Another Religious Post (not)

I think some people in my world believe that I’m about to step off the deep end any minute, now, but think about this…where would we be if no one had ever stopped, took notice of the strange, the bizarre, the inconsistent, challenged the status quo, and then found the courage to say something about it?

For decades I was proudly a devout, verse-quoting, bible-thumping Christian, in church every Sunday and most Wednesdays, and was an absolute 24-hour TBN drone. Time and revelation of knowledge have since re-purposed my faith, yet fundamentally I remain deeply partial towards the character and integrity of the Christ. I no longer attend church, so I’m not that variety of believer, but I have love for people who do go to church/synagogue/mosque/etc—I’m not making a statement, it’s just that religion is not my bag. In my rational mind, I see the Universe as a Matrix-like construct (consider the beginning of the book of Genesis for a moment where God “created” the heavens and the earth…by default, it seems to me, this creation would have to be a matrix construct of some kind, wouldn’t it?…a structured system of reality where literally every single thing within it is catalogued—every blade of grass, every leaf, every crack in every sidewalk, every grain of sand…every hair on every head, if Jesus’ words are taken at face value). I sometimes see this world as structured similar to one of my favorite video games, Mortal Kombat, where there are characters in a digital world who interact with each other, crash into walls, get hit with ‘material’ objects, etc.

Using the Mortal Kombat example, if I wanted to interact person-to-person with the characters who appear onscreen, I couldn’t just knock on my TV screen and get their attention. It seems to me that I would actually have to create from scratch a completely new character who can appear in their digital world, and interact with them based on the existing rules of that simulated reality. We do it all the time with a computer mouse: your finger never actually touches the Send email button, or the Play button on YouTube. In reality it’s the digital cursor on your screen made from pixels that performs the actual interaction between your mind and the response onscreen. This is how I perceive the role of the Christ. He is a character, if you will, who entered the game (our world) from a higher dimension, having interacted with the characters of this game, only not to fight, but to give healthful guidance (love one another, help one another, etc.).

O, God, not another religious post!! No, thank heavens, it’s not. But there is a high frequency of coincidence today which I think it’s safe to say go beyond the very definition of the word coincidence. All of the signs of “last days” prophecies in the Old Testament and New Testament scriptures have come to life and fervently ravage our world at large today. Israel as the unlikely center of global political unrest, famines, earthquakes, ferocious storms, the seas damaged and ocean life destroyed, immoral leaders burdening down the backs of the people with unreasonable demands and laws, parents killing kids, kids killing parents…it’s all in there, jotted down thousands of years ago.

So essentially, I’ve said all that to say this (mainly to my readers who, for reasons good or otherwise, give no credence to biblical texts): what if there really is solid-world substance to the bible, and the astonishing, nearly daily disasters we survive (those of us who do) are the very topics the scriptures spoke of?

While on the one hand, I am aware that the secular historicity of the bible is not entirely sound—I know about Utnapishtim; the alleged structures, strange artifacts on the moon, UFO’s;  the Council of Nicea; Planet X and the Anunaki, and I am strongly intrigued by these and many other little-known accounts from history. On the other hand, could God have used some degree of fiction to tell our very real future? If not, why not? I’ve heard atheists decry the Judeo/Christian scriptures with statements like, “That’s ridiculous, the bible is just used to control the masses.” Problem with that is, the texts forewarned of circumstances and events to occur in the “last days” which just so happen to match the types of circumstances and events that today appear daily as breaking news…how did the writers know with accuracy what would happen thousands of years after them?

After learning that the bible was not as airtight as I had been led from childhood to believe, I took an unofficial stance as agnostic, and set out to prove the entire thing was a hoax. What confounded those efforts to disqualify the bible, however, was the fact that the relevance of its content simply won’t go away.

Consider what the Christ spoke regarding the end times in Matthew 24, and in the book of Mark 13: ”In the last days…”

•  there would be famine (always had it, always will, I know)

•  there would be plagues (rise in global disease)

• there would be earthquakes in odd places (a friend informed me that their driveway was significantly cracked during a tremor in Amarillo, Texas not long ago. Amarillo. Seismic activity may be rising in Texas, the state where I reside…not a smoking gun, necessarily, but TX is not prone to earthquakes such as locations along the Ring of Fire)

• there would be nation rising against nation (war today…anyone?)

• there would be ethnic group rising against ethnic group (racial unrest)

• there would be roaring of the waves of the sea, enough to cause significant fear in the heart of man (Katrina of 2005 was a Category 5, and now scientists speak of having to upgrade the rating to 6)

• terror in the heavens (I’ve never been consciously abducted, but a Grey can be rather disturbing, so I’ve heard)

If there really are spiritual dominions in high places as Paul discussed in Ephesians of the NT, would these forces ever manifest somehow in the physical world? Perhaps through the use of technology and political influence such forces might find a way to infiltrate the leadership of nations and implement destructive, damnable regimes and therefore policies to systemically dissect the foundations of true democracy, poisoning one generation through greed, lust, financial stress, and chemical additives to the food and water supply, additives which also help to dumb-down the minds of the subsequent generation so that once it matures, as a whole the new generation is simply intellectually and psychologically unfit to lead.

Perhaps this has already occurred…

Out There Nowhere

The science fantasy of Atlantis helped re-sparked my "out there" curiosity

I just came back inside from looking at the stars, those magical twinkling points of light that romance the velvety-dark skies of the night, and the question came to me: why are the stars always “out there”? Even when I’m watching Trek or Gate(s) I notice that no matter where you are, no matter how fast your ship, the stars are still always “out there”. I mean, like, there’s never a star directly over your head that you can look up and see, or touch. They remain in that ever-present, unreachable nowhere called “out there”. I like how Captain Kirk once responded when asked which coordinates to set for the Enterprise: “That way!” he replied, valiantly pointing “out there” into the black, twinkling void of space.

Is War Better Than Peace?

 

The extreme absence of peace in the Middle East stems from political and religious differences, a situation not easily resolved through diplomacy. Now with fresh scars of war blemishing that region, anti-American sentiment continues to slow the advance of peace on earth. But is war really the greatest enemy of peace?

On the surface this question borders absurdity. Yet under careful study history reveals that chaos has a strong tendency to bring about order. In short, human beings behave more like human beings when their freedom comes under attack.

Take September 11, 2001, for example. When the shock of that horrible morning finally settled into the collective consciousness of the world, there emerged a general sense of urgency towards responding to anyone in need, particularly those in New York City and Washington D.C. who were directly affected by the terrorist attacks. Even though an ever-present fear of new attacks loomed in the background of nearly everyone’s minds, we felt again a long-forgotten desire for unity, ironically not driven by fear, but by respect. People smiled and spoke to one another in passing as an attitude of goodwill existed even through the stress of busy work schedules. The “me first” faded as life took on a deeper sense of meaning and purpose than had been present on the tenth of September. In our desperate need to reassess and regroup as a society—not just in the United States, but on a global scale—life appeared to be increasingly governed by peace.

Alas, this state of bliss lasted every bit of six months before the corruption of greed and self-indulgence which had thrived prior to September 11 began to rear its ugly head. The American government declared a semi-official war against a phantom menace called Terrorism. Even so, the world began to settle back into its pre-attack routine, and human value diminished noticeably. After months of heightened terrorist alerts during which nothing happened, we became callous to the threat that we could all die any day, and peace slowly became taken for granted. In war there appeared unity.

In peace, division.

Which leads to the question: Is war better than peace? Not in this journalist’s opinion. But an ancient proverb says that it is better to be in the house of mourning than in the house of laughter. My interpretation of this is that being cornered in an unpleasant situation forces higher intellectual processes to discover creative solutions which otherwise are seldom found.

Prior to the official declaration of war against Iraq by President Bush in March 2003, rumors of this looming conflict sparked massive anti-war protests by millions of people worldwide. The objective mind could easily find itself torn between the need to disarm the evil regime of Saddam Hussein before it became a major global threat, and the burning question, “Why now?” Of course, President Bush had his reasons which compelled him to choose this course of action, yet the outcome may have actually widened the political chasm between the United States and much of the rest of the civilized world, increasing the threat of more war.

As the aftermath of the September 11th disasters showed, true peace comes from deep within the human spirit. It is born out of love and respect for every living thing in existence. Humanity is a team which excels when all work together, reaching new and unprecedented realms of discovery and creativity. But when each member works only toward his or her own personal fulfillment, indifferent to the needs of others, this team becomes dysfunctional and ineffective. It is a sad testament that we only vigorously pursue human togetherness in times of peril. Peace on earth is not an easy goal, but it is attainable. War then, it seems, is not the enemy of peace, but the natural by-product of its absence.