APOCALYPSE or FAIRY TALE?

[paco]

Jade,

Black, or, white?

[Bob Michael]

The world today is filled with darkness, pain, and grief. Every individal must seek the path for himself and walk on it himself. The spiritual darkness which broods over the world has created a sickness and the whole of humanity is blind and deaf to the truth of God. Few are interested, nor do they know why they stumble and fall in their spiritual plight of trying to find the path to God. Most persons are suffering from physical illness, heart-sickness, and are worn and weary from their spiritual search.

The masses of men are groping along an uneasy way towards some unknown destiny. None have freedom; they are not even masters of their own bodies, and generally are driven slaves to a job, family responsibilities, and social duties. The unrest which is sweeping the world is understandable. Even despite the drug problem, alcoholism, religious fads, and psychic disruptions, sickness of the mind is growing into enormous proportions. But why?

Man has nothing to cling to as an inner support. He has long been a victim of the metaphysicians and clergy who claim they have the remedy for the disease of restlessness. Buddha never found it. Christ made an unnecessary sacrifice for his people, and other saviors and adepts have tried to bring about the cure. Their search has not gone far enough, despite the fact that at least three thousand different forms of religion have appeared since the beginning of history.

[Paul Twitchell - 'The Spiritual Notebook']

[Pam Seeback]

No beginning, no ending, no alpha, no omega...these are the things, the thoughts of the darkness when and while it is reaching for ITS light.

But beginning and ending do exist. They are very clearly visible, as opposed to being shrouded in darkness.

Can you find the beginning or ending of life?

[Pam Seeback]

Bob, the majority of your thoughts are borrowed thoughts; this method of communication, as it is experienced by me, holds the essence of you at a distance, which seems to be contradictory to your understanding of yourself as a sensitive and UNDERSTANDING soul.

I would love to hear your words, from your heart, from your soul, from your spirit; I would love to hear the living truth of Bob. I would love to be moved of the breath of your Word; can you breathe your UNDERSTANDING on me, please? :-)

[cousinbasil]

Bob
IMO you quote too much. It is as if you are trying to justify this bleak outlook to which you apparently cling.

Throw out your books. If the end is near, you won't be needing them.

You seem to miss some very important facts in pronouncing the world as sick and hopeless as you do. The most important one is the distribution of human development across the face of mankind. There has never - repeat, never - been a time when humanity was uniformly fit, was all of a type, let alone in a condition against which today's man pales in comparison. There was never a golden age. Therefore, humanity cannot be in a wretched condition today, as you would have one believe, simply because humanity was never in a state which was morally or developmentally better than the one in which it exists right now.

This is not to claim mankind is in any way advanced at present, by the same logic. There is rather, and always has been, a continuum of advancement along which any particular individual falls. You personally may see more people at the low end. This means nothing. Since mankind is no more "fallen" nor depraved than in the past and his situation neither more barbaric nor hopeless, there is no reason to suppose Armageddon lurks any nearer now than it did in previous epochs.

Your outlook reflects yourself and your own experiences, not the state of mankind in general, no matter what quotes you present.

It would be more convincing if you could say in your own words only why you believe as you do, why an Ark is called for. Simply presenting what you've read - and out of context, no less - doesn't carry much weight.

[cousinbasil]

Looks like movingalways had the same thought a few miutes before I did!!

I would love to be moved of the breath of your Word; can you breathe your UNDERSTANDING on me, please? :-)

Except I don't want you to breathe anything on me, all right?

[jupiviv]

No beginning, no ending, no alpha, no omega...these are the things, the thoughts of the darkness when and while it is reaching for ITS light.

But beginning and ending do exist. They are very clearly visible, as opposed to being shrouded in darkness.

Can you find the beginning or ending of life?

"Life" itself means that there is a beginning and an end of life. Where the beginning and the end of life are depends on where they are defined to be. There are no fixed points of the beginning and ending of life.

By the way, I tend to agree with Bob about the present condition of humanity, but not for the same reasons. The reason why many more people than before are deluded, is that there are many more people in the world today than there probably ever was in the history of mankind. And why are there many more people? Because of peace, love, joy, brotherhood and understanding.

Here's a quote from a collection of Dave Sim's writings from Misogyny unlimited:

Birth and Death.

There is too much Birth in the world and there is not enough Death.

"How can you say that?" wails the Female Emotional Void. "Just the other day in the newspaper, I read about a family of four who were . . ."

I'm not saying, interrupted Viktor Davis, that people don't die. What I am saying is that there is not enough Death. I'm not saying, he added, that babies don't make people ecstatically happy. I'm saying that there is too much Birth. Those are two very different things. If you could create a four-dimensional model consisting of two spheres, one representing Birth and the other representing Death, the former sphere, observed over the last four hundred years, would be growing larger and larger, faster and faster. The latter sphere would be growing smaller and smaller, faster and faster.

Our planet will double its population in the next ten years. Given that it is our society's collective Emotional Void Response that we are not overpopulated, my Reasoning Mind is moved to ask, when does overpopulation occur? If eight billion is not overpopulated, then what is? Fifteen billion? Eighty billion? One hundred billion?

I'm trying very hard to paint you the Big Picture. Patriarchy, to me, is a red herring, a false premise. Which is more successful, Birth or Death? I'm asking you to picture the two as Organisms. The individual, lower-case births and deaths which make up those two Organisms are like molecules. A molecule within an elephant is not an elephant. Birth is Female. Death is Male.

Which is more successful?

[cousinbasil]

By the way, I tend to agree with Bob about the present condition of humanity, but not for the same reasons. The reason why many more people than before are deluded, is that there are many more people in the world today than there probably ever was in the history of mankind. And why are there many more people? Because of peace, love, joy, brotherhood and understanding.

Jupiviv, you raise a very good point. Your use of the word probably in this quote is quite unnecessary.

If I am not mistaken, your argument is that peace, love, and understanding, etc., have led to overpopulation. Which, in turn, is the cause of the miserable present condition of humanity. If you look at the population chart, the upswing starts accelerating about 1900. Your argument is that the twentieth century was one of peace, love, joy, and understanding. A century including two world wars, the holocaust, Stalinism, and the like. The single most violent century in history.



This chart is a UN estimate. I suggest the population explosion of the last century caused the violence. You'll note that at least in this estimate, the population continues to expand until about midcentury.

Looks like we're in for another violent century.

Maybe Bob's right after all!

[Bob Michael]

Bob, IMO you quote too much. It is as if you are trying to justify this bleak outlook to which you apparently cling.

What's 'bleak' about foreseeing a portion of the human species finally coming to know and experience love, peace, joy, harmony, and true brotherhood, c/b?

Throw out your books. If the end is near, you won't be needing them.

In time I'll probably have to do so. When I get the direction as to where a safe place would be to move on to in order to build my Ark.

You seem to miss some very important facts in pronouncing the world as sick and hopeless as you do. The most important one is the distribution of human development across the face of mankind. There has never - repeat, never - been a time when humanity was uniformly fit, was all of a type, let alone in a condition against which today's man pales in comparison.

Again it's not totally hopeless, as there are most definitely some sensitive souls who are in fact capable of genuine transformation and restoration to sanity and fullness of human being. So some day soon there'll be 'uniformly fit' human beings occupying the planet earth.

There was never a golden age. Therefore, humanity cannot be in a wretched condition today, as you would have one believe, simply because humanity was never in a state which was morally or developmentally better than the one in which it exists right now.

I think there were golden ages or times here and there throughout history. Though they were short-lived.

This is not to claim mankind is in any way advanced at present, by the same logic. There is rather, and always has been, a continuum of advancement along which any particular individual falls. You personally may see more people at the low end. This means nothing. Since mankind is no more "fallen" nor depraved than in the past and his situation neither more barbaric nor hopeless, there is no reason to suppose Armageddon lurks any nearer now than it did in previous epochs.

Technically we're advancing. Humanly we're degenerating. And in both ways more rapidly than ever. We may have become less barbaric physically speaking but psychologically we're becoming more and more barbaric as time goes on. And it's only in the last seventy years that man has developed the means to bring about the impending and necessary Apocalypse or Armageddon. Or the "abomination that maketh desolate", as a man named Daniel put it long ago.

Your outlook reflects yourself and your own experiences, not the state of mankind in general, no matter what quotes you present.

My outlook is the result of being on this planet some 70 years along with being an extraordinarily sensitive human being who thereby possesses the capacity to be able to clearly discern what is and is not authentic human behavior or being.

It would be more convincing if you could say in your own words only why you believe as you do, why an Ark is called for. Simply presenting what you've read - and out of context, no less - doesn't carry much weight.

The Ark cannot and will not be built via this means of communication. What will be absolutely necessary for this greatest of adventures is warm human to human contact, communion, or intercourse. And at a place that's far removed from the insanity and barbarism of the world.

[Bob Michael]

Bob, the majority of your thoughts are borrowed thoughts; this method of communication, as it is experienced by me, holds the essence of you at a distance, which seems to be contradictory to your understanding of yourself as a sensitive and UNDERSTANDING soul.

They're not borrowed thoughts m/a, but simply other men's views (in their own words) which happen to be similar to my own. I too hold original views regarding the nature of the continually deteriorating human condition (which I've offered previously) that no man that I know of has ever held. And I would especially include Nietzsche here. Views which I have no expectations whatsoever of others understanding, save for a very few similarly highly-sensitive souls.

I would love to hear your words, from your heart, from your soul, from your spirit; I would love to hear the living truth of Bob. I would love to be moved of the breath of your Word; can you breathe your UNDERSTANDING on me, please? :-)

Given that you're in fact moveable m/a, such a thing would still be impossible via this means of communication. However, if you don't understand me by now chances are very good that you will never understand me under any circumstances.

[Bob Michael]

By the way, I tend to agree with Bob about the present condition of humanity, but not for the same reasons. The reason why many more people than before are deluded, is that there are many more people in the world today than there probably ever was in the history of mankind. And why are there many more people? Because of peace, love, joy, brotherhood and understanding.

It doesn't take peace, love, joy, brotherhood, and understanding to rapidly increase the size of the human population, jupiviv. Cold, calculating, callous, ignorant, insane, dehumanized, brutal, and violent human robots or machines can and have been doing this quite well. Actually they will be far more prolific at it than warm, tender, loving, and intelligent human beings.

I think here of Nietzsche's 100+ year old view that when a man and a woman marry and reproduce their goal should be to produce offspring that are superior to themselves. But instead the prevailing trend everywhere was one of producing nothing but more and more 'zeros'. Which continues on to date everywhere. However, and thank God or fate, now and then there appears an exception or two who have what it takes to break this universal pattern and become genuinely self-knowing free-spirits. Yet without a guiding light to lead the way they'll never make it. So, sorry for another quote here, but I'm moved to add the following one here. One which has inspired me on for quite some time.

"But some day, in a stronger age than this decaying, self-doubting present, he must yet come to us, the redeeming man of great love and contempt, the creative spirit whose compelling strength will not let him rest in any aloofness or any beyond, whose isolation is misunderstood by the people as if it were flight from reality--while it is only his absorption, immersion, penetration into reality, so that, when he one day emerges again into the light, he may bring home the redemption of this reality; its redemption from the curse that the hitherto reigning ideal has laid upon it. This man of the future, who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, nihilism; this Antichrist and antinihilist, this victor over God and nothingness--he must come one day."

(Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals)

[Bob Michael]

Looks like we're in for another violent century. Maybe Bob's right after all!

I'm afraid the 'centre cannot hold' for another century, c/b.
_____________________________________

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

[paco]

And then there was google"

[jupiviv]

If I am not mistaken, your argument is that peace, love, and understanding, etc., have led to overpopulation. Which, in turn, is the cause of the miserable present condition of humanity. If you look at the population chart, the upswing starts accelerating about 1900. Your argument is that the twentieth century was one of peace, love, joy, and understanding. A century including two world wars, the holocaust, Stalinism, and the like. The single most violent century in history.

What about the latter half of the 20th century, when the only large scale violence was the USSR and USA flipping each other off? The line in the graph starts rising steeply after 1950.

It doesn't take peace, love, joy, brotherhood, and understanding to rapidly increase the size of the human population, jupiviv. Cold, calculating, callous, ignorant, insane, dehumanized, brutal, and violent human robots or machines can and have been doing this quite well. Actually they will be far more prolific at it than warm, tender, loving, and intelligent human beings.

"Cold, calculating, callous, ignorant, insane, dehumanized, brutal, and violent human robots or machines"....so much for love, brotherhood and above all, understanding. Where does the evil really reside, within you or within the people you call cold, calculating machines? Because, to me, these people seem to be full of love and understanding for each other. The problem is both love and hatred, and not just hatred. Happiness and suffering follow each other as surely as night and day.

From the Nietzsche quote you provided, this statement says exactly the same thing I said above:

This man of the future, who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, nihilism

What we love or hate, we become. Ultimately, we love everything(God), and hate nothingness. Therefore, it follows that everything and nothing have the same meaning. The love of everything and the hatred of nothingness both lead to nothing.

[cousinbasil]

What about the latter half of the 20th century, when the only large scale violence was the USSR and USA flipping each other off? The line in the graph starts rising steeply after 1950.

More steeply, yes. But it's pretty clear the graph takes its sharp upward turn way before that. The fifty year growth prior to WWII undoubtedly led the Germans to make Lebensraum their rallying cry.

You also have to understand the vast resources that have gone into the military-industrial complex since 1950. The cold war is after all a war, if a potential one waged in the national psyches of the superpowers. The population surge has not so much ushered in an age of peace as an age of stalemate in strategic arms buildup, an age of arms races. That the war has been threatened as opposed to actual has led to an even further quickening of population growth, as you have noted. But I hardly call the past fifty years an era of peace, love, joy, and all that.

[jupiviv]

The fifty year growth prior to WWII undoubtedly led the Germans to make Lebensraum their rallying cry.

Not "Germans", but some Germans. Lebensraum had nothing to do with any actual demand or need for more space, unless the average homeless person in Germany at the time thought that a 100 acre mansion was more important than 4 meals a day. It was basically an excuse to expand the borders of Reich. In fact, the idea itself seems utterly idiotic, but I guess that shouldn't be surprising, given that Hitler was an absolute bonehead.

The population surge has not so much ushered in an age of peace as an age of stalemate in strategic arms buildup, an age of arms races.

That's what peace is! "If you want to secure peace, then prepare for war." People are attached to peace because it brings them security and happiness. When they feel that peace is threatened, they go to war, because their security and happiness are also threatened. This is how peace, love and joy lead to violence, hatred and suffering.

The problem with this discussion is, I'm defining happiness to be the same as suffering(as the same basic delusion), and not as something separate from it except in the imaginations of deluded people. From a very general standpoint, the past 50 years have, in fact, been very peaceful and full of love and joy. That is precisely the reason why they portend terrible suffering in the future.

[cousinbasil]

From a very general standpoint, the past 50 years have, in fact, been very peaceful and full of love and joy. That is precisely the reason why they portend terrible suffering in the future.

Only compared to WWII and its nuclear end can the past 50 years be considered peaceful. Your very general standpoint would not include Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Sudan, etc., i.e., any of the 5 million people killed by war since the end of WWII. A quick graphic can be found here.

But I do see your point, jupiviv. The Baby Boomer Generation, of which I am an element, proves it.

[jupiviv]

Only compared to WWII and its nuclear end can the past 50 years be considered peaceful. Your very general standpoint would not include Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Sudan, etc., i.e., any of the 5 million people killed by war since the end of WWII. A quick graphic can be found here.

I didn't say there weren't any wars, just that a) they were limited in scope b) the number of people who were born leveled out the loss of life and then some(actually, a LOT more).

[Bob Michael]

"Cold, calculating, callous, ignorant, insane, dehumanized, brutal, and violent human robots or machines"....so much for love, brotherhood and above all, understanding. Where does the evil really reside, within you or within the people you call cold, calculating machines? Because, to me, these people seem to be full of love and understanding for each other. The problem is both love and hatred, and not just hatred. Happiness and suffering follow each other as surely as night and day.

When one is fully immersed in love he has no "problems" and he is beyond good and evil and clearly understands the tragic nature of the human condition. It could be said that he has the mind of the Infinite since the Infinite is also love.

From the Nietzsche quote you provided, this statement says exactly the same thing I said above.

I believe Nietzsche was speaking of me in that prophetic quote of his that I posted previously. And he seemed rather certain that no one in his time would understand him nor fill the bill either. Which he expressed in his preface to 'The AntiChrist' as follows:

"This book belongs to the most rare of men. Perhaps not one of them is yet alive. It is possible that they may be among those who understand my "Zarathustra": how could I confound myself with those who are now sprouting ears?--First the day after tomorrow must come for me. Some men are born posthumously."

"The conditions under which any one understands me, and necessarily understands me--I know them only too well. Even to endure my seriousness, my passion, he must carry intellectual integrity to the verge of hardness. He must be accustomed to living on mountain tops--and to looking upon the wretched gabble of politics and nationalism as beneath him. He must have become indifferent; he must never ask of the truth whether it brings profit to him or a fatality to him...He must have an inclination, born of strength, for questions that no one has the courage for; the courage for the forbidden; predestination for the labyrinth. The experience of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have hitherto remained unheard. And the will to economize in the grand manner--to hold together his strength, his enthusiasm...Reverence for self; love of self; absolute freedom of self."

"Very well, then! of that sort only are my readers, my true readers, my readers foreordained: of what account are the rest?--The rest are merely humanity.--One must make one's self superior to humanity, in power, in loftiness of soul,--in contempt."

[jupiviv]

When one is fully immersed in love he has no "problems" and he is beyond good and evil and clearly understands the tragic nature of the human condition. It could be said that he has the mind of the Infinite since the Infinite is also love.

Language can be a problem in these kinds of discussions. How are you defining "love"?

[Bob Michael]

Language can be a problem in these kinds of discussions.

Yes, I agree. Especially via this means of communication. Though in any case trying to define love is like trying to define God. It's virtually impossible to do, though attempts can and really must be made at it.

How are you defining "love"?

I like the following attempt. God (or love) is simply the consummation of human refinement.

[Sazar]

One need only consider, at least see, the sort of 'split' that informs the difference of opinion---and also aesthetic---that informs the polarity that takes form here. In essence, the 'lists' offered by B. Michael, as well as the very essence of Fromm, derives from Judeo-Christianity. Such views are founded in having and increasing humanitarian concerns, and these privelage this human dimension above almost all other concerns.

On the other side, and acting like a sort of 'acid' or corrosive chemical in opposition to any level of humanitarianism, any definition of 'love', any definition of 'values' that are derived from these traditions in Western ideation and praxis, are those who (oddly enough)(and I reference Kelly as a perfect example) have been directly produced by this self-same tradition. Kierkegaardian monkism. The same is true for David, Dan, and Kevin (and many others who post here). Their 'link' to Christian culture---theology as well as the way the individual and the personality has been 'constructed'---is extraordinarily real even as they appear absolutely opposed to it. It is so very much their matrix that, from my perspective, it is somehow funny that, from the look of it, they establsih themselves as utterly opposed to it. There is an invisible driver here...

Speaking totally from jufa, what has occurred here is that the participants in this thread, bar none, has discovered the reality of pupose and mistook it to be personal. Why do I say this? All reality is invisible, and this is true because man, who is the conduit of that which is issued forth out of the invisible {original thought intent and purpose], is the invisible expression of life's purpose of an the indefinable Spirit Principles of Substance and Patterned Essence.

"Existence is beyond the power of words to define
Terms may be used, but are none of them absolute.
In the beginning of heavenand earth there were no words,
Words came out of the womb of matter,
And whether a man dispassionately see the core of life,
Or passionately seen the surface,
The core and surface are essentially the same,
Words making them seem different - Lao tzu

Existence shine through every man, woman and child whole, perfect complete, and pure according to the Principle and Pattern of 'Everything after its kind." And being we are of the likeness and image of the Creator, then our purposed principle and pattern of original intent is to allow the Spirit which is indefinable to flow through us without judgment so we will not hinder our expansion of being lifted up to be in position to draw all men unto that Spirit which takes no human thought.

This is why we are instructed to 'Take No Thought." And to take no thought does not mean not to think, but not to take possession of that which is free so that the free thought can fulfill all that is righteous as that image and likeness we are.

We cannot become aligned to the invisible. We can only become intuned to how we convey that which is flowing freely to us so our Spirit can unite with all who touch us and are touched by us. Being a messenger is not a sharing of thought to change one to act according to our interpretations. Being a messenger is a demonstration that we strive to live and move and have our being purged of our own self-condemnation according to the law of old, and begin living by "thy grace is my suficiency."

Silence is the activity of the invisible. All that we are aware of came to us out of the Silence. The Silence flows through all our conscious and unconscious moment, and returns to the Silence. No one can say they can know what thoughts will come out of Silence' continuum of Now in this the moment of their thinking. So where does one moment begin and another end? "Who convinceth me of sin?"

In the final analysis what else can anyone here say but I Am? But what are we is the question which came after the answer. So until we can say as the Creator I Am and put a period behind it, we will, irrespective of our human knowledge of Scripture and all else in this world, be the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve mentalism, which mentality did not realize it is the consciousness of Spirit, and not that of the mentality of "bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh.

So then the question we must ask ourselves is What is Love is it does not coveer the entire Spectrum of our thoughts to receive the invisible, which Itself is No Respector of Person, Place, or Thing? There is only one Love. We are that Love. How can Love be expressed whole, perfect, complete, and pure in condemnation and by judging others? How can Love be expressed in the attribut of the "law of the Spirit of life" if we are not the ever renewing, ever unfolding expressiong of infinite Life?

If we are the Sons and Daughters of Life, we are the emanation of Love. This is why it is essential we realize "I and my Father are one." It is essential we comprehend it is the movement of God's Spirit which made us living souls consciously aware of our ability to see, hear, touch, taste, smell, think, and analyze that which comes to us out of the Silence.

Never give power to anything a person believes is their source of strength - jufa

This.