Armageddon

Recently I had a conversation with my daughter about the devil, and she informed me that she wants to be a servant of God. I think she has been feeling a little disenchanted with the world, and a little bit angry. Holywood has popularized a certain sterotype for our friend the Devil, and I hardly beleive that such a person really exists. But clearly the kingdom of Heaven is populated by a multitude of persons. There is enough evidence around us here on Earth, to believe in the multitude. I suspect that the multitude does have a definate number to it, although it may be an ever increasing number, it is not infinite. But that number may not be defined by Life on Earth, although clearly every living thing has been endowed with a measure of consiousness. And that number may not even be defined by Life in General, but I do believe that the number is well defined by the whole of manifestation. I do not believe there has ever been such a thing in this Universe as "Unmanifest Spirits". Every person that may exist as a person must depend upon manifestation completely. And clearly there is much more to manifestation than Human Life, there may very well be higher powers between us and God.

So I must acknowledge the possibility that there really is a person in Heaven who wanted to see our world divided and actively sowed the seeds of discord. There may very well be a story teller God and great deciever. But in my humble opinion we don't really need a great deciever in order to explain Human nature. Our world is NOT being controlled by Evil spirits, it is being controlled by People with the freedom to exercise their own judgement and the power to make decisions and act.

If the one true and most high God sees that the children of the Earth need to be governed, he's certainly never offered to do the job. God has blessed each of us with some talent for judgement; in the same way that flight comes naturally to most birds, judgement is a part of Human nature. Quite often we find it desireble to get some guidance from someone more knowledgeable than ourselves. Normally God is viewed as the MOST knowledgeable person, by those people who believe in a God. But its neigh on impossible to get God as an advisor. To be sure there are plenty of people in the world who want to share thier own opinions with us, and to offer us some instruction. But is a very rare thing for one of us to get instructions from a higher-power. Clearly its a good thing for us to have desires, but no-one has ever been blessed with perfect judgement. We are pretty much left to ourselves to develope that talent and apply it. And whether or not we are skilled or wise, we must apply judgement to our day to day lives. The conditions of life being what they are, we may never have perfect knowledge. We do get some knowledge from our own personal experiences in life however, but most things we simply believe in. We have more opinions than facts about the nature of reality, but we do need some way to feel content with our own limitations even if we never stop wanting more. And for this we have each been blessed with the seed of faith. To the best of my understanding faith has no power to turn opinions into facts, but it does have the power to make us more stoic. Faith has the power to remove doubts and to make us more comfortable with opinions. It would be a terrible thing to endure this lack of knowledge without faith.

I for one know that we do not just live here on Planet Earth, we live in a remarkable Universe. And this Universe is a very strange and wonderful thing, and the Earth is still a beautiful world despite human habitation. I can't help feeling a little romantic about the world and my place in it, nor can I overlook the bigger picture of reality. There is a point of view that take Eons into consideration, and we should consider several millenia of Human History. And now we stand here in this moment in time and with all that it contains and observe a complete and total continuity with every historical event. And because this continuity will never fail to be true, now that we have become a part of the story of creation, we will always and forever more be a part of that story. The process of creation is ongoing, even though it may have an absolute begining, it never comes to a halt and it never comes to an end. The Universe itself is a very durable thing, and I can't help believeing that now that we've been made, we too are as durable. I do believe that this Universe holds the promise of immortality for us, And the possibility of a ressurection. I have no special knowledge about the future, it is entirely unsubstantiated opinion. It may or may not be true, and no matter how much I desire it to be one way or the other, clearly i have no power to choose. Reality can not be made subject to my dreams of a better world.

There may never be a great battle to liberate the world from the forces of Evil.