Democracy Overturned!

Tomorrow's Headlines - Democracy Overturned, World To Be Governed By New Monarchy.

Within this blog I theorize about a powerful male figure assuming authority over the whole world.
This person is somehow able to produce a believable threat of Mass Destruction, without the aide of armies or material weapons. This Righteous King chooses not to defend your current civil rights and dictates that none will have the right to take another human life for any reason, even in self-defense. And if you break this rule he will take a tithe of flesh and bone from you; which he is able to get from any distance.

If it happened tomorrow, how would it make you feel?

Guns Into Plowshares

    If I knew there was something I could do to get all the people to destroy their weapons, I would certainly make the effort. If I could force the world into it, I would do it at the risk of being hated and despised. For all the nations of the world to disband their military forces is a dream which seems impossible. But if the vision of John is truly inspired by some God with a plan for Humanity, it would seem to be a necessary event. So that the millenium of Peace on Earth may commence, and direct our fates onto the path which leads to our resurrection. I expect that there would have to be some clear and present threat to the survival of our species on Planet Earth, in order turn the people onto that path. A Great Tyrant may be needed to do that job, and a person with access to a greater than worldly power. Prepare for peace, not with superior fire-power but with trust in the power of faith and the aide of a higher-power. So many of the world's problems seem to be solvable through violent means, even when the application of violence is more civilly applied. The threat of violence is often enough to curb some human behaviours; but the threat of punishment from a God after we die, has never been very effective. And of course the more worldly threat of incarceration seems ineffective for some people; who might be perceived as victims of a genetic pre-disposition. If we believe that we serve some great and noble cause, even our own life is a sacrifice that we may be willing to make.

   I'm inclined to believe in the durability of the human spirit beyond our mortal ends, and believe in an enduring accountability. Yet I have considered the possibility that God's unconditional love is so great, that it has the power to eliminate all accountability. I think we do not need to be forgiven by God so much as we need to be forgiven by other individual person's who exercise an independent judgement. And of course we need to be able to live with ourselves; thousands of years into the future can we look back upon the things that we've done in mortal life without regrets, or at least with the ability to say that "We did not know better." Who among us would be willing to live forever with an accountability to torment us indefinitely; knowing that it would somehow serve a great and noble cause? It's easy for us to give up our lives, hard to give up our happiness or the desire for happiness. According to the founding fathers of the U.S. Constitution, everyone enjoys a God given right to pursue happiness, but should we obtain that at the expense and suffering of others? I don't think that anyone deserves to be punished, instead I think that some people should be favored more or less. God certainly hasn't guaranteed us equal opportunities in life, or equal favor in terms of endowed intelligence or the circumstances of our nativity. Perhaps God does guarantee our happiness in the long-run of forever, so long as he's willing to grant us the strength to endure that long. I think it's within the realm of possibility that God does love some people more or less than others. But in the long run of forever we may take turns at being most loved, there is a time and a place where each of us would take a turn at being in authority. The world is very good to those people who get to make the rules, and define their own terms and conditions, of course we will chose the conditions which are most favorable to ourselves. If we can command a fee for our life's work and then demand compensation from everyone, we could take our turn at being wealthy too.

    A Treasure of great and true value lies buried within this land; and within all the land, but who among us can possess all the land in order to claim that treasure? The man that can overcome his own mortality will claim it, is he a person of faith or material wealth? How can faith empower one man to produce a believable threat to the survival of his species on Planet Earth? What Righteousness is equal to the Strength to destroy the Earth, and thereby deprive the people of all their precious works? Only such arguments as these may persuade and justify that there is any value in "meekness" over the idea that strength and numbers will overcome all obstacles. Individually and collectively, human-beings exercise a power to influence reality. But is there yet one or more person's of even greater power within the Universe, with a will to aide one or all of us? In order to make the Earth and Sun last forever there would have to be an application of technologies beyond our ken. And if the Earth can't be made to last forever, where would our resurrected live? The nature of that wonderful treasure must be the human-experience itself, to have it all without exception. Because the true nature of wealth is all about personal experience, to have more and varied experiences makes us truly wealthy. Can we choose that for ourselves, or must we be chosen by someone else, a person of supreme authority perhaps? And if we can choose for ourselves; does it sound desirable, to experience all of Human suffering? It would seem that the Human brain doesn't even have the capacity to hold such a wealth of memories. If it were even possible for one of us to claim such a prize, our Ancient of Days would be produced as the result, our great patriarch, father of us all.

   But is it something we need, a patriarch and a resurrection? Or can we exist without flesh and bone? Perhaps the Universe holds greater opportunities in store for us than everlasting life as a human-being. Perhaps the vision of a resurrection is false and not God's plan, our friend John was merely a hopeful dreamer inspired by a story of a resurrected saviour. A story which itself may be untrue; hard to imagine a person ascending bodily into the Heavens, where would they be living if not here on Earth? Every male child must have a biological father, but where is the father of our saviour Jesus? Is he somewhere else or yet to come in due course of time? Is he also to be a born person among us, like the son? Or are all of those religious ideas nonsense? They inspire good feelings in us so we desire it to be truth so choose to trust the authority of our Gospel Storytellers and our modern day religious teachers. But can we trust our faith to all those things that inspire good feelings in us? Should we believe that our inspiration comes from sources external as an offer of guidance? Simply experiencing strong and good feelings about an idea may not be good enough to help us discern true and noble principles. As most Americans experience strong feelings about their right to defend themselves with firearms, taking a life may be justified if our own life is at risk they argue. Is that a true principle, is there truly a case where murder becomes justifiable? Peace on Earth is bound to make some people unhappy as they lose some authority that physical strength grants them. When men become unable to subdue one another by forceful means, how can the world be governed by such meekness as this? Is "Swords into Plowshares" a story that we can truly live with, or do genetic pre-dispositions guarantee continued conflict and division among us? Perhaps it's beyond anyone's ability to change human behavior to such an extent that meekness defines us more so than violence, neither God or Man can accomplish such a thing as this. Historical events have pretty much proven the matter, human rationality or divine authority has not the power to unite us. Extinction surly becomes inevitable and there can be no hope for more life in a resurrection. I would prefer to be able to write a more hopeful story, but my observations in life have made me cynical.

In My Humble Opinion

As Human Beings, we share a few common beginnings and a few endings as well, such things bind us together despite ideological or physical differences. As manifest persons within a manifest Universe, we exist in relationship to absolutely everything else. Surly there is a connection between ourselves and every other human being that has ever lived. The relationship is very real and personal, weather or not we choose to acknowledge it or desire. Every single one of us has been given the gift of judgement, in lieu of perfect knowledge. We each exercise some limited power to create the world around us, and to create the world as it lives within our beliefs. We practice judgement upon one another, and within many other facets of our lives where decisions are being made. Countless decisions are being made every day, and for most of these decisions we seem to have little to no influence. I can not make up your mind, I can at best offer up a few arguments, but I have not the authority to demand your attention. Such are our innate limitations, we have not the capacity of perception to be aware of everything that goes on. Even in our immediate environment there is much which passes beneath our notice, but is none-the-less a relevant part of our reality. Life is work 24/7, although much of it is unpaid work. Even while you sit at the PC and read, or play a game, work is being done. If your heart muscle fails to work, you will die my friend, so clearly you are doing some work even if we do it unconsciously. The simple act of putting food into our mouths and chewing is labor intensive, although if we did not make the food ready-to-eat ourselves, much of that work was done by someone else. And even though we believe that most of the people who have worked to make our meals convenient have been rewarded for their effort, we still owe them a bit of gratitude which can not be valued in terms of money. We should at the very least, grant some recognition to all those people who contributed some labor to make our lives more comfortable. Although in practice some people are rewarded too much and others not enough.

As individual persons, I think that we do not have the power to choose to exist in an unconscious state indefinitely. Therefore we do not have the power to choose our own end, nor can we choose an end for someone else. Although surely we will all suffer a mortal end, perhaps there is some truth in believing that another kind of life begins. And there is a measure of manifestation, which remains entirely invisible to us, and for the most part undetectable by even the most sensitive scientific instruments. Perhaps we do continue to manifest within the universe in some way long after our physical remains dissolve into dust. Such beliefs lend themselves well to optimism, I don't think it harms us in any way to believe in our own durability. However it is perfectly clear that the Earth and Sun were not made to last forever, even if we hope for the possibility of a resurrection to everlasting life. Some stars have already passed away, and we depend on that passing, we are formed of the remnants. The solid Earth could not be born without those prior deaths, but the end comes gracefully to the substance of creation which continues to take on new forms. All of that physical stuff that we know as our own flesh and bone, has been here as a part of the Earth since the Earth was formed. As I have said, we share a few beginnings in common, evidently even the Universe itself is a born thing and that is one thing. We are nothing more than potential until the moment that we are realized within creation, but the possibility of us is still something which we consider to be very important. We think our role as observers is the thing which grants purpose to everything else. I don't think its wrong to believe in our own importance, it's even good for us; but as we begin to think of ourselves as more or less important we begin to err. The smallest events are still a significant part of the greater whole, without that small part the whole would be incomplete. As self-aware creatures we often give some consideration to what we or others deserve, although what Humanity deserves altogether could as easily be defined by the least fortunate of us. In some way our fate has been bound together by a common heritage, in a way that defies all possibility of separation.

In mortal life we experience varying degrees of separation, and many perceive that they are separate from God's presence. Often this is because the person thinks of God as a physical person much like one of us, and clearly there is no such person present upon the face of the Earth. I think that there may very well be one great creator and/or physical person who is God-like to us within the Universe. We ourselves are creators in some way, but we do not believe that we are Gods. I think that there can never be more than one, upon which we all depend. Dogs and cats may worship us, but having the prayers of many followers has no power to elevate us to Godhood. For all that we are or can become, we can never become like God, God is unique. Perhaps even the great creator of heaven is an individual person who depends upon God in the same way that we depend upon God. Perhaps we have a multitude of peers and companions within the Universe, of whom we are not aware. Some with more or less power, more or less knowledge, more or less authority, and some very much unlike human beings. But for a few notable exceptions, such persons seem uninterested in conversing with us. To the best of my own knowledge, no such person has ever offered to guide and govern our species, we have been left to govern ourselves.

For my own gratification, I know that I am loved, in this I believe myself victorious. I think it is enough to know that I have been loved, I do not need to be sure of anything else. In due course of time, perhaps we will gain the capacity and opportunity to learn the fullness of truth. Any decision that I make today, I might make differently in the future from a more knowledgeable perspective. Or we might always be subject to some kind of limitations which prevent us from gaining perfect knowledge, we have to make the best of the personal experience that we have today. If i choose to trust or doubt the authority of another human being today, perhaps I will gain a vantage to view the matter more clearly. I have been taught or learned of many beliefs and quite often these things seem to conflict with one another. Our most noble ideals seem to conflict with actual human behaviour, but perhaps there is some way even ignoble deeds may be justified. I humbly submit that our world is a perfect place just the way that it is, if only we could be aware of every condition we would see it. But who says that it's not possible to improve upon perfection? In a popular song by the Talking Heads, David Byrne sings that, "Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens." I say that we are citizens of the Universe and citizens of Heaven today, and this is not a place where nothing ever happens.
I think that God's Kingdom must be characterized by Unity and Inclusiveness. None that have lived may ever be forsaken by God, God must sustain us because that is God's purpose. It's not God's intent to punish or judge, and no one can ever be removed from God's presence. To the best of my understanding, God is present everywhere within the Universe, and everywhere upon, within and above the Earth. We could not experience the gift of consciousness if it wasn't so, we are entirely dependent and we always will be. I have said that we share a few things in common which bind us together forever and ever, this is what I believe about us and our place within creation. If you are not at peace in the moment, just wait for it, it's on the way.

The Final Argument of Christ

Jesus believed that the cause of all of the bad behavior among the children of humanity could be attributed to a lack of knowledge. The person who acts in unrighteousness simply didn't know better. He used this argument in defense of the people who were having him executed, and by extension it can be applied to everyone else. On the basis of this argument he pleads with God the Father to pardon humanity from punishment, in his success he breaks the chains of death which bind us allowing for the possibility of a resurrection.

I believe that the final argument of our Lord may be incorrect; knowledge is not the main problem but the limitations of our biology play a greater role. In modern times we have found that some individuals may be genetically predisposed to violent acts. Our emotional lives are based largely upon a chemistry which we can not control directly through rational thought. And well educated persons with fairly superior rational minds are perfectly capable of justifying murder under certain conditions. Whether we call that murder, "Capital Punishment," or "The assassination of a political enemy," makes little to no difference. One act of violence can never be reconciled by another act of violence, violence can not be the solution to violence. In some, perhaps extreme cases, the rational mind is able to justify genocide. We may not all agree with the reasoning, but there is still a bit of reasoning involved in much of our bad behavior. Most of us don't believe that murder is justifiable in every case, but if we were able to consider all the contributing conditions perhaps it would be justifiable in every case. We can only hope that this is the nature of the truth, in modern times knowledge is more easily available to all people. We may have heard very good arguments from many of those people who we choose to have for our personal hero's in life. And of course we all believe in some kind of noble cause, which can justify a great deal. Personally I feel that a great deal of human behavior will be justified simply by saying that we felt very angry at the time, for all of the control we have over such feelings while they are in control of us.

If the final argument of Christ turns out to be invalid, I don't believe it will affect our ultimate destiny by much. I never believed in an Angry and Wrathful God; some of the natural events which are very destructive to life and property may very well be necessary for life to exist on a planet of any description. I would never believe in a God that commands one of us to take the life of another either; the person who hears such a voice is suffering from a bit of insanity and that is all. Every child of humanity comes into manifestation to experience life and universe from a unique perspective and set of conditions. Every child of humanity is rewarded in exactly the same way, with a mortal end and whatever comes after. Perhaps God's unconditional love will be enough to eliminate all accountability, wipe out our every grudge, and justify any hardship that we had to suffer. Perhaps there will never be a return to immortal life on Planet Earth for us, perhaps the truth is something completely different. And if it turns out to be something that we never expected, we can only hope that it's still something good for us. I for one choose to trust the God that I believe in, I know that I have been loved, and I think that I will continue to have a place within the durable Universe well beyond my own mortal end.

God's Guaranty

   Among all of our God given rights; the one which stands out most clearly to me is, "The Right to Have Peers and Companions." Most of us would like to believe that we should also have the right to choose between individuals, and exercise discrimination. But the evidence suggests that God does not guaranty such a right to anyone.

Now I am a firm believer in Eternity and the Durability of the Human Spirit; time is the one thing that we all have in unlimited abundance. Over the course of a mortal life-time there seems to be countless opportunity costs in the way we spend our time. If we truly believe that we have a place in forever, can we believe also in lost opportunities? Clearly we have not all enjoyed equal opportunities in life, but in due course of time perhaps we will still benefit from the fulfillment of all opportunities. It seems possible that some people are better loved, but perhaps we all take turns at being most loved. No matter how many, or the quality of our achievements in life, there will always be something left for us to accomplish. It's one thing to set goals for ourselves, and something else to set a schedule for accomplishing those goals. We could survive in greater happiness with fewer deadlines I think. But of course we are greatly inter-dependent, and our mortal survival depends on a great deal of work. Some jobs depend on other jobs being completed first, there's an order of progress. By living and working in the Universe, we create a higher degree of order within the Universe  We organize our world in the best way to maximize Human Comfort, although we are most interested in our own comfort. And we have succeeded at improving upon perfection, life is better for people in general today than it was thousands of years in the past. It's amazing how much our world has changed in just the past 300 or so years, and that's not a very long time in the life of our species to date.

A Letter To My Son

Dear Colin,

At the time that your mother and I were breaking up, I was having a lot more problems with my medical condition than I do today. After your mother took you to your uncle's house to live, things got a whole lot worse for me for a while. If you think that you have suffered because you didn't have a dad growing up, you were not suffering alone all that time. It might not make you feel any better about yourself; If I say that some people have had much harder lives, but I can promise you that you are loved and that should make a difference. Some of us never had the opportunity to know one or both of their parents for one reason or another, but it shouldn't prevent them from finding their own happiness and success. If you understood how much God loves us, I know that it would make all the difference in the world, knowing this has made a difference for me. We may not get to live here on Planet Earth forever, but I believe in the durability of the human spirit. I believe that it's God's will for us, simply to make us survive and endure forever; but of course he never has guaranteed that all of our experiences in life would be pleasant. If modern science has taught us one thing of value about the Universe that we live in, it would be that there is a whole lot more to manifestation than we can perceive. The mysterious hidden stuff of creation is as much a part of us as this flesh and bone of which we are so familiar, it's a proven fact. I think that we will both survive long enough to spend countless more hours together in conversation and in work and in leisure. Sometimes we have to wait for our happiness, often it seems to depend on what other people do or think of us, but mostly it depends on our own opinions. Knowing that we are and have been loved, and that our time is unlimited can make us very stoic. It's a solid foundation for us to stand on and face whatever we need to face, and to defy other people's opinions. In the long run, the truth is whatever it is despite how we believe it to be. Reality can not be bent out of shape just to better suit our desires. And we are a part of that reality forever and ever, we have a place here and now and this Universe has a way of remembering itself, of course that includes a memory of all of us. I hope that we can continue to learn and grow together, if God guarantees us nothing else, he guarantees that we will always have peers and companions no matter where we go. We are never truly alone, the vast distances that separate the stars from one-another is meaningless because Unity is fundamental to everything. There has been 14 billion or so human beings that have ever lived here in the World, and we will be able to find a few good friends among them. Each of us is a citizen in God's Kingdom today, no person place or thing exists in separation and In the Great Game of Life, everyone who plays is a winner, including you!

Let Peace Be Established!

Clearly we can be unequal in many different ways; but our rank in the Great Game of Life matters less than the fact that we we're players. Try stroking your Ego with that bit of wisdom; it's a way-point on the path to becoming a peer. No one can say that I didn't have a life, and the people who try to say such things will never offend me. No matter what or how many accomplishments we have in life, none of that can make one of us more important. It's an error of judgement to disparage those less skilled or less knowledgeable than ourselves. Due to the limitations of our biological condition, we all lack some knowledge, and no one can claim differently with any authority.

Is there one person in the whole Universe that can grant us all the knowledge that we lack? Perhaps we all are destined to obtain such things beyond our mortal ends. Having all the experiences of every life lived, we must be forced to change, becoming something other than we are today. To embody the personality and character of an Ancient of Days, but to remain uniquely individual, separate, and self-willed. We we're all born with the gift of judgement and some applied that gift well. Some of us made a career out of it and managed to earn a living; but we don't need to be professionals to apply the gift. And we don't need a great following of supporters to agree with our opinions, in order to form an opinion. So many of the people that we meet in life are ready to tell us what we should believe in, and what we should disbelieve. We don't need to create ideas on our own, many ideas will be offered to us. How much trust and faith should we place into the fundamental beliefs which tell us that we are unequal? Our rights can neither be superior nor inferior to the rights of another single individual. Individual rights can not be diminished by the rights of a group of individuals. Our true rights, whatever they may be, can never be suspended and are not well defined by any constitutional document. We can however be deprived of life and our place in the World. Our freedom of travel is constrained by natural boundaries and can be further limited by artificial boundaries; many of us have been incarcerated within small spaces. Although some of our fellow human beings have presumed to have the  authority to impose limits upon us, none has ever had the authority to isolate one of us from the Universe as a whole. When one of us has been put to death for any reason, they have not been punished by passing away from the World. The Human will to do violence may serve as motivation for the living, but it has no power over the dead. I do not believe that there is a God who will judge and punish one of us for any reason. To best of my understanding, God's will for us is to grant the strength to endure all things, even though we may not endure in life. We may very well have a definite beginning; but the future stretches out endlessly, now that we have become part of it we can never cease to be a part of it. There is the whole of history, and there is our story. We belong to it, and it belongs to us. I trust in something greater than myself and greater than humanity. I see a Unity that defies our ability to divide and classify the world around us, and a Unity for which great distances pose no obstacle. I see that the children of humanity share many common beginnings, our Universe has realized the potential to become many different things from a single common origin. We guide the Universe to the best of our ability, and there are persons of greater or lesser ability who also guide. We can very easily make the observation that there is more than one of us, and more than one living thing. We are not alone, there is a great multitude of persons with us, and it is good. All the processes of work are ongoing, and we don't have to do all the work that gets done, neither do we get to make every decision. We may choose some things, but not everything can be made subject to our choice.

No one, by making choices, has ever been able to overcome their own mortality to the best of my knowledge. Even Christ suffered a mortal end, and if he had the power to avoid it, he chose not to use that power. In fact it looks as if he walked right into the situation with a full understanding of what the consequences would be; and evidently, he didn't manage to do this without some feelings of anxiety. Many of us have chosen death in the belief that it served some noble cause, or in the belief that we would be rewarded for making the sacrifice. Some of us chose to risk our own lives, in the hope of saving one life. Of course many of us have also chosen to kill in the defense of our own lives, or the lives of others, or for some noble cause. If we had the ability to choose everlasting life in the belief that it served a noble cause; how many would make that choice knowing that they would be rewarded with a life of torment? Our friend John, the popular prophet, in his vision of Revelations describes such a reward for one of us. The person who would be so rewarded is made out to be a great villain and deceiver, far from being a herald of our salvation, this person is considered to be the anti-thesis of everything that Christ stood for. But if God really does have a plan for humanity, to bring about a general resurrection, should we consider this individual to be a necessary condition? If we believe in a divine origin for this prophecy, then we must consider it a true prediction of future events, although it's not very clear what these events amount to exactly. One prediction stands out for me with crystal clarity, and that is the Millenium of Peace on Planet Earth. From my own point of view this can only mean a world free of armed conflict; and that's a very hard thing to hope for considering the status-quo. It's hard to imagine any series of events that would cause the nations of the world to disarm themselves; I think that there would have to be a very persuasive argument for doing it. For the citizens of these United States, who exert a great deal of influence over the rest of the world, disarmament would represent an immense sacrifice of power and the loss of some very expensive assets. I can not see the American people choosing to do it, unless they're forced into it by some means. Is it possible that the issue can be forced by a single individual? If we can imagine an individual with the power to summon up the clear and present danger of overwhelming force, that's just about the only thing that several nations of the world would respect. And what manner of technological innovation would make it possible, what can one man do to render all our technology of arms and warfare obsolete? Evidently, and according to the words of Christ, the technology of faith can empower a man to move literal mountains. Perhaps it is even something that one of us can achieve independently through a personal effort, although its hard to imagine what qualities a person would need to achieve it, it's never been achieved before. Although it's believed that Jesus himself had this kind of power, he chose not to apply it in an effort to govern the world. One person must obtain the same power and apply it, whatever the personal consequences may be for that individual, in order to fulfill the prophecy.

Therefor I have predicted that our world will be governed by a King one day, and perhaps a great Tyrant, the world is not undeserving of a tyrant IMHO. All the nations of the Earth will be united and governed by a single individual. As the proponents of democracy that we are in America, we don't believe in the divine right of King's to govern us, we would never willingly pay homage to a King. If one person can bring overwhelming force to bare against the entire world, we must consider that strength as righteousness, and equal to divine right. In order to make a choice, one must have options to choose from. A great world leader would have the ability to limit those options, until only one choice remains. The Survival of our Species versus Extinction; if there we're clearly one and only one path to survival then I believe that the people would choose that path willingly. And what could one man gain, if by winning the world, he lost his soul in the process? Evidently a great deal of material wealth, the true King would be our Landlord and exercise all rights to real-estate and the world's natural resources. For a career I suspect that the King Job pays very well, and it is a job that's waiting for someone to fill the position. I guess that I could admit that I've applied myself for the position, and I'm waiting to see if my bid will be accepted. If I fail to get the job, I would probably be better off as just another child of humanity anyways. But I still believe that there will be someone with the right qualifications, and I'd be happy to see someone else do the job so long as it gets done. Perhaps that individual is already alive in the world today; much like everyone else, I don't like waiting for something good to happen. And I pray to the God of my beliefs, "Let peace be established!"

Of course many Christian thinkers believe that a resurrected Jesus will return to the Earth and be "The King of  Peace." But I don't believe that Jesus is the right man to do all the hard work. He may have been a King in his day, but he is one King among many and there is yet a King of all Kings above him I believe. The worldly estate of our Savior was never very large, and he labored to guarantee the immortality of the human spirit, so that we all may survive our mortal ends. If you want to have a physical body and more life on planet Earth, I believe it would require a different savior and another plan of salvation.