The Desire for Longevity

Once upon a time on Planet Earth there were two species of humanity. Up until about 30,0000 years ago the Neanderthal man lived here with us Homo Sapians. The Neanderthal man is considered to have lived here on Earth for about 200,000 years, which is twice as long as Homo Sapians has lived here. And the spread of Homo Sapians likely contributed to the demise and eventual extinction of Neanderthal man. But even though they were two seperate species, they still may have been close enough to interbreed. Now the Homo Sapians species has been roaming about the Earth for about 100,000 years and the people have changed enough, there is enough diveristy within the species for us to say there are many different races here. However our similarities still far outweigh our differences, the truth is there is only one race of humanity. There is just one great big dysfunctional family of man, over 6 billion seperate and individual personalities now in residence. Counting the number of people who have already lived and have suffered from the mortal condition, we could guesstimate that 14 billion human beings now live or have lived. Personally I like to think the number is close to 14 billion because its a number nicely divisible by 7, and i have heard it said that the number of people who have lived is approximately equal to the number now living. So 14 billion is a good number.

And I say that its not only one race but one family, the ties between us are as good as blood ties. For any two people that you can bring together from the wide corners of the world, there will always always be a common ancestor. It may not be easy to determine how many generations of history will have had to have passed to find that common ancestor, but surely there is one. Its a simple fact of life, and it has been sufficiently proven to point of being undenyable. The species of Homo Sapiens currently in residence in the world is a single species and you who are reading these words are part of it. That is our birth right in this world, to be considered one human being among 14 billion. We claim that we may be citizens of one nation or another, we may claim to be a member of one race or another; but I prefer to think of myself as a citizen of the whole Earth without respect for national borders.

Now its very easy to see how we are all different in the world, and hard to see how we are all equal. One person may be more or less intelligent than another easily; a person may be more or less educated than another. A person may have more or less physical strength, or more or less speed, or more or less endurance. A person may have accumlated more or less wealth, and of course one may possess more or less material goods. A person may even enjoy more or less esteem from their community. Yes, its very easy to see how we are unequal. The hard thing is to see how one person may be no more or less important than another person, and I challenge all who read to follow the harder path.

The founding fathers of the United States of American paid tribute to the idea that we are all equals. They even went so far as to claim that each person is endowed with rights by our creator. Now I'd wager that if a mere human being had such divine rights then such rights as those could neither be guarenteed nor suspended by a national government. It is not possible that we may sacrifice such rights as these even when we allow another person to exercise authority in our lives and make decisions that affect us. And certainly the exercise of our god given rights can not be interupted when we become the victims of violent crimes. Basicly we all have the right and authority to make our own decisions, nobody else can make a decision for me even under duress. However as a matter of practical human history there have been plenty of individuals that have been willing to apply some use of force in order to change another person's mind. Unfortunately people have even been killed just for having a difference of opinion, the authorities in the world did not want such ideas to be spread around.

Judgement is something that everybody does on a daily basis; judgement is as much a part of human nature as it is in the nature of birds to fly. Judgement is the process of decideing that one thing is more important than another thing. We have limited capacity to give our attention to any particular topic or problem; therefore we must choose priorities. We apply judgement to determine which of our daily tasks should have our attention and in what order things should be done. And we very easily extend that judement to other people, in order to decided that one person may be more or less important than another person. The people that are more important to us will get most of our attention and exercise the greatest degree of influence in our lives. But remember the harder path says no one person can be more or less important than any other person. In practice there are certainly some people who exercise an amazing amount of influence in the world, and for the most part that depends on a lot of people deciding to recognize another authority besides themselves. And there is a good reason that we should consider some persons as greater authorities on any particular topic because of that limited attention that we suffer from. Our world society is one of many interdependecies, and there are many people who have given thier valuable time to become experts.

Now I am certain that for any person that you might come to know in our world, they will desire a certain degree of seperation from some other perons. For any person that you can point to, they will always be able to name a few other people with which they prefer no personal association. The human animal is a creature of virtually unlimited desires and I am certain that one of the more common desires is for the possibility of seperation. If I had a loaded deck of habitable Earth-like planets in my back pocket and could promise one of those worlds to you, what would you say? If I could sort out the general population of the world into socially compatible groups and then offer each group a world of thier own; then I think the people would absolutely love me. Imagine a special world for all the right thinking Christains, and one for the Jewish people and one for the Islamic believers. One world for all the patriotic Americans perhaps, and another for mother Russia? I would gladly send the people off to their new homes until I would be the only man remaining here on the Earth. Free to possess all the hard labors of humanity that have been done here, because I love this Earth and I wouldn't want to leave it behind. But of course such a degree of seperation is unobtainable for us, and in the long run I do not believe it would serve the best interests of the species as a whole.

There is yet this concept of human dignity to be found in various places around the world. Just by being a fellow human being of ours, each person should be deserving of dignified treatment. What a wonderful idea, if only it could be applied without reservations. Its very easy to see how the honorable person is deserving of our respect; but how about the dishonorable person, aren't they also deserving. In most cases society observes that the criminal has sacrificed thier rights to dignified treatment. What if human dignity were a divine concept and a God given right? How should we be the ones to deny that right to any other person? But indeed humanity has become the enemy to God, the beast of the vision. Has God set the people up to be divided against one another? It would seem that he has. And a population divided is more easily conquered, therefore we should assume that God desires conquest.

Our world has historically been ruled by many kings and its not uncommon for a King to make a promise of land for all perpetuity. Moses was a King of Israel and he promised land to those people, the land which is now known as Israel or Palestine. And then came Jesus who is beleived to be another king, and this king makes a promise of land the likes of which has never before been made. Jesus promises the WHOLE EARTH to those people who should be considered meek! Generally speaking such promises that have been made in the past have proven to be very devisive. But its interesting to note that those people who should be considered meek may easily inhabit every nation of the world. Its very hard to imagine how the meek would gain entitlement to the land; the Israeli people took their land by force, it was easy then as it is today. Now I just need a way to sort all those people who should not be considered meek off to those several Earth like worlds that I have in my back pocket! And if the people can not be seperated from one another then those people who should not be considered meek must be subdued to such a degree that they will be unable to exercise any authority in the world. But then of course I would need to have a way to prevent the meek persons who will now rule the world from being physically mollested by the governed. Its a tall order for a new King.

Personally I like this story of the Revelation of John so much, because it ends with a resurrection which in my opionion would be amazing good fortune for the species. One of the more common desires among the human population is a desire for JUSTICE. It would be nice if Justice were built into the Universe, it could all be automatic without the need for human intervention. But in order for there to be justice then someone must exercise judgement. Now in my opinion, its as good as a promise that there will be a ressurection here on this Earth. And the people will be made to suffer immortality and live here in the world again. Can't imagine how it could ever possibly happen that way, but I still trust that it will. The Universe that we live in IS afterall a very strange place, and many of the things that people have long believed to be impossible happen to be actual possiblities here. Here you will stand again, on a somewhat different Earth and you will be just one individual person among 14 billion or so who have ever lived. And of course you will not have the luxury of being able to complain that you don't have time for a personal relationship, you should have the opportunity to create a personal relationship with every person who has ever lived. What a wonderful situation to consider, imagine for a moment that you will be judged, and not by one judgement but 14 billion times over! You will have you're own personal life story and the opportunity to share it 14 billion times over. And neither will you be afforded the luxury of keeping a personal secret, no thing shall be hidden and no lie or deception will stand unrevealed. Once everybody has had the opportunity to tell thier own personal story everything will come out into the light and then finally there will be justice. If the people really want JUSTICE they should also want the resurrection that has been promised.

And thats how i see the problem of seperation, its a conflicting desire. The underlying priciple of the created Universe is surely a principle of UNITY. From one point all things that have come into existance have come into existance. Of all that substance that you refer to as your personal flesh and bone, it has all the great long while been part of this Earth, long before you were ever conceived that stuff was here. And all that stuff you call yourself, along with all the other stuff from which the Universe has been formed, links back to a single instant in time from which all things were born. We were born here on Earth and there we have our begining, but every one of us personally has many more beginings. Clearly the Universe has begun from simple forms of matter into more and more complexe forms. There is a great deal of diversity here in this place, but if UNITY really is an underlying priciple then how did there come to be so many seperate and distinct personalities. We observe the world around us from a disticnt point of view, and we are also forced to admit that there is more than one observer here, in fact there are many aside from ourselves. And therein lies the Agency of God, the force of consciousness pervades all things and even the emptyness of space.

The Human species being intelligent, being capable of speach and judgement; has classified and named everyting that we have ever laid eyes on. Every force that we have ever been able to observe in its interatactions with matter has a name. And we recognize various relationships between forces and objects. But there is yet a force which we have observed and never named a force, clearly consciousness itself is a force which interacts with matter. And we have easily commited the error that consciousness depends on life, but in my opinion it preceeds life as a force of nature. Consciousness is instead a force which interacts with all matter and has excerted its influence upon the Universe since the very begining. There is just something very peculiar about the arrangement of matter, atoms bond together and molecules are formed. Molecules are formed into cells and cells are formed into living things and there is something remarkable about these forms of matter that focus consciousness. But surely it is there before life comes along and focuses it to a point of experience and mind and personality. Therefore we look around the world that we live in and find personalities, clearly our Universe is well populated by personalities. But human life alone is not the measure or the limit these numbers. Many other living creatures should easily be considered to have personalities of thier own. And of course such life may not be limited to Planet Earth; but perhaps we should consider the possibility of personalities associated with objects that we would not consider to be alive! The Earth is both a planet and a living thing and has long been thought to have a personality of its own. Perhaps we should stop and think of the possilbility of a Universe filled with personalities of many different kinds. Every celestial body may well be endowed, but of course if such person's did exist for all this time they have never communicated with us overtly. And a lack of communication is easily consider by us to be sufficient evidence for a lack of consciousness. Living creatures are animated, they have some muscle to move freely according to one driving will. We have never observed the stars of heaven to have any kind of animation like this. But the stars do perform some labor within our Univeres, and even though they might cease to shine they never truely pass away entirely. But in the labor of the stars and thier passings our kind of life becomes a possibility.

3 Billion years from now, our galaxy the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy will begin to merge more directly. If there happens to be a species of intelligent beings resembling Humanity living here on this Earth at that time it would simply be incredible. Homo Sapians is young by Earth standards, and there are few kinds of life that have managed to survive here more or less unchanged for billions of years. Will humanity be the kind of survivors that can go the distance I wonder? At this moment in time it appears that our great intelligence has handicapped our ability to endure in a rapidly changing world. And of course we are still going about the business of killing one another in the most efficient ways possible. Armed conflict is the norm in our world, thats how we solve problems here, the power to destroy is the power that the people have the most respect for. And so long as that continues to be so, the survival of the species is in jeapordy, our extinction is nearly assured by our own behaviours. In fact I can hardly imagine our species surviving for another 3000 years if the status quo is maintained.

I would like to guarentee this world 1000 years of peace, by which i mean that it should be free from armed conflict. Its a tall order for a new king, especially a mortal king who should not be expected to live so long. But I have considered the problem carefully, and i'm a firm believer in there being a solution if not several possible solutions. For this, all the nations of the Earth must be brought an hour of judgement, and it would make neccessary some forceful persuasion. How to capture the people's attention and get it focused on one leader. Perhaps it will be possible for one man to become the popular hero of the general populations of the world, for the first time in human history one man's life may have global reach. Throughout history certain individuals have shown the talent neccessary to rise in authority beyond reason. Perhaps the world, our world of today, may yet be captured by a King.