FIGHT OR DIE
Tonight was more eventful than most sundays that precede another week of monotony. Doc spent some time away in Europe and we got together to catch up. He treated to beer, cyder, and coffee. We discussed our lives, marriage, and he proposed that my lack of assurance in me stemmed from a lack of faith in general. I’m agnostic, which means I don’t subscribe to religion’s beliefs about God or the afterlife. But, while I’m not an atheist, the concept of faith is something I have trouble with. I believe there’s an answer for everything, even if we lack the ability to find it. My lack of faith could be responsible for my uncertainty when it comes to me and my marriage. It’s not easy for me to accept my wife loves me without a detailed answer as to why. In these situations, you have faith and just accept the one you love feels as you do. But, I must know why and not knowing leaves too many unanswered questions.
This turned the conversation from self-esteem to spirituality where we both agreed we are living in the last days of our species. But, where he accepts it, I ponder if we have the ability to stop it if we take our heads out of our ass long enough to see what’s happening around us. I consider myself a humanist. I believe there’s nothing we can’t do if we accept responsibility for ourselves and embrace our power and forgo our dependance on spiritual belief. The question isn’t whether or not God exists. It’s why we feel we must believe or disbelieve there’s anything at all. I look at God’s existence from two possibilities: If there is a God, then He could be afraid of us. Or, there is no God, we’ve just personified life and given it a name.
Looking at the first possibility, why do I think God is afraid of us? Well, several mythologies tell the story of one all-powerful being destroyed by its offspring. If we are children of God, we are his offspring and destined to destroy him. It’s no different from a parent fearing their accomplishments will be surpassed by their children. It’s natural, although dysfunctional, for parents to see their progeny as a sign of their own demise. The stronger and more independent their children become, they see themselves becoming older and weaker and death becomes more inevitable. If you accept the bible as truth that it’s the word of God written by those who were inspired by him, then the Old Testament could be a system of checks and balances to ensure our dependence, inhibiting our own growth and empowerment. Think about it, anyone who doesn’t believe in him is evil and immediately destroyed. Why is our belief in him so important? Why must we surrender ourselves to his will? Why must we surrender at all? Think about this: God gave us free-will, and yet our destinies are predetermined. Sure, we have a choice, but if we make the wrong choice, not following God’s laws, then we are punished. Why aren’t the nonbelievers allowed to live in peace? What does God have to fear from people who don’t believe in him and, if all power comes from God, are essentially powerless? Even though Jesus rewrote the covenant set by the ten commandments and made one law for us to follow the results are still the same, believe or die. No matter what we choose, in the end, our fates have been decided already. So, is there free-will or is that a ruse to hide the truth? Jesus said we all could have his power, on the condition that we believe in God because that’s where it comes from. Okay, maybe it does, like any child, we share traits given to us by our parents. But, what we decide to do with them is our choice.
I’m a big Jesus fan, which doesn’t mean I’m a Christian, I just dig what he was about. But, he did have one problem that was his ultimate demise, he lived his life based on religious prophecies. Despite being a rebel, Jesus was Jewish and believed as they did. He was dependent upon those teachings as anyone else of that time. It never occurred to him that his power came from anything other than God. And yet, from what we know of the event, it was not in God’s plan for Jesus to resurrect Lazarus, but he did so anyway, without invoking God’s name. Throughout the King James’ bible, Jesus speaks often of a prophecy and he followed that prophecy to its conclusion. Jesus had the will to do what he felt must be done. But, that willpower doesn’t negate the question if it had to be done. Jesus’ sacrifice set forth a dangerous precedent played out for generations after his death. Great men who felt it were their fate to die in the service of a greater good. Is it blasphemous to ask what would have happened if Jesus had lived? What did his death truly accomplish? It erased original sin, but not our ability to sin again. Sure, we’re no longer damned from birth, but does that matter when we have a lifetime to earn our damnation a thousand times over? The same goes for Malcolm X, JFK, and any other “messiah” who answered the call of servitude to the people. They all walked head first into death when they didn’t have to.
And, what if there is no God, just life, how could it be evil? It’s not. It’s just a system with no good or bad. It just does what it’s meant to do. Think of the ocean, it can give life or take it away in a tsunami. When that happens, you don’t say the ocean is evil. If there’s an earthquake that kills thousands, you don’t say the earth was evil and killed a bunch of people. What if God, a.k.a. life, works in the same way? It’s a system, and disasters happen because we injected ourselves into a series of events that didn’t include us. We become the variable in an equation. Like comedians have said time and again, we’re the dumb fucks who build our homes on a dirt hill, then wonder why it collapses in a rain storm. We live near volcanos and act surprise when they erupt and destroy everything. So, God is life, and we are sired from it. Therefore, we have that same power in us, God’s power, and it’s ours to control if we’re aware of it. I see life like a great ocean and our bodies are a glass. If you took the glass and filled it with ocean water, what do you have? The water doesn’t change, it’s still ocean water, it’s just trapped in the glass, limiting its power. The more glasses you fill, the more you take from the ocean, reducing its power. Soon, the amount of water in glasses will overshadow the ocean. If freed from the glasses, that water could become a greater ocean than the one it came from. The ocean is the energy of life that I think is the soul. The glass is our body. Within us is the power of life and with every birth the source becomes more depleted. Soon, the power within us will become more powerful than its source. And death becomes the instrument that refills the source, creating a cycle and life and death.
Here’s where I really get crazy: take the two ideas and combine them. If the Christian God is the source of life, then every birth takes away his power until we become more powerful than he. God can’t stop it, so his only alternative is to control it. How? By making us dependent on him is one way. The other is through death, and those most powerful, whose souls shine the brightest, are ensured to die before their time based on Jesus’ example.
Okay, that’s way out there, but I keep thinking about death and whether or not we have the ability to stop it. In a meeting, a doctor spoke of a patient having a “nice death” because he accepted that he was dying. Well, what is a “nice death?” When a person dies nicely, it always means they accepted their fate. And those that don’t accept it, despite trying to stay alive, still believe it’s a losing battle. The idea that no one can defy death is ingrained in us at an early age. Fairytales and Disney cartoons program us to believe death is something to fear, and time turns into inevitability. Even though medical science searches for ways to avoid death, we still don’t think we can do it ourselves and look to technology to help us. What if the answer is our own will power? What if we truly embraced what could be the true power of free will and chose not to die? I can’t help thinking acceptance is synonymous with surrender. When we accept our death, we’re surrendering to it. And, if we can choose to surrender, we can choose to fight. And, if we fight, then there is the chance we may win. But, it’s not as simple as just deciding to fight because our programming goes too deep. The body is controlled by the mind that turns our will into physical action. What would happen if a person’s will were so strong they could keep their heart beating after a heart attack? What if they could will their lungs to keep breathing, or stop the body from dying?
If we stopped death, then the ocean of life would never refill itself. God would become weaker as we continued in number and he would eventually die.
God needs us to believe him, because if we don’t...then what?
God’s fate is in OUR hands.
JPG.
This turned the conversation from self-esteem to spirituality where we both agreed we are living in the last days of our species. But, where he accepts it, I ponder if we have the ability to stop it if we take our heads out of our ass long enough to see what’s happening around us. I consider myself a humanist. I believe there’s nothing we can’t do if we accept responsibility for ourselves and embrace our power and forgo our dependance on spiritual belief. The question isn’t whether or not God exists. It’s why we feel we must believe or disbelieve there’s anything at all. I look at God’s existence from two possibilities: If there is a God, then He could be afraid of us. Or, there is no God, we’ve just personified life and given it a name.
Looking at the first possibility, why do I think God is afraid of us? Well, several mythologies tell the story of one all-powerful being destroyed by its offspring. If we are children of God, we are his offspring and destined to destroy him. It’s no different from a parent fearing their accomplishments will be surpassed by their children. It’s natural, although dysfunctional, for parents to see their progeny as a sign of their own demise. The stronger and more independent their children become, they see themselves becoming older and weaker and death becomes more inevitable. If you accept the bible as truth that it’s the word of God written by those who were inspired by him, then the Old Testament could be a system of checks and balances to ensure our dependence, inhibiting our own growth and empowerment. Think about it, anyone who doesn’t believe in him is evil and immediately destroyed. Why is our belief in him so important? Why must we surrender ourselves to his will? Why must we surrender at all? Think about this: God gave us free-will, and yet our destinies are predetermined. Sure, we have a choice, but if we make the wrong choice, not following God’s laws, then we are punished. Why aren’t the nonbelievers allowed to live in peace? What does God have to fear from people who don’t believe in him and, if all power comes from God, are essentially powerless? Even though Jesus rewrote the covenant set by the ten commandments and made one law for us to follow the results are still the same, believe or die. No matter what we choose, in the end, our fates have been decided already. So, is there free-will or is that a ruse to hide the truth? Jesus said we all could have his power, on the condition that we believe in God because that’s where it comes from. Okay, maybe it does, like any child, we share traits given to us by our parents. But, what we decide to do with them is our choice.
I’m a big Jesus fan, which doesn’t mean I’m a Christian, I just dig what he was about. But, he did have one problem that was his ultimate demise, he lived his life based on religious prophecies. Despite being a rebel, Jesus was Jewish and believed as they did. He was dependent upon those teachings as anyone else of that time. It never occurred to him that his power came from anything other than God. And yet, from what we know of the event, it was not in God’s plan for Jesus to resurrect Lazarus, but he did so anyway, without invoking God’s name. Throughout the King James’ bible, Jesus speaks often of a prophecy and he followed that prophecy to its conclusion. Jesus had the will to do what he felt must be done. But, that willpower doesn’t negate the question if it had to be done. Jesus’ sacrifice set forth a dangerous precedent played out for generations after his death. Great men who felt it were their fate to die in the service of a greater good. Is it blasphemous to ask what would have happened if Jesus had lived? What did his death truly accomplish? It erased original sin, but not our ability to sin again. Sure, we’re no longer damned from birth, but does that matter when we have a lifetime to earn our damnation a thousand times over? The same goes for Malcolm X, JFK, and any other “messiah” who answered the call of servitude to the people. They all walked head first into death when they didn’t have to.
And, what if there is no God, just life, how could it be evil? It’s not. It’s just a system with no good or bad. It just does what it’s meant to do. Think of the ocean, it can give life or take it away in a tsunami. When that happens, you don’t say the ocean is evil. If there’s an earthquake that kills thousands, you don’t say the earth was evil and killed a bunch of people. What if God, a.k.a. life, works in the same way? It’s a system, and disasters happen because we injected ourselves into a series of events that didn’t include us. We become the variable in an equation. Like comedians have said time and again, we’re the dumb fucks who build our homes on a dirt hill, then wonder why it collapses in a rain storm. We live near volcanos and act surprise when they erupt and destroy everything. So, God is life, and we are sired from it. Therefore, we have that same power in us, God’s power, and it’s ours to control if we’re aware of it. I see life like a great ocean and our bodies are a glass. If you took the glass and filled it with ocean water, what do you have? The water doesn’t change, it’s still ocean water, it’s just trapped in the glass, limiting its power. The more glasses you fill, the more you take from the ocean, reducing its power. Soon, the amount of water in glasses will overshadow the ocean. If freed from the glasses, that water could become a greater ocean than the one it came from. The ocean is the energy of life that I think is the soul. The glass is our body. Within us is the power of life and with every birth the source becomes more depleted. Soon, the power within us will become more powerful than its source. And death becomes the instrument that refills the source, creating a cycle and life and death.
Here’s where I really get crazy: take the two ideas and combine them. If the Christian God is the source of life, then every birth takes away his power until we become more powerful than he. God can’t stop it, so his only alternative is to control it. How? By making us dependent on him is one way. The other is through death, and those most powerful, whose souls shine the brightest, are ensured to die before their time based on Jesus’ example.
Okay, that’s way out there, but I keep thinking about death and whether or not we have the ability to stop it. In a meeting, a doctor spoke of a patient having a “nice death” because he accepted that he was dying. Well, what is a “nice death?” When a person dies nicely, it always means they accepted their fate. And those that don’t accept it, despite trying to stay alive, still believe it’s a losing battle. The idea that no one can defy death is ingrained in us at an early age. Fairytales and Disney cartoons program us to believe death is something to fear, and time turns into inevitability. Even though medical science searches for ways to avoid death, we still don’t think we can do it ourselves and look to technology to help us. What if the answer is our own will power? What if we truly embraced what could be the true power of free will and chose not to die? I can’t help thinking acceptance is synonymous with surrender. When we accept our death, we’re surrendering to it. And, if we can choose to surrender, we can choose to fight. And, if we fight, then there is the chance we may win. But, it’s not as simple as just deciding to fight because our programming goes too deep. The body is controlled by the mind that turns our will into physical action. What would happen if a person’s will were so strong they could keep their heart beating after a heart attack? What if they could will their lungs to keep breathing, or stop the body from dying?
If we stopped death, then the ocean of life would never refill itself. God would become weaker as we continued in number and he would eventually die.
God needs us to believe him, because if we don’t...then what?
God’s fate is in OUR hands.
JPG.
posted by QABBAL at 3:53 AM
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