Unlimited Responsibility - Pt. 2

While I am a kind of priest, it's not in my job description to take confession or offer absolution. However it is in my job description to take responsibility for your personal welfare; and I have to accomplish that without offering you material support. My personal ability is somewhat limited but my desire is less limited; and sometimes just being willing is more important than being able.

Our creators do not gaurentee that life will be easy and free of all hardship; and for the most part humanity Lords over itself. Whatever we may conceive as a higher authority and power, it seems content to let us govern ourselves. But of course none of us creates all conditions, our influence is mostly limited to an ability to make personal decisions. We create most of the world events that we deem to be important as we exercise what power we do have over reality. And we choose what we will or will not believe in, we define our own most fundamental truths in-as-much as we do feel comfortable with our own opinions. If we manage to put food on the table and shelter over our heads with a bed to lie in, that is a measure of success. And while we have enjoyed some successes we take comfort in the idea that our beliefs worked for us, why should we doubt what works? Whatever the nature of reality may turn out to be, we would like for it to make some kind of sense to us. We are all deserving of a Just Universe, but its hard to say exactly why we are deserving. We likely have some very definate ideas about what justice entails, most people agree that punishment should be a part of that equation. Unless the people can be seperated into more or less deserving groups there can be no meaningful justice because clearly we do not all deserve equal favor.

Individually the children of humanity do enjoy more or less favorable positions over the full course of mortal life. If we believe in our own durability and some kind of immortality, why should be believe that our future would be any different? It's good for us to be loved and we should be loved more as we grow and develope into our own personal maturity. IMHO everyone enjoys some capacity to learn from thier own personal experiences; and given unlimited time we are free to progress at a leisurely pace. With imperfect knowledge we must still act in every moment, and whatever we choose to do it's having an effect upon our environments and upon those who share it. I do believe that we would all like to be gaurenteed a personal freedom from molestation, to be isolated from violent deeds that others do. Let no-one impose his or her will upon me, let them not hold me up to their expectations, make no demands upon my time. Ask and then let me decide what to give, let me determine what my personal responsiblity demands of me. No-one else can make up my mind or determine how I should act. No human-being has superior rights, individually or collectively as a group. Still someone will always try to claim superior authority, superior intellect, superior education - people will even go so far as to claim divine insight and direction. The proponents of democracy may believe in some kind of providence, but they will never believe in the divine right of Kings to govern their world.

Who has ever been given instructions? Instead of instructions we get a measure of judgement, that we must exercies and develope to the best of our ability. The people have all been inspired with diverse and sometimes conflicting ideas, but the source of all human inspiration is somthing we share in common, it is a singular source. A few of us have gone so far as to claim that they did have guidance or instructions, but how can we trust the integrity of such claims? Human-beings are quite capable of perpetrating deceptions, even honest men may be self-decieved, our desire can be that strong. A true King is always self-directed and self-employed, he depends only upon a well-developed judgement. As revealed within the tale of Johnathan Livingston Seagull; the pursuit of personal excellence for birds is found within flight, for human-beings it is found within judgement. The most accomplished judge knows that he can not lay claim to superior knowledge for the matter can not be proven. He can only claim to know of events for which he has a direct personal experience. That personal experience would natureally include a great deal of testamony given by our peers. The whole body of testamony must be considered as evidence but often it is only evidence of beliefs being held. When someone says that they have experienced something that testamony must be given more weight. We found these things and we observed these things and we arrived at these conclusions. The physical evidence can never be excluded, it must always be accounted for. The excellent judge must keep asking the question, "What do I know and how do I know it?" He can not decide that an idea is valid based upon it's popularity and he can not make precidents upon decisions that have been made by other men in the past. Whatever has been done or said, cannot be undone. So given the limited power and authority that a single individual may possess, what can be done to change the world and what exactly would make it better for everyone. If we choose to be concerned for the welfare of all people without allowing for exceptions, exactly what outcome would be in everyone's best interests? It must serve the interests of the living and the dead and posterity and as a practical matter it must somehow be achieveable.

I decided a long time ago that the experience of Life on Earth is the very best thing for human-beings to have, and for everyone to enjoy more of that is my definition of the ultimate good. I don't know for certain that such a thing is achieveable but I believe it may fall within a realm of possibilities. It's difficult to rule out the possibility of a general ressurection even though our Universe doesn't seem to allow for any kind of permanence. The state of manifest things is constant change here and it's entirely predictable that our Sun will not last forever. The Earth will not be habitable forever; but in order for the ultimate good to be served as I perceive it, these things must be made to last forever. Clearly there is no Human technology that can moderate the forces which cause the Earth's magnetic field, or renew or Sun's supplies of fuseable Hyrodgen. In order for such things to become possible we have to imagine a superior technology and a superior personality to employ that technology in our behalf. In consideration of my own personal experiences, I'm convinced that such a person and technology do exist within our Universe, able to serve my great cause yet perhaps unwilling. Its hard to imagine how such a person could be convinced to serve a personal plan at the direction of one of us. Perhaps there is some service it requires that only a human-being may provide. Perhaps this is the way our Universe is governed, if we imagine a greater community of intelligent species and for every intelligent species there must always be one great patriarch or matriarch to serve as ambassador. A person who is able to make a durable commitment to be a companion and a peer, co-creator and servant. To do the job, one of us must win this great game of life decisively and overcome mortality in order to live and serve forever, or at least for a very very long time. In order to cover the cost of this great big piece of real-estate and become the Landlord our prospective saviour must be considered creditworthy. While many good people may prefere the salvation that Jesus offered, and prefer him for a King, he shows a preference to those people who should be considered meek. It appears that his version of salvation may be exclusive to true-believers and not all-inclusive. It appears to me that the most fundamental truth of creation that we have uncovered is it's underlying Unity. No amount of distance within the Universe represents meaningful seperation; there is always a relationship between ourselves and absolutely everything else. Now I'm well aware of a few idealistic individuals (and if i don't include myself in that group please forgive me) who believe in something called the Rapture. According to them our wonderful and remarkably strange Universe is meant to be a temporary thing only for the benefit of us human-beings. A true Heaven exists behind the world that we know, and that is the place we are truely meant to live forever, not here on planet Earth. But personally I like the Universe very much, the Earth is still a beautiful world despite human habitation, and perhaps it even has a purpose which does not depend on us. I guess that this is what faith is for.