.