Jungle Law vs Human Law

Quote:
The lowest class of human, the poorest if you will, out numbers the wealthy and the powerful in vast numbers.
These poorest do not use social conformity to help themselves, instead they rely on the whims of the wealthy to direct them. Abused and tromped upon the lower classes accept abuse like it is a right and a duty. So why should anyone want to help the adults? They make their choices, they allow their sentient mind to be controlled by others. They must be held responsible for their choices. They educate their children to be irresponsible for their choices. So would not the human race be far superior if we as a species did not accept responsibility for these healthy sentient adults.


I don't want to be a wet blanket and put the fire out. But I have to disagree with the premise of this whole argument. It conforms with jungle law but not human law. I would suggest that the richest and most powerful are the greediest - the most insecure. In human law the strong help the weak to get stronger, not the other way around. In that way the weak get strong and the strong get stronger. We began helping each other from the Stone Age onwards and as a result have gone from strength to strength via cooperating on laws higher than nature.

Quote:
These poorest do not use social conformity to help themselves, instead they rely on the whims of the wealthy to direct them.

Up to a point. When the abuse gets totally out of hand "let them eat cake" the poor revolt and heads roll.

Quote:
Abused and tromped upon the lower classes accept abuse like it is a right and a duty.

It never begins that way. When people rise to power they do so with the support of the poor, in the hope that things will improve for all when the new power structure is in place. And so it goes for a while. Everybody conforms and gets into the groove.
Then as power corrupts, as it inevitably does, the poor are trapped in the groove they helped create. And they remain trapped there until it becomes unbearable and the revolutionary cycle starts all over again.

The current economic collapse is a classic example of finding the majority trapped in a place they cannot get out of. It is more than likely that we are at the end of an Era capitalist domination. The recession might deepen into a depression - and this time it may not bottom out. In the meantime, you and I are helpless to do anything about it - until such time as our children are starving - and then it is revolution time again

All the above being true, and the lessons of history never learned, it would seem then that the strongest are mentally the most naive.

More anti-Nietzshe

My argument against all modern philosophers who disdain man's belief in a larger consciousness is that none of them did their homework. Religion has never been an "opiate". There has never been a time in the whole of our evolution when mankind did not have an intuitive sense of an under-lying universal force governing the ethical laws of cause and effect.

It was present as Animism throughout the 99,000 generations of the Stone Age.
It was present as Shamanism throughout the 600 generations of the Bronze Age
It was present as Scriptural Orthodoxy throughout the 160 generations of the Iron Age.

Subsequent religious Protest, beginning more or less with Aristotle, is simply a reaction to the gradual corruption of religious administration and its dogmatic attitude that refused to accommodate further scientif9ic investigations as to the meaning of existence..

What was not recognized by any of our so-called "big philosophers" whether they chose to be dead to their intuitions or not, is the enormous debt we all owe to our vast spiritual heritage. Not one of those developmental Ages would have progressed in a social context without a corresponding ethical governor. The eventual invention of scripture trying to define God via the written word was not only crucial to national cohesion and administration, it was also vital in the development of conscientious craftsmanship and a marked evolution of intellectual development .

Generations of painstaking learning the mechanics of grammar and syntax was the exact lesson required to organize human though into abstract thinking. If it was not for those thousands of unsung catholic missionaries and scribes who civilized the tribes, Nietzsche and his like would still be running around in bear skins.

IMO all our modern philosophers are dwarfs in comparison to the ancients who intuited and wrote our Scriptures. Nietzsche is simply a rebellious teenager. No brighter than I was as an atheistic teenager.

Definitions of Pseudo-Intellectual Phlosophers

1. Those who cannot make a simple common sense determination on what is good or bad without engaging in a convoluted argument over moral relativism.

2. Those who believe that they can determine the state of being by sitting in an armchair and never engaging the body in any form of ordeal that would cause physical discomfort.

3 Those who's life experience is obtained from books and have never suffered extreme pain and/or profound loss.

4. Those who life experience is obtained from books and have never experienced extreme ecstasy and/or profound peace

5. Those who are waiting for somebody else to prove that there is a Supreme Consciousness and have never investigated it for themselves.

7. Those who have already determined that a Supreme Consciousness does not exist

8. Those who think our ancestors where foolish for believing in ancient theological arguments that have served mankind for 6000 years and more

9. Those who do not realize that subsequent philosophical arguments over the nature of being are stumbling attempts to rehash what is already classic.

10. Those who take the above definitions as personal insults to their intelligence.

Eco-Building

Most areas in the world have cave systems that can be used for living in. It is not more expensive then building a regular community. The technology and equipments already exist. To build underground there is a simple way to do that, use rammed earth technology, it is based upon Adobe but, far stronger. Check it out on the net. Rammed earth homes underground where there are no suitable caves is something your group may wish to investigate. There are variations depending upon the earth that surrounds you.

The idea of mankind re-inhabiting caves is far too backward thinking for me, no matter ecologically sound that might be. We have other ideas.

Our 40 acre property is situated in the middle of a dry lake bed. The silt pack is 80 foot deep. One of our future programs is to excavate ten acres or so down to that depth and cover the top with translucent fiber glass geodesic dome. Apartments will be carved out of the 80 foot cliff faces with boulevards and garden spaces in between each section. All sewerage will be pumped to surface reservoirs for purification and recycling. The finished complex will create multi-level earth insulated accommodation and recreation for a large community, possibly an old age center, complete with its own medical facilities. Our building costs are projected to be 1% (yes ONE) of what it would cost in a city. Energy consumption will be one third that of a surface complex.

The recovered adobe will fire enough bricks to build a circular chimney city, 5000 feet high, one mile in circumference, employing atmospheric thermal energy technology (ATEC) to generate electricity and condense water vapor for consumption. It will accommodate forested parks, streams, waterfalls and tree-lined boulevards. Every penthouse home with its own greenhouse orchard and garden. (Definitely not to be seen in my life-time - but on the drawing boards anyway and good future focus for the kids. Oh yes, did I tell you that I was a megalomaniac?)

Regarding: ILovePhilosophy.com

I am the member of the above philosophical forum.
In some instances I have used questions asked of me in that forum in order to help explain posts that I make on this blog. It is only fair that I let you know who they are.

Bush's Legacy

Okay, but why is a mass change of consciousness inevitable?
It is my conviction that the evolution of human consciousness is an on-going event.

What present factors determine this?

Everything in our present behavior underlines our immaturity. Promiscuity, divorce, gambling with the market, fast cars, fast women, playing nuclear roulette. It goes go on and on. It is inevitable that we will and must grow up and achieve a more responsible attitude of adulthood.

How do they interrelate?

Some 200 million westerners HAVE grown up. They are no longer anchored on narrow national aims and religious bigotry. They are responsible parents. They are ontologists, globalists - looking down the road for a more sustainable human contract.

How can the poorest of us (in the entire world) get any poorer? They are subsistence, now.


The very poorest on the planet are already starving to death. The advanced nations are now on the line. Unemployment is projected by some economists to reach 15%. Under-employment will go over 30%.

10% verges on system collapse and we are almost there right now. The drain on everybody is exponential. We already have entire communities in the US who are at 25% unemployed. As all those millions of unemployed families start drawing on the system, for food, heath, shelter as they loose their homes and cars etc., the economic sunami will sweep over all of us. City economies are already failing. So are State economies. More and more thousands are joining the ranks of the needy every day. What is to stop it?

Even if Obama injects a one trillion dollar stimulus package each year over the next four years, all it will do is hold off the inevitable. The stark evolutionary fact is that capitalism has reached as far as it can go. It is at the end of its era of usefulness. It functioned very well in the era of nation building in an untapped New World milieu that fed itsef and the Old World. Those easy resources are now used up. Capitalism has no place in a global milieu. You cannot extract the necessary profits in order to sustain that ideology indefinitely. Just as we could not sustain a farm-based economy as our population exploded, so too can we not now sustain capitalist exploitation. We have to move to our next stage of evolutionary development. It has to be based on sustainable planet management. The New Age ethic is global stewardship - custodianship, not ownership and the vast waste of bureaucratic management, policing and armies that is required to sustain its artificial legality.

Our entire economic system is artificial. There is no real need for us to be in this dire situation. We have the brains, technology, resources, the need and tens of millions looking for and willing to work to affect a mass change of direction - but not the will. Our minds remain indoctrinated with the ideology that only money can change things. When in fact it is now the artificial barrier that is holding back everything. We have to train and focus our children in a new way

Not sure how one gets 10% as the number before the system collapses.

The US labor force is currently 138.5 million workers.
14 million workers and their dependent families out of work represents roughly one third of the population, needing food, shelter, health. No economic system can sustain that. The effect is two-fold. It does not benefit from their earnings and has to dip into its own reserves to keep them alive.
13% unemployed takes us over the edge. It is full system collapse

As an amateur economist, I know that
we have gone through 10% unemployment before.

Not for long and not with a population the size we have now.

Unemployment is not an leading indicator, it is a trailing indicator,
it tells us where we have been, not where we are or where we are going.

I does not matter how you want to look at it. We are dead in the water anyway.n.

Here is how I think recovery could happen.

In the second year of his presidency Obama will see that trillion dollar stimulus packages to not work.He will then have to completely ignore all concerns about deficits and go beyond just keeping the wolf from the door. It is possible at that stage, with enough people suffering, for him to declare an all-out sustainable war on poverty. He will get the Okay to go the whole hog. Print enough money to ensure 100% employment and put the entire country to work for the next decade in a complete make-over of the infrastructure and the way we do business.

The net worth of American assets is in the thousands of trillions of dollars. So borrowing hundreds of trillions on improvements to those assets will have a positive affect on the global economy and get everybody else doing the same thing. :QED

I AM SEPARATE

Ego is a concept of a separate self hovering above Nature.
Ego is a phantom. A ghost haunting within
In order for Ego to manifest in consciousness there has to be an observer and the observed
Within the individual consciousness this sense of duality is created by an internal communication between the analytical and intuitive halves of the brain.
The personality is thus split in two
In essence these two halves represent the masculine and feminine halves of the psyche.
The objective of the communication is resolution
If no resolution is reached the persona cannot act.
Stalled action leads to schizophrenia and hysteria
In order for action to take place one side or the other must dominate
Intuitive domination leads to increased depths of internal inquiries
Analytical domination leads to external inquiry
Survival imperatives favor analytical domination
Ego is therefore predominantly calculating

It is the arise of a calculating ego two and half millions years ago, leavened by intuitive precautions regarding ethical trespass, which has driven the evolution of human consciousness through four increasingly complex Ages of social. spiritual and technological development.

Ego - Vanity of Vanities

In the beginning there was ego
and vanity was everything. Eccl. 1.2

Ego manifested
from that magical moment
when the first hominid saw himself
as a separate reflective entity

Sharing then took on
a super-natural dimension
that went far beyond
the natural reflex

Ego saw itself
as the Great Provider
and enjoyed power through dividing
and sharing the hunt

So it was through vanity
that Man lifted himself
above all other creatures
and saw the Face of God

Moral Foundations

For the Psyche Genetic theory to hold true the following ethical structures have to be accepted as the foundation upon which all other moral adoptions are predicated.

Sharing
Work
Courage
Loving and caring
Conscientious craftsmanship
Creativity
Intellectual appreciation

Each of those primary behavioral ethics took two and a half million years of graduated conscious development in order to form the basic human character. They define our intelligence. They are an intrinsic part of our DNA. Without those behavioral imprints we would be faced with the impossible task of trying to civilizing a chimpanzee with every new born. Any moral precept adopted beyond that is relatively superficial.


Absolutism rejects both the classic and hierarchical view - it says that only one moral perspective/belief can be valid leaving no validity to uphold any other perspective/belief. That's too extreme a view for me. I don't think we can say that if one system of ethics works for everyone on the whole that no other system could possibly have any level of validity to it.


If the base ethics established during our rise of consciousness is accepted as immutable, I agree with you as regards further moral adoptions. Consciousness evolves basically under the same laws of natural selection that the physical does. Environmental imperatives were and will always be the underlying dynamic that forces us to choose behavioral ethics that will continue our evolution.

Vegetarianism is a case in point. It may well be that meat eating and the slaughter of billions of animals is seen by all of us in the future as a gross violation of base ethics and ultimately damaging to the collective psyche. The environment itself may well force us to stop it before we decide to.

As our evolution advances any new moral adoptions that clearly benefit the on-going development of the collective psyche will then add to the base.

In the mean time viva la difference.

Ode to Goodness

It is oft repeat
on philosophical forums
that one man's good
is another man's evil
With all due respect
to moral relativism
I can never abide
such pseudo-intellectualism

I have traveled the world
and visited many a regency
and wherever I have gone
I have found a font
of human decency
of kindness and care
and courage to dare
of love and vision
and intellectual precision

So I say phooey!
to all that hooey.

Parental Guidance

Do you have a publication or post on how you raised your children and how you believe others should raise their children MM?

I am interested to hear it, since I have not yet figured out how I would want my own children to be institutionalized (



There is no need for a book on how to educate your children yourself. That knowledge is innate. All you have to do is learn how to access that buried information. My particular child education argument is that our school system, which concentrates 90% of the time on our analytical potentials and almost none on our intuitive capabilities, has systematically blocked us from accessing our full creative potential.

My entire drift on this thread is an attempt to show how vitally important the Stone Age and the Bronze Age were in the development of human intelligence. Our ignorance of the important ethical and practical training that took place in both of those preliterate eras of human development is chronically affecting modern education methods. We are systematically indoctrinating our kids by stuffing their heads with technical with data, most of it unusable - like robots - and in that process we are screening them off from their natural creative originality. Those who can memorize and recall most of the data are deemed the most intelligent. If you dropped the average Phd off in the bush, they would have less survival smarts than a baboon. So what are we trying to achieve in our education system? Turn our specie into walking computers, ready to nuke their neighjbors?

A start date of 2.5 million years and an average generation span of 25 years allows us to all realize just how much time was invested in those two formative Ages. 100,000 generations in all. Scripture only became necessary for human development 240 generations ago - 99,760 generations after we first became conscious of ourselves.

During that period we learned how to share and appreciate family values. By setting traps, learning the torque of a snare. making poisons, shooting and learning the arc of arrows and the tension of the bowstring, throwing and learning the force of spears, making clothes, cooking food, learning natural herbal remedies -- I can go on and on .. we laid the foundations of our basic engineering and math capabilities - our doctoring skills - our intuitive knowledge of nature and how best to domesticate her.

Most importantly we remained naively intimate about the Natural law of non-trespass across territorial boundaries and took that intuitive relationship to a sophisticated level far higher than all other animals. Our superior intelligence inquired into the lessons of pain, into the luck of the hunt, into fortune and misfortune. In this way we became intimate with the higher Laws of Cause and Effect. We learned to step very carefully and treat each other respectfully and we taught our children the same. In this way children became self-policed and attentive at a very early age.

The modern parent needs to access all this ancient memory. The child does not have to be drilled inside a classroom. The scientific engineering genius is already there. Our job as parents is a process of caring, encouraging and reminding - of creating the best conditions for our child to access its own latent self-policed genius. We do not need a teaching degree to that. We just need to be caring parents.

The Road Ahead

We have evolved the technology to multiply our populations far beyond what the environment can naturally support. Now all we have to learn is how to do that without creating so much pollution. We have the brains and technology to do that. We are brainy enough to occupy less and less space even as our numbers increase.

We are extensions of nature. We are Mother Earth's brains. She is busy breeding a specie that can one fine day crack the light barrier and spawn out into space.

Immediate objective: Mastering the art of sustainable planet management.
Next objective. Mastering Terra Forming in near space
After that a seat at the center of Galactic Command?

The Five Great Inspirations of Man

]
There are five great inspirations of man.
Each one initiated a New Age of conscious development.

2.5 Million B.C. I am separate!
20,000 B.C. I can plant a seed!
4000 B.C. There is only One God!
500 B.C. I can define the Nature of God!
1905 A.D. Mass is energy!


The final two inspirations, in Ages yet to come:

Energy is Divine
I am God


gib wrote:

[quote] I would also place your 'I am separate' to around 200,000 B.C. as that is when modern homo sapien sapiens appeared on the scene. I don't think any primate thought in much abstract terms at all before then.

Mitochondrial DNA traces all human cultures back to the San Bushmen of the Kalahari.
We also know that humans first migrated out of Africa into the Middle East and Europe around 130 thousand years ago.
The brain of Cro-Magnon was fully formed when he arrived in Europe.
We know nothing of what happened during the time it took to for our specie to gradually migrate across the 6000 miles that separate South Africa from Europe.
So how long did that take for the brain to fully develop?

There are four crucial things about our origins that we do not know.

We have not defined the distinction between a hominid consciousness and human consciousness.

We do not know when it happened
We do not know how it happened
We do mot know why it happened

The net result of this ignorance as to our origins is a global-wide confusion on every front of human interaction: About race, culture, politics, economics, religion, science and everything else that drives us to into wars and depressions. We simply do now know who we are, why we exist and what the reason for it is.

It is my conviction that if we can come to a consensus on the above four questions, we can then move forward together, step by step and gradually define the exact reason for our being.

I believe that I resolved those initial four riddles forty years ago while living and researching in South Africa.

It has been my hope, ever since I joined this forum that I could engage the members in a serious investigation into the origins, purpose and destination of the evolution of human consciousness.

I will not argue that I have come to the correct conclusions.
I will simply explain how and why I came to them and see if you agree, and if not, we can discuss the reasons why.
If enough of us engage in this, it is possible we may end up in a consensus. If that miracle should happen, the magnitude
of its wider consequences are unimaginable.

For those interested:

2.5 million B.C.E. I AM SEPARATE

I arrived at the date by looking for embellishments in crude hominid tools and weapons. I was looking for something more than just crude attempts to fashion them into increased efficiency. Chimps do that. There is no survival treason for embellishment. It requires Ego, It require leisure time. I wanted something that showed a distinct stamp of personal ownership - of craftsmanship.

There is enough collected evidence in museums that such personal embellishment began to take place around 2.5 million years ago. I believe at that time, enough neuron connections took place between the left and right hemispheres of a gradually enlargement hominid cortex for the dim beginning of a human ego to emerge. An internal dialogue began to take place between the two brains. For the first time in creation an individual consciousness saw itself as separate from all other consciousnesses.

In this way I answered for myself the first three questions.
A self-reflecting ego defines human consciousness.
It happened around 2.5 million years ago
It was caused by a sense of separation

If there is any argument on this, let us discuss it and find a consensus.

We can then move onto the more subjective question of WHY did it happen?
What was the survival advantage of Nature evolving a human Ego?
Why did She do it?
Is there some long-term design?

[quote
All First Causes are about survival MM. Consciousness was developed to aid the survival of its organisms

Rocks may want to become human, but their comparative lack of consciousness leaves them as helpless rocks.


Good point. It took it from there. I posed this anomaly for myself. If all other 255 specie of primate evolved to a position of symbiosis in every ecological system that could support our specie, then stayed there without further conscious movement, why,then, would only one kind make a quantum leap forward?. What possible extreme ecological system out of the 255 existing ones our specie occupy, would be so challenging that basic primate smarts required another evolutionary step?

I am open to answers.

The Transition to a Global Economy

Quote Again, you are burlesquing.
It almost seems like I have been hearing this rhetoric since the Stone Age.
This is the romance, the poetry of Socialism.
You talk as though you can hang a shingle on your garage, and six months later, you're a billionaire.
I am not totally opposed to every socialist idea (or those that are frequently characterized that way). I am opposed to hyperbolic Hegelian idealism as a substitute for practical economics.

I think you are wrong. This is not old wine in a new bottle. We are in the cusp of a New Age. A mass change of consciousness is taking place. We are moving from and Age of nationalism to an Age of globalism. Neither Capitalism, Marxist Communism, or existing forms of socialism will be viable in the new paradigm. In this thread you are articulating the position of the Capitalist status quo - restating one of the economic philosophies of a dying exploitative nationalistic Age. As such you are adding nothing to our knowledge of the human condition. What you are saying, we were all raised on it. It is old wine. Valuable and full of flavor, but old. Two of my own companies grossed in the millions. I have worked as a junior and as a senior officer in others that grossed in the billions. I have nothing new to learn from this system.

In contrast, in my argument against capitalist exploitation of cheap human labor and natural resources; against our current money based exchange system; and against the concept of private ownership - which are all present in varying degrees in all current systems of human management - by presenting the ideal of a New Age social contract - based on custodianship and sustainable global stewardship, I am groping forward, like a half-blind seer, trying to see into the future. In this respect, I believe I am trying to add to our self knowledge. Whether or not I am deluded in this assessment only time will tell. But I do know that I am speaking directly to the historians of the future, who will be just as interested in the dynamics of this moment of human evolution as we are in the heated arguments that took place in the moment monarchical rule changed to democratic rule. This is a defining moment in human development I am profoundly conscious of the fact that I am taking part in it in a constructive way.

EINSTEIN ON SOCIALISM

“Private capital wealth tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly
because of competition and partly because technological development
and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger
units of production at the expense of the smaller ones. The result of
these developments is an oligarchy of private capital, the enormous
power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically
organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative
bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise
influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes,
separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that
the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the
interests of the underprivileged population.

The profit motive, in conjunction with…unlimited competition leads to
a huge waste of labor, and to the crippling of the social consciousness
of individuals. This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil
of capitalism. Our whole education system suffers form this evil. An
exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is
trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future
career.”

The situation worsens since the old man wrote that.
Kapitalism is Kaput.

Einstein and God

[quote]Oh? What can you tell me about Einstein or Planck?

They initiated a Nuclear Age consciousness and put an end to petty Steel Age ideas about conventional warfare. On the big stage the central question now is no longer imperial domination. It is either world peace or species annihilation. Since our specie may still be stupid, we are not mad, so Planck and Einstein are the heralds of and eventual end-game of World peace. The collapsing environment is helping to force all of us towards that conclusion.

[quote]Why the hell does nuclear theory have anything to do with preceding philosophy? Certainly it raises new questions, but it doesn't negate someone's whole body of work...you still like Christianity and Buddhism, do they suffer the same death at the hands of the atom?

Nuclear physics has arrived on the cutting edge of meta-physics. Mass is energy. Energy has no form. How can atoms be both particle and wave at one and the same time? Einstein and Bohr argued over Divine design and randomness without either able to convince the other. The ultimate question for science is [i]"How does consciousness fit into the nuclear equation and what is its purpose?"[/i] That trilogy of matter, energy and consciousness is essentially what religion has been inquiring into from the beginning. It seems to me that is why Heisenberg postulated his theory that the observer's consciousness affects the observed. Whatever the final answer - where religion once persecuted science, the pendulum has now swung the other way. Those extreme positions solve nothing. The answer always required effort from both sides of the brain, analysis and intuition working in harmony.

[quote] How about Aristotle?

Aristotle was a necessary religious protester. Without him we would never have arrived at the Nuclear equation. But he would have led science down a more peaceful and more holistic road if he has admitted that his master Plato was essentially right, and that matter cannot be defined by the physical senses alone.

The Meaning of Philosophy

realunoriginal wrote:

Philosophy: formulating the question.

Science: formulating the answer.

Religion: formulating the certainty.

???



From a naturalist point of view the question of existence is answered by survival imperatives demanding new technologies when exponential population pressures impact dangerously on regional environments. Each new paradigm demands increasingly complex changes in social contracts. Larger social cooperatives require more clearly articulated ethical rules of conduct. In this respect the question, the answer and the certainty are simultaneous survival imperatives. They all have to work in unison.

Simply stated: The answer to the question of our reason for being is dependent on both technology and ethics. You cannot have science without a religion of ethical conduct and vise verse. The philosopher must see the package holistically.

Semite Equality in Israel

no, what cuts it is the fact that Israel will make the whole middle east glow in the fucking dark.

-

That is Israel's evolutionary purpose, But its government is going about it the wrong way. Since 1948, thanks to the occupation of Europeanized Jews, the Palestinians have produced two generations of well-educated graduates. They too want to help light up the darkness of the Middle East. The equality of their sophisticated outlook needs to be recognized by Israel, not insulted. Such recognition, via seats in the Knesset, and encouraging more graduates would go a long way towards finally uniting the Semite brotherhood and bringing peace to the region.

Profile of a Steel Age Psyche

I am a prodigal son
engaged in a religious protest
against Iron Age Scriptural dogma
I am welded fast to independent self-expression
scientific determination
and ideological political argument
I shun Mother Earth’s bestial breast
for I am ashamed of my primitive past
and therefore I suppress my evolutionary heritage
Half blinded by my pseudo-intellectual brilliance
and almost totally reliant on my technological support
I can no longer consciously access my natural instincts
I have lost the stealth of the hunter
the green touch of the farmer
even the journeyman’s eye of the craftsman
and thus the full import
of one hundred thousand generations
of ancestral disciplines and genetic imprint
lies semi-dormant in my sub-conscious
Enamored by the empirical stance of science
and cynical of supernatural claims
I am spiritually numb
to the intuition of the animist
the magic of the shaman
and the faithful devotion of the religious martyr
While I gamble unmindful
with the stored bank of my ancestral heritage
I am divorced from God
and barred from Heavenly contact
With my feet no longer rooted in Earth
my head not hallowed by Heaven
I am a lost soul
fl oating between two States of Being
My social life is anchored in materialism
My mind is engaged in idealism
I peer through telescopes and microscopes
searching synthetically for reality
and my reason for being
My baronial home is long forgotten
My clan is dispersed
all of its members are modern migrants
seeking individual purpose on the money market
human robots on the mass production line
seduced by consumerism
and chained to debt
dreaming get rich quick schemes
while scratching out numbers on lottery stubs
My commitments to extended family are barely honored
My surname is no longer relevant
I live in relative anonymity in the city of MAN
A stranger amidst a vast throng of strangers
I have been schooled for two millennium
in the doctrine of logic
I allow the State to force my children out of my home
at an ever earlier age
and systematically indoctrinate them
in a capitalistic mind-set
that corrupts their sharing ethic
with the lure of private wealth
I leave them locked inside classrooms
unsupervised in the playground
for twelve boring long years
open to adverse peer-group influences
I no longer even pay lip service
in the Church of Christ
I live my life as an agnostic
too busy chasing the buck
to be particularly concerned
if there is a God or not
I have broken all the Mosaic Laws
I have killed and slaughtered Nature’s creatures for food
hunted them for sport
and eaten animal flesh
without sacrificial ceremony
I have engaged in the abortion of unwanted children
I have lusted after my neighbor’s wife
I have committed adultery
I have deceived my wife and son
I have broken my marriage vows and sued for divorce
I have envied those who are richer than I
I am a Capitalist
I have engaged for decades in a ruthless pursuit
to improve my profits at another's expense
I gamble with commodities and stocks and bonds
on the temple floor of the global estate
My Faith is based on gold
I worship at the Altar of Baal
I genuflect in the Cathedral Halls of Big Business
I have looked down upon those
who have humbled themselves to serve at my table
and given no thanks
to those who toil in the soil and labor in our mines
so that I might eat and live a comfortably manufactured life
I have raped Mother Irth
eaten Her fruits without grace
helped to foul Her air
and poison Her water
I have spat in Her dust
and dumped my waste in Her Garden
My society has waged endless wars
in the name of God and Totem
We have a history of enslavement
and ethnic genocide
We rain death on women and children
and blame it on collateral damage
while we pin medals on our general’s breasts
We legislate endless new laws
install vast bureaucracies of oversight
and pay through the nose
for armies of enforcement officers
to police our lives from cradle to grave
And the richer we get
the more expensive it gets
to guard our wealth
from the hunger and the anger of the poor
I have stood by and done nothing
while governments engage in the suicidal dare
to play Russian roulette with nuclear guns
I breathe the air like an automaton
and take for granted the warmth of our Sun
I am a Steel Age man
I live my life in the 20th Century
amidst White Anglo-Saxon Protestants
and strive like them after fame and fortune
neither worse nor better than my neighbor
I am not aware that all my ambitions
all my hopes and dreams
and the training I have received to realize them
can never be fully satisfied by corporal aims
My full identity has been lost in translation
I am a technocrat
A spiritless man
My future fate depends on transformation
‘er I die in nuclear annihilation
__________________

PROFILE OF A NUCLEAR AGE PSYCHE

I am no longer a prodigal son
engaged in a religious protest
against Iron Age Scriptural dogma
or welded fast to self determination
and ideological argument
I no longer shun Mother Earth’s bestial breast
for I am not ashamed of my primitive past
I revere my evolutionary heritage
I am no longer blinded by my pseudo-intellectual brilliance
or totally reliant on my technological support
I have learned how to consciously access
the instincts of the ape
the stealth of the hunter
the green touch of the farmer
the journeyman’s eye of the craftsman
and thus the full import of one hundred thousand generations
of ancestral disciplines and genetic imprint
are now at my conscious command
Though I respect the logic of science
I am no longer cynical of supernatural claims
that underlie physical reality
I am spiritually alive
to the intuition of the animist
the magic of the shaman
and the devotion of the religious martyr

I gamble no more
with the stored bank of my prehistoric heritage
I am no longer divorced from God
or barred from Heavenly contact
With my feet rooted in Earth
Heaven hallows my head
I am no longer a lost soul
floating between two States of Being
My social life is anchored in family values
and community service
My baronial home is reestablished
My ancestors are revered
My commitments to extended family are honored
My surname is relevant again
I no longer stand by and do nothing
while governments engage in the suicidal dare
to play Russian roulette with nuclear guns
I breathe the air with reverence
and do not take for granted the warmth of our Sun
I am a Nuclear Age man
I live my life in the 21st Century
amidst a global population
of like-minded stewards
and strive like them to glorify our planet
I am aware that all my ambitions
all my hopes and dreams
and the training I have received to realize them
are dependent on the goodwill of all
My full identity has been recovered in transformation
I am a no longer just a technocrat nor a spiritless man
I uphold our Ancestral Commandments
I love only One God
with all my Heart and all My Mind
I bow to no craven Image
I do not call on God for my own benefit alone
I remember each day and keep it Holy
I honor my father and my mother
I do not kill and eat without reverence
I do not commit adultery
I do not steal
I do not bear false witness against my neighbor
I do not covet my neighbor’s wealth
I uphold New Age Commandments
I do no business that profits me at the expense of another
I do not accumulate excessive private wealth
I do not despoil the environment
I honor my marriage vows
I uphold family values
I educate my own children
and teach them to be of service to others
I see mankind in service to God
and to our planet
and to each other
with no one exalted higher than another
I see no owners
only custodians
My word is my bond
I place my trust in the integrity of my fellow men
who observe the same values that I do
I am a Global Steward and devoted parent
in training to become a Master
and a Sage
in Ages yet to come

Axis of Evil. A Monster within?

We are all generally aware that we were conned into the war in Iraq by the military/industrial establishment and the politicians who dance to their will. We all continue to live with the conspiracy simply because it is hard to define who exactly is at fault or to totally denounce our own national sins.

But what if the whole con is far deeper and more monstrous than any of us can ever envision?

There have been claims that an American Airlines 757 never hit the Pentagon, that it was hit by a Cruise missile, fired by our own military. If that is so, the charge goes on, then the hits by all the other three planes on the same day, is more than a coincidence - it points to a vast and horrible conspiracy by fellow Americans in which thousands of other American lives were deliberately sacrificed in order to start the war with Iraq.

When I first heard that I laughed it off. Entirely ridiculous! In any case I have always cared less about if there are huge conspiracies or not. What can one do about them anyway?

But if this one is true, it is the Mother of them All.

I have just seen a documentary that has made me doubt my own disbelief.

The evidence I have seen seems irrefutable. Network TV crews filmed the fire-fighters as soon as they arrived at the Pentagon. The cameras initially show only a small four foot wide hole in the front of the building. After the interior fire had raged for some time, the roof collapsed and left a 65 foot wide gap in the facade.

A Boeing 757 has a wingspan of 165 feet and a tail height of 40 feet. According to the video tapes there is absolutely no way that such a huge aircraft could have entered and then vanished entirely inside that 65 foot gap even if it had been there from the beginning.

Despite dozens of video surveillance cameras guarding approaches to the Pentagon the government has not released a single frame.
The one and only counter claim to charges of a gross conspiracy is two small pieces of an American Airlines' fuselage lying outside.

They could have been easily planted by hand in the confusion or even placed there beforehand....

Could such cold-blooded mass murder really be? . ??? :o
With $600 billion and counting on the line --who knows...
Here are just a couple links. There are hundreds.

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paWiZ2Y8fRg[/url]

[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH21gKbEllM[/url]

Right Attitude

If Buddhism has a central philosophy for life it is "Right Attitude"
I always thought that right attitude was simply having enthusiasm for life.

I got my first adult lesson of the true depth of quality right attitude can bring to life on a golf course.

I had became an avid golfer the moment I lobbed a ball a hundred and eighty yards through the air and landed it three feet from the target I was aiming at and sank the putt for my first birdie. Ten years into my golf game, on my home course in Johannesburg, with a couple of near-scratch games to my credit, I watched Gary Player play the same holes the way a world class professional does.

On one of the par four holes he drove into the rough a hundred eighty yards short of the green. Between him and the green a large weeping willow guarded the approach. Its long leafy tendrils trailed on the edge of the green. I had landed in more or less the same place many times myself. From that lie I had never managed to float a ball over the willow and land it anywhere on the green So I was particularly keen to see how Gary played the shot, and said so to an older companion standing beside me.
He chuckled. "Gary is not trying to get the ball on the green. He is trying to get it in the hole."
__________________

Describing God

--you are muddling physics with philosophy. The existence of concepts like "good" and "evil" cannot be quantified by atomic theory, anymore than could notions of truth or beauty. They are in different magisteria (I assume you are familiar with NOMA?).

No I am not. Perhaps you can fill me in.
Perhaps you can also explain why physicists chose to use words like beauty, strangeness and charm to explain the attrubutes of sub-atomic particles.
In the meantime, the following is an argument I am having with an atheist on another forum. It might explain my OP more fully.


Quote:
but that's the fucking point: atheism is possible only because there's no empirical proof of God's existence. I cannot deny your personal experiences, you are right, I can only (and you should also) say that it's a matter of faith to interpret what you feel/see/experience as manifestations of God. It could be something different. You may have stopped in a comfort zone.

Okay. Now we are getting somewhere close to a useful dialogue.

I do not know who or what God is nor do not think I ever will. "God" is simply a useful terminology to explain the impression one has that a state of consciousness higher than one's own exists. We are still children in our evolution of consciousness,. IMO we are nowhere near our full sagacious potential. So we tend to think of God in terms of Mother God and Father God.



Quote:
My mother and brothers are Christian. They always talk with me about their experiences with God, and I always try to explain to them that what they call God may be somethung utterly different. Something supernatural, okay, but something different. Accepting these experiences as subjective proofs of God's existence is a matter of blind faith to me

I was asked by a women if I believe in a God external to myself.
My answer was Yes and No.
The point every God-seeker has to face, is: If one finally meets God - who then is the observer?
Who is making the evaluation?
What is the fondation of the criteria?

Trying to explain all this ( or not even being aware of the questions when contact happens) is what makes the distortions of who and what God is so universally mis-understood.

I thank God for science and its discovery of Nuclear theory. I believe it is via atomic radiation that we finally might have a methodology for melding physics with metaphsyics. Bohr and Einstein were right and wrong similtaneously.
God does and does not play dice with the Universe.
Randomness is an atribute of existence. But it is not the defining element. Heisenberg almost put his finger on it when he stated that the observer affects the observed.

Quote:
It's obvious that I may be wrong, it's obvious that I may just be blind to the evidences of the supernatural. However, as far as I see no reason to believe that my senses are wrong, or that this world offers abundant evidence for the existence of God, I remain an atheist. I would be lying to you if I said that I believe otherwise.

Of course you are not lying. Nobody was ever able to talk me out of being an atheist. I remained one until such time as I began to have experiences that could not be explained away by any of my senses. That has not led me to be able (like your mother and brother) to coherently and analytically explain the nature of my supernatural encounters with seemingly "other-world consciousness". It is like trying to explain what the color red is to a blind man. All one can really tell him is that red exists.

All I truly know that you can relate to is that I am no longer an atheist.
All I can really ask you to accept is that a condition of consciousness that is not atheism exists and that I am experiencing it.

You can call it self-delusion, comfort zone, Divine madness, whatever. Whatever it is, the condition has in no way impaired mmy analytical consciousness, or my abiilty to see and appreciate the same phsyical world you see, or not respect the laws that govern it.

In fact this opening of my third eye has made the most mundane pebble an infinitely profound object to be viewed with the deepest reverence. It is a pebble and it is not a pebble, at one and the same time. Such view has made my life magical and I not only want you to know that, I wish with all my heart for you to share it.

The other thing I am trying to share is that it requires work, special spiritual effort. It requires work to open the third eye and it requires sustained effort to keep it open.
__________________

Israel/Ishmael Conflict. Brothers in Arms

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1948 Arab-Israeli War
Part of the Arab-Israeli conflict

Raising the ink flag in Umm Rashrash (now Eilat) which marked the end of the war.
Date May 1948–March 1949
Location Israel
Result Decisive Israeli victory, tactical and strategic Arab failure, 1949 Armistice Agreements
Territorial changes State of Israel established from captured territories, Jordanian occupation of West Bank, Egyptian occupation of the Gaza Strip

Belligerents
Israel (IDF).
Before 26 May 1948: Jewish paramilitary organizations (Haganah, Irgun, Lehi, Palmach, Foreign Volunteers) Egypt,
Syria,
Jordan,
Lebanon,
Iraq,
Saudi Arabia,
Yemen,[1]
Holy War Army,
Arab Liberation Army

Strength
Israel: 29,677 initially rising to 115,000 by March 1949. This includes the entire military personnel count- both combat units and logistical units. Egypt: 10,000 initially rising to 20,000
Iraq: 5,000 initially rising to 15–18,000
Syria: 2,500–5,000
Jordan: 6,000–12,000
Lebanon: 1,000 initially rising to 2,000[2]
Saudi Arabia: 800–1,200
Yemen: unknown
Arab Liberation Army: 3,500-6,000
These numbers include only the combat units sent to the land of Palestine, not the entire military strength.

Casualties and losses
6,373 KIA (about 4,000 troops and 2,400 civilians) Unknown (between 8,000 and 15,000)
[show]v • d • eArab-Israeli conflict

Riots (1920 · 1921 in Jaffa · 1929) – Arab revolt (1936–1939) – Civil War (1947–1948) – Arab-Israeli War (1948–1949) – Suez Crisis (1956) – Six-Day War (1967) – War of Attrition (1968–1970) – Yom Kippur War (1973) – South Lebanon conflict (1978) – Lebanon War (1982) – South Lebanon conflict (1982–2000) – First Intifada (1987–1991) – Gulf War (1990–1991) – Second Intifada (since 2000) – Lebanon War (2006) – Israel-Gaza conflict (2008-2009)


The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, known by the Israelis predominantly as War of Independence (מלחמת העצמאות) and War of Liberation (מלחמת השחרור), and by Palestinians as the Catastrophe (Arabic: al Nakba, النكبة ), was the first in a series of wars fought between the newly declared State of Israel and its Arab neighbours in the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict.

The war commenced upon the termination of the British Mandate of Palestine in mid-May of 1948 following a previous phase of civil war in 1947–1948. The war came after Arab rejection of the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (UN General Assembly Resolution 181) that would have created an Arab state and a Jewish state. The war was fought mostly on the former territory of the British Mandate and for a short time also on the Sinai Peninsula. The war concluded with the 1949 Armistice Agreements but it did not mark the end of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In my opinion ( I have visited Israel) there will never be a lasting peace agreement between Jews and Palistinians based on partition of the land alone. Not if each time the accord is signed, only Jews are allowed to control the army. This was the exact same stumbling block in South Africa when dividing up the country into Bantustans. The whites always insisted that they remain in charge of national defence. This was never accepted by all. In th end the whites and their army had to surrender to majority opinion. This is what will eventually happen in Israel. They are fighting a losing battle, simply because it is immoral

Men are men. If you deprive them of their right to bear arms, they lose face in the eyes of their women and children. This is fundamental human psychology. No amount of political or economic argument, or United Nations resolutions can circumvent it.

If there is to be peace in Israel, the men on both sides need to remain men and their families need to admire that fact.

Doubting Thomas

I didn't see what you were trying to say, Magnet Man.

Why do you suppose that finding God- within us or anywhere else- is something utterly important to all of us?

I was an atheist for 35 years. I remember arguing for an entire year with my father-in-law, who had just found God, what a fool he was. I sounded just like you. I have been a theist for the past forty two years. I have a normal IQ. I understand and appreciate all the advantages of science. I have worked professionally as a geologists and as a aerial surveyor. Why do you think I do not understand exactly where you are coming from? Now tell, me, honestly, what makes you think you understand life more completely than I. Can you not accept that I have come to see that there is more to human life than just its animal aspect? Where does inspiration come from? A machine?


Why do you think we all need this vain consolation? Because that's what you have found in metaphysics, a consolation, isn't it? All these uplifting words and formulae make you feel somewhat better, more important, isn't it that?

Of course it is a comforting to realize and acknowledge that there is a Consciousness higher than my own. But it is anything but vain to claim contact with it. It is a deeply humbling experience - to realize that life, even just one cell of it, and how it was created and evolved, is something far beyond anything our science can articulate.

I have a choice. Creation is by design or it is accidental. Either way its is phenomenal. Either way I don't take it for granted. Either way I pay deep respect to its existence. What is primitive or unnoble about having a devout attitude to the metaphysical aspects of existence? Why is it more intelligent to claim it is a random accident? What is the basis for that position? We have no proof either way. Is mine not a more positive attitude? Why poke thoughtless gibes at me? I do not do that to you. The reason I do not and you do is because you have not yet tried hard enough to see the metaphsyical side of life, while I have tried both. That extra experience and all the years of effort required to attain it, has given me a greater sense of compassion about the difficulties of attaining a holistic understanding of our reason for being. You have been in complete denial from beginning to end, You have not made a single inspirational post that would get me to suspect you hold a secret to life that I know nothing about. Your view, to put it bluntly, is simply mundane. I shared it too, once......


I just don't know why yoy must think that these concepts say anything at all to an atheist like me, or to anyone else on this board (with the exception of the Christians and their alike, of course).

The impulse to share Divine knowledge cannot be throttled. It bursts out of the throat. Its just like any scientist jumping out of the bath and running naked through the streets shouting "Eureka! I found it!" It is human nature to share both the good and the bad news. What you do with it is your business. Nobody is forcing you to respond to these posts. Why are you doing it - if it was not from some hidden spiritual curiosity? And why can you not at least acknowledge that you are curious. I post on international philosophical forums not just for you, but for all who read and comment on them. Who is to say that some of what metaphysicians like myself post does not plant some seed in a formerly doubting mind?

Suicide

Her last days…


My sister and I came into her room morning after morning and came face to face with her frustration. Frustration over being immobilized and wedged in this limbo. Frustration with our blind denial that she was dying and our assurances that all she needed to do was rest, that it would pass and she would heal.

The morning I found her on the floor after having fallen trying to reach the porta-potty next to her bed, I knew that her strength was failing. It was terrifying seeing her lying there. Such an alien picture to see the strongest woman I knew, unable to pick herself up. She needed us to help her onto it from then on.

There were accidents, and we would wash her and try to make her feel clean and dignified. She couldn’t stand it. After looking after her own paralyzed mother for so long, she couldn’t stand that we had to look after her now, even if it had only been a few days as opposed to the decade plus that she had been care giving.

One time, after coming in too late to find that she had needed to use her porta-potty, after cleaning her up I cried quietly and whispered to her, “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry. I should have checked on you sooner.” She grabbed my hand and shook her head. “I hate this. I want to die. I can’t make you guys do this. It’s not fair to you.” “No,” I said to her, “This is nothing. Please, this is nothing.”

She was not afraid of dying. She was at peace with that. Her only fear was how she could facilitate it. She speculated over the possibilities. She tried to think of what would be easiest for us. It was morbid. In my un-resigned mind, I would have none of it. She would become concerned then… She would say that she was ok, and that she needed us to be at peace with it.

One morning I came in to find her lying on her side in her bed. When she looked at me, the look in her eyes was confused and uncertain. I found half a dozen of her pain prescription bottles empty in the trash. I knew that she must have tried to kill herself that night. I was so scared, she taken so many pills. As I shakily collected the bottles out of the trash looking them over, I noticed one of them wasn’t empty. Absently I set it on the bedside table. As weak and drugged as she was she managed to reach over and snatch the bottle and angrily throw it forcefully back in the trash. I was so surprised by what seemed such a bizarre thing to do, and with such determination, I let out a confused little laugh. She didn’t say anything though. I didn’t take it back out again but I peered in to the bin and read the label. Only then did I realize that that bottle wasn’t sleeping pills or pain killer. It was her chemo medicine. She whispered hoarsely “How are you supposed to do this? What are you supposed to do? I can’t breathe, I can’t move, I can’t sit, or sleep, or eat. I don’t understand why I’m still here. I can’t live and I won’t die.”

She had talked only a couple days before, kind of incredulously, about the young Australian actor, Keith Ledger, who had died just a few months previous by an accidental overdose and how he was so young and vital and so full of promise. She wondered at how he died so easily… Lying peacefully on his bed, so accidentally gone. And here she was having taken handfuls of pills, trying to leave it all behind, and yet still she would awake, imprisoned in the torture chamber her body had become. This of course added fuel to my argument. In my blind refusal and fearful arrogance I would almost scold her, telling her that that must mean she’s not supposed to die. That it wasn’t her time.

But slowly the hooks I’d felt lodged in my chest, a kind of invisible giant of immense ache that we all tried to bury, finally began to fully realize itself and leave my mind nowhere to hide. It was a feeling that had been there since the first day she told me of the lump that she’d felt. From then on, when I looked at her, stripped now of all illusions, all I saw was the terrible cruelty that this world was subjecting her to, making her continue on when everything this world had to offer was now perched beyond her reach.

Finally came my tearful halting confession as I kneeled by her bedside: I stammered that “If that is what you want… I’ll find a way… I’ll get something...” and I trailed off so unsure and unfamiliar with what I was saying. She stared at me perplexed. “What will you get? How will you get it?” “I don’t know…. morphine… something… I’ll break into the ambulance if I have to.” She looked at me a little surprised. Maybe she hadn’t thought of that possibility before. But she was unwilling to ask that of me or of anyone. And so the offer went by, without anymore said.

My sister and I sat with her, mostly in silence, both of us not knowing what to say. Usually she would shoo us away, telling us off only half-jokingly for being such a grim and gloomy bunch. She’d long since taken to calling me McWeepy, for not being able to keep myself in check.

Anytime I’d try to speak of things I’d wished I’d done, or said, she would always cut me off and shake her head, refusing to let me speak in those terms, one time stating to me that she had no room for regrets and that I had better not either.

She said there was nothing to be said. She said all that mattered was that she loved us and that she knew we loved her. That was it, nothing else mattered. It was a stunning kind of reality for me. She was so peaceful when she spoke those words. So matter of fact, so knowing. I couldn’t quite accept it. Could not quite wrap my brain around the fact that every material thing in this world that everyone agonizes over and analyzes and cares about and strives for… were suddenly gone. Not just irrelevant or meaningless, but not even there, as if they never existed. The only thing you take with you is love, anything else, on any plane other than this earthly one, simply disappears, as if it never was.

The next morning, when I came into see her, she whispered to me to please call the doctor, that he would give us something. Outside her room, my sister and I collapsed into tears once more as we had done so many times before in that very spot. Brett looked at me and said grief and fright in her voice, “You know what she’ll do, right? We have to get it. I have to do this for her. She doesn’t want it for pain, you know that, right?” I knew that.

I called the doctor. I told him, without actually telling, what was happening. He knew. He said we needed to make her comfortable. He said he would prescribe morphine for her. My sister left only a few moments after I got off the phone and drove the 180 mile round trip to Bishop to get that bottle from the pharmacy. I went to her room and told her that Brett had gone to get it… that it would only be a few hours more, now. That it was coming. She nodded without saying a word, relief filling her eyes before they closed and she slipped into the shallow fitful sleep that had been the only crumb of relief she had been able to have for so long.

She woke up over and over in the next few hours, asking again and again where Brett was. She’s coming, she’s on her way…..

When Brett finally did return in the early evening, she only gave her the prescribed amount of morphine for pain. But when I said goodnight to her that night, inside I knew it would be the last time I spoke to her. Letting go that night was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Prepared for it as I was in the past days, still those few moments before she fell asleep as I tucked her in like I had many times, were brutally heart breaking. I lay for awhile with my head resting on her shoulder. I told her I loved her. She smiled and mouthed the words back to me, her voice no longer audible.

The next morning when we came into see her, she was not awake. She lay on her side unconscious. Her face was very pale and her breathing was shallow.

I stood there, off to the side next to my Dad as her body took its final breaths. The sound after that last tiny out-breath left a deafening silence. My mind went blank as the tears just flowed down my face. My Dad hugged me tight and said that she was gone. I wanted to close my eyes and look away from the face that was not hers anymore. All the light of her was gone. My Dad told me to go tell the others. As I walked down the hall, I was numb and stunned. When I saw my sister, she knew instantly from whatever she saw in my face. I kept walking as she passed me. I found my brother in the next room. He looked at me and I blurted that she was gone. His eyes were clear and hurt. He hugged me and everything came crashing in. The sound that came from me was out of my control. It felt as though I were outside my body watching myself.

I will always love you mom
Kat.


After two years of remission Donna’s breast cancer metastasized. Over the next four years, despite endless bouts of chemo-therapy, the cancer reappeared in her lungs and spine. The lesions in the lungs caused them to flood with fluid, which had to be drained periodically. Since the draining procedure could not be done under anesthesia puncturing either lung and risking collapse was not only dangerous, but also excruciatingly painful. Each procedure drained over a two liters of fluid and gave her some degree of relief, before the lungs gradually re-flooded.

Years of chemotherapy had destroyed her immune system. In her final month of life she could not shake off a bout of stomach flu. She vomited up every morsel. She was starving and fighting for every shallow breath her flooded lungs would allow.. The slightest exertion exhausted her. Even talking was too much. She could barely whisper out a simple request. The bone cancer in the spine ached unrelentingly. She could not lie down without flooding the lungs. The oxygen machine beside her bed churned day and night. Without food and short of breath her cells were without energy. She could not summon the strength necessary to get up off her bed and take the step onto the porta-potty without help. She was literally drowning alive. No position gave her comfort. Her sleep was fitful. She was being relentlessly tortured, day and night.

Realizing that her body was beyond recovery, she dumped all her chemo pills and refused further medical treatment. The weeks of relentless torture she was going through could not be endured for long by any of us. Our helplessness could only be alleviated via escape. It drove all of us except Kat and Brett from her room.

The week before she died, Donna made three uncharacteristic private observations that disturbed me deeply.

“Shoot me.”
That request held significance between the two of us. We had often discussed the ethics of euthanasia. I had, in fact, practiced it on our animals. During the twenty five years of our marriage, I had taken on the responsibility of putting down all our aging pets. I had often said that if one did not have the personal fortitude to put down one’s own pet and preferred instead to leave that final execution to a stranger, one did not truly deserve the loving exchange that pets brought to human life. The manner of execution was not an issue for me. I had been a big game hunter in Africa during my youth. I knew all too well how to make a clean kill with a well-placed bullet.

The relevance of her request burned into my consciousness. The gulf between human and animal was too vast. I knew I could not do it. Not with a gun.
“I could never shoot you, my dear”
She said nothing more about it, but the inference was clear. She wanted an end to the torture.

The idea of leaving her to continue suffering had to be confronted. Euthanasia was suddenly no longer just an intellectual exercise or a merciful animal killing. Putting down each pet had always been a heart-wrenching struggle. In the moment of death, they knew exactly what was happening. I had to steel my resolve every time, and then live with the memory of it until it faded. Now it concerned a human life. The need was immediate, very real and very personal.

A week later, without telling me, she had decided to end her own life by taking an over-dose of morphine. What concerned her was that the over-dose might not work. In this indirect manner, in the earlier conversation she was leaving me the message to make absolutely sure that she did not come round again.

If the overdose did not work and she started to recover, I had to kill a person I loved dearly. This time, I was sure, the awful nature of the memory would never fade. The alternate option was worse, leaving her to suffer.

The instant finality of a bullet in the brain was out of the question. The only way to ensure certainty without being charged with murder, or at least man-slaughter, was to smother her. On that final night, after Brett woke me to say that she was going, I agonized with what I had to do if the drug failed. I sat beside Donna’s bed throughout the early hours before dawn, listening to her labored breathing, praying that the over-dose of morphine would work. My mind kept shying away from the horror of having to do it. Which of the two horrors was worse? Smothering her and living with the memory of my last act with her? Or living with the self reproach I would feel if I left her to die in agony, knowing that I had failed to accede to her last request? I was a child, wrestling with a serpent in each hand, knowing that a bite from either would poison me.

Mercifully I was not put to that supreme test and left to dwell forever over the memory of it. Donna, thorough as always, had taken a dose large enough to kill an ox. Her labored breathing stopped in mid- morning. She passed without awakening. None of us will never forget the silence that followed the expulsion of her last breath.


For me euthanasia is no longer simply the pseudo-intellectual exercise I once engaged in during the national debate over Dr. Kervorkain’s televised experiments. It assumes an entirely different dimension when confronted in real-life circumstances. I am humbled by the thought of the millions of family members who have been, and still are, forced to grapple with the awful reality of it.

To this day I cannot truthfully say that I could have gone through with it if the over-dose Donna took had failed. I have to believe that I would have found the personal resolve. Sitting by instead and watching her suffer as she drowned in her own fluids would, I believe, have haunted me far more cruelly. In my view, when terminal illness is on the line, euthanasia is strictly a family issue. Since it evokes the deepest family feelings of love and care, merciful termination of suffering has nothing to do with either Church or State. The buck stops and rests on the shoulder of the eldest family member. There may be concern that the act would be abused by some. But that in itself, cannot be allowed to hold the hand of mercy from the majority of us.

Facing criminal charges for murder or manslaughter only adds to the burden of such a heart-wrenching decision. Any argument against it by religion is fundamentally subjective. In any event, a personal request from the sufferer is all that really counts. Merci-killing is a final act of love, not hate. It is not an escape from reality, but direct engagement in it. Maturity calls. The aftermath is between the perpetrator and a merciful God.

Suicide.
“This is so undignified.”
Donna gasped that out as she sat on the edge of her bed, too weak to rise and do her toilet. Those were also among the last words she ever spoke to me. She had resolved within herself to die that night.

Was Donna morally right to take her own life? In ancient times there was no question that each individual owned that ultimate right. In fact, we were morally obliged to do so as a question of personal honor once we became a burden on our family. So who and what authority stripped us of that basic human right? Religious dogma? Political edict? Surely such a supreme act has to be between each of us and our God.

I believe with all my heart that Donna owned that right. I do not believe for an instant that because she exercised that right she has been denied entry into the heaven of her choice. If God loves anything in the human spirit, He loves personal courage. Donna had that - and then used it in her moment of supreme crisis. Who would dare suggest further eternal spiritual suffering added to the physical? Surely not a merciful God!

Donna did not believe that one God fits all. The exclusive concepts of God espoused by any religions appalled her. In her view every one of us has our own ideal of a personal God whom we pay homage to in our own particular manner. That God loves us for who we are – both in our weaknesses and in our strengths. He/She is silent witness to our lives and shares every thought word and deed with us, in triumph or in suffering. And if such a Supreme Ideal of God is not that personal Lover to each one of us, then what use is such a God if He does not empathize with us in our final hour?

So I say this to Donna’s departed spirit: May your loving and compassionate God rest and bless you. The memory of who you were and how you conducted yourself in this life and the courage you demonstrated in your final hour will never fade from our hearts and minds.



Reason for Being

“Life is pointless.”

Taken out of context, that next statement, also made by Donna the day before she died, seemed to refute everything she lived for: Throughout our years together as husband/wife, partner/friend, I had seen her do everything humanly possible into putting all her care and a distinct reason for being into her life. She had three grown kids who all admired and adored her. She was step-mom to four more of my other children who all felt the same way towards her. She neither drank nor smoked. She exercised regularly and took good care of her diet. She had a strong work ethic and took pride in everything she did and did it excellently. She had attended personally to the wants and needs of her paralyzed mother, every single hour of every day for the past ten years. She had chaired the PTA and a woman’s charity organization. She had helped to turn a remote ranch out in the Nevada desert into a functioning non-profit research foundation. She believed deeply and truly n the existence of God and in a consciousness that survived physical death.

Why would a person who had lived such a principled and productive life, remark in her final moments, that human existence is pointless?

It took months after Donna had passed for me to contemplate on those words and gradually penetrate the depth of thoughts and feelings that might have gone through her head and heart in those last devastating weeks when she finally realized that all hope was gone and that no miracle was forthcoming. I will attempt to share what I believe to be her reasoning in the epilogue. What needs to precede that is to put Donna’s last statement into context with her illness and the way she dealt with it. This can be done via the series of video-taped interviews I had with her at various intervals over the years during her battle with cancer.

I believe that Donna’s articulate commentary on her cancer and its treatment, and how that affected her outlook on life, can perhaps be of assistance in helping others to gain an added degree of perspective on the ravages that merciless plague is creating among so many millions of families..

We will never know the exact number of people who have died of cancer over the centuries, or be able to evaluate the degree of pain and hopelessness the victims and their families who suffered with them. Eight million have died of cancer in the last year alone. Perhaps as much as quarter billion dead from cancer in the 20th Century The numbers are staggering. They far exceed the casualties of all the world’s wars that men have fought and died in. All cancer war wounds prove fatal. Remissions may last for years, but in the end the victims die from their cancers –their deaths are not natural and do not come at the allotted time required for a full life experience. Not one of those deaths is pain-free.

Few war stories tell of the heroes who fought and died in the heart-rending battles with cancer. The stories that are told do not begin to describe the true depth of ravaging heart-ache that has been wreaked on helpless families who can do nothing but sit and watch a parent, and worse still, a child, suffer extreme levels of pain and gradually waste away for months and years on end. No medals of honor are handed out for feats of special bravery. No public memorials are erected to commemorate the tens of millions who have fallen. There is no way of evaluating the loss to their families , or the mourning they have do, so alone. There is no national ceremony. There are no State funerals for our millions of cancer warriors.

No life, no matter how menial, is without merit or profound significance. Each of us has our own unique story which is worth relating in context with the events of the period we live in. If individual human life has any purpose, it is to build depth of character and thereby, via shared experience, contribute to the on-going evolution of our species consciousness. Ordeals build and test character. The greatest gains come via pain. It has always been that way. Ancient societies designed and set their own painful puberty ordeals for their children to learn from. Today, our ordeals and tests are mostly intellectual. Yet physical pain remains as the supreme test.

The central questions that underlies all terminal illness are: : Is it God, who invests pain and death upon us? Or is it accidental? Does the ordeal of cancer have spiritual purpose? Or is it simply meaningless cruelty? For those who spend so many years dying of cancer, they are profound questions that never leave their consciousness throughout the ordeal and which need answering. If some believes in accident, then they struggle as hopeless victims of meaningless cruelty, and their life as well as their death, no matter how bravely they fight, is indeed pointless. On the other hand, choosing to believe in God allows them to see themselves not as helpless victims, but as chosen initiates. They become warrior fighters and the ordeal of cancer becomes the test of their love.

Those of us living without constant pain and the constant specter of death hanging like the sword of Damocles above our heads, yet seeking to gain a deeper perspective into some of the profound questions of life, can learn from seeing how a person with depth of character deals with the ordeal of extra-ordinary pain. Donna was a person of character. Cancer put her belief in self and in God to the supreme test. For seven long years all in our family, saw how she dealt with it. Her daily struggle, not just with the discomfort of deadly disease and the hair-loss, which made public appearances awkward; but with the endless hassle over the prescriptions for all the additional medications she had to take; the hours on-hold on the phone trying to deal with the flaws in the health system, tracing her records and X-rays misplaced somewhere between the local hospital in Bishop and the Cancer Center in Reno; making appointments and long-range travel arrangements from our remote farm for endless check-ups and chemo and radiation treatments; all of this while running a large house-hold, tending to a paralyzed mother and caring for a child with Downes Syndrome. Her patience and wry humor at the irony of her situation, made us all wonder where she found the patience and wry humor to deal with it, and if if we ourselves could have handled the sheer tedium of it with such fortitude. She never once, throughout all those years, called on any of us for special sympathy. Her thoughts and comments about breast cancer and the specter of death that haunted her consciousness for so many years, and about life itself, provide meaningful insights into our reason for being.

Who is God?

An atheist wrote:
in a word, God is a master who is always very concerned about the situation of His slaves...

what a privilege for you to be a Christian


It a privilege to be a human. No other creature in Nature can see and fully appreciate the God that dwells within them as well as we can. Atheists have to get away from the dogma and see each culture's religion of who God might be in a universal context.

Any argument against God is an argument against one's self and the spirit of who one really is. We have the freewill to denounce Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed and view God in our own image. Anybody who claims that one will go to hell for doing so is full of crap IMO.

If any are unsure of who they are, then reading scripture can be of great help. The literal meaning is for children. There are deeper meanings between the lines. The story and teachings of of Jesus, Buddha etc is of great help to tens of millions of spirituial pilgrims who are all seeking in their own way to know that "The Kingdom of Heaven is within,"

When Jesus said "I and my father are one" He was not refering only to himself. We are all One with God. We all radiate the same universal Atomic Consciousness. As Heisenberg said, the observer affects the observed. The more focused you are on the energy you radiate outwards from yourself, the the stronger and brighter and more charismatic it gets. It creates a powerful golden aura around your head and attracts adoration from others. If their physical eyes cannot pick up the higher frequency of your aura they can at least sense the Divine Nature radiating inside you. Those who have achieved this level of inner focus report feelings of extreme bliss.