Is Earth a HOSTILE or FRIENDLY place?
Every time I turn on PBS during PLEDGE WEEK there is Wayne Dyer (mr erroneous zones) asking me if I live in a HOSTILE or FRIENDLY universe? Wayne you are driving me mad with your personal vendetta on negative thinking!
Wayne keeps saying that Albert Einstein once said that the most important decision you’ll ever make in your life is to decide what kind of universe you live in. A friendly universe is something that is going to support you and a hostile one will work against you.
What about a neutral/luck of the draw/time
and chance/sh*t happens type of universe???
Instead of the zero sum gain (somebody must
win or lose) and good versus evil mindset consider some of the tantalizing alternatives.
There are plenty of other ideas around to choose from like nihilism/idealism/existentialism/
dualism/everything is beautifulism/
determinism and creative people are dreaming
up new isms everyday!
Perhaps the time honored notion of monotheism needs some tinkering. The idea that you can either be with or against the one true supreme universal deity gets us homo escapeons in a lot of trouble with others.
One of the main problems is putting all of your eggs in the hereafter basket. Why not just be good enough to get in through the pearly gates and let the free market/free will equation sort out the eternal reward or damnation of others. Hey good enough!
If you think that the next life is the real eternal life then whatever.
The problem with this theory is that it is unfortunately unprovable. Maybe we should start asking ourselves the obvious question. Why do we still cling to these notions? If these ideas are worth killing others who disagree with you then maybe, just maybe, they warrant a dash of exhaustive, serious examination, a pinch of scrutiny and a dollop of verification. You think?
But then it wouldn't be called faith would it?
To answer the hostile/friendly question look in your local newspaper and watch the world news. Does there appear to be some kind of fair impartial grand scheme or gameplan involved in the demise of the
15 million children who starve to death every year?
Is their death simply because they picked the wrong place to be born or believed in the wrong god?There are some people who have air-conditioned dog houses and get chaufferred to church in their thousand dollar suits who honestly believe that.
These are certainly/absolutely/for sure/this is it/ the endtimes for the millenialists. Did you know that 44% of Americans believe that Jesus will return in their lifetime!
They await the second coming and new world order where they will live in the
new Jerusalem. They are trembling at the demise of the USA which is preventing the second coming because of it's outstanding contribution to the war on EVILISM. But the writing is on the wall. The $3 Billion a day that the American Government has to borrow in order to keep operating will no doubt implode the amazing short reign of the latest world empire.
It is baffling how the message of love thy neighbour and turn the other cheek has devolved into the present day fire insurance policy to escape the flames of hell. Forget the last minute foxhole conversion scenario, get on board now and make sure you get raptured with the true believers. True believers, afterall, will disappear POOF! swept away and avoid the seven year tribulation brought on by the infamous anti-christ. Martyrdom is not an option for the purist.
In the meantime Israelis, who are well aware of
all this millenial stuff, just smile and take the money as the fundamentalist tour buses rumble through Jerusalem. Awestruck occupants who are looking anxiously at their future neighbourhood will miss their jewish friends who won't make the rapture because of their stubborn refusal to accept yeshua bar yusef as the messiah. Yes my friends after the rapture of the true believers the millenialists tell us that the rest
of the world, that'd be us, will rejoice for three and one half years thanks to a new world leader who restores oreder to a chaotic world and then BANG experience torment and anguish during the rest of the tribulation until the final showdown at Armaggedon.
Hey and that's the friendly universe!
The televangelists have a message for you
liberal pagan heathen atheist false idol worshipping losers ..sob.. jesus loves you, but dammit they wish that he didn't.
They must actually believe that he loves them more because you are a stubborn hedonistic idiot and they are so smart for figuring the whole thing out for you! Instead of concentrating on making this world more like heaven I think that they try to scare the hell out of you instead because it is so unfair to them.
So if you think that this is a hostile universe now then I bet you can't wait for their friendly universe? You ain't seen nothing yet.
As world events continue to slide toward Armaggedon more people will jump at the fire insurance message to avoid the tribulation and eternal hell. Why not?
Did I mention that this was about HYPERBOLE?
Donnie, Donnie, Donnie...
ReplyDeleteBang on! There are so many elements you hit on, but this one...
"If these ideas are worth killing others who disagree with you then maybe, just maybe, they warrant a dash of exhaustive, serious examination, a pinch of scrutiny and a dollop of verification. You think?
But then it wouldn't be called faith would it?"
...is fantastic.
Scrutiny, examination...that's just what they don't want, because if people actually took the time to do that, they'd poke so many holes in all these absurd theories that the Rapture would become the Rupture.
Then what would all those people do? They'd spontaneously combust because the balloons that are their lives would have no air!
HE you are raw, and right on target. I had to go back and look at your profile --- because if you are not a teacher, you should be.
ReplyDeleteYou teach what some think of as complex in such a simple manner that even a fool would understand, if they took the time to read you. As for me, I run and get the dictionary becaue I don't want to miss anything --- communicating in HYPERBOLE, how cool is that!
**Is their death simply because they picked the wrong place to be born or believed in the wrong god?
ReplyDeletehell na...whoever believes in such a theory are truly mislead. Th etruth is no one really knows the answers to the HOWs and the WHYs we all have. So some turn to a God, and some others dont wish to find answers. Thats all there is to it :)
Keshi.
Some turn to God..
ReplyDeleteI think that tonight I shall turn to Cheetos. Or perhaps chocolate. Yes, chocolate. That sounds good.
there is hope yet...we just must look harder for the solution. But i have to agree, monoatheism is probably the way to the future, of just learn pure damn science, and find the answers.
ReplyDeleteEvil is the absence of goodness, it doesnt mean we cant get rid of it. We can, and we will. Hope is there yet, one way or another, we will walk tall together.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletewithin,
ReplyDeleteIt is a concern that the OUT clause is available for people to neglect working harder to improve the known world. In the words of Homer, "Yeah but what are ya gonna do?"
liquidplastic,
You are very generous. I like the Occam's razor approach that being that the simplest answer is probably correct. It is fairly useless when discussing hornet nest issues like faith and the supernatural.
I would have loved to have been a history teacher. History is OURstory and is so undervalued in this instant gratification society. DOH!
keshi,
WHY some people don't search is puzzling and HOW some of them search is even scarier. Oh well.
We atleast have the priviledge to squander our brainpower as we please. I am grateful for that.
pamela,
Chocolate is a good choice. Homo escapeons experience the same chemical reaction in the brain when they eat chocolate as they do when they are in love.
ghostparticle,
Ah finally an optimist who believes in factual evidence to solve our conundrum. I hope that you are right. History is not on your side but we are slowly making progress (albeit at an excrutiatingly slow rate) so who knows.
I plan on escaping to the future in your sci-fi story.
comment deleted,
Hopefully you were not enraged or unaware of my hyperbolic faint hope clause. Exaggeration or going beyond the truth to represent something is fair play when dealing with mind games.
Please reconsider. All points of view are welcome.
Hi. I was momentarily enraged and posted a ridiculously nonsenical comment, basically through my complete misreading of the word 'mono-atheism'. Realising that the word contained the letter 'a' gave much more clarity to the last comment and my rage dispels.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a provocative and very intriguing post. I'm quite surprised that you loosely associate here the self-help philosophies of Wayne Dyer with the fundamentalist, monotheistic notion of God. I'd previously assumed that these two belief systems were miles apart but I do see where you're coming from.
Very interesting. Dyer's new age beliefs have always suggested, to me, one personal God for each of us, and I think this is quite different from one God who rules over all. Also, I think that is much closer to current psychological and sociological explanations of how our minds work, although he does of course use the term 'God'.
benjamin,
ReplyDeleteGood for you. This was mean't to be provocative but with the fake salt on the open wound.
Dyer drives me crazy with his beautifulism but I love his method of enveloping all wisdom from the past into a swirl of groovy metaphors.
Unfortunately what we believe and what we can prove are light years away. It does however make the discussions much more palatable and interesting..so there it is.
spot on mate :)
ReplyDeleteKeshi.
keshi,
ReplyDeleteWORD to yor mutha,
know what I'm sayin'mate.