"I used to joke that if God created man after His own image, that doesn’t say a lot of good things about Him. "
As a highly educated man you know that any theory is consistent within itself only.
If you will use the scientific method while approaching the creation story, you will see that the end result of creation process, namely the one that first came in the garden of Eden, is NOT the modern man. You are missing the smallest big detail, the snake.
"... when I already know that civilization would end in the same whimper even if it was started over a million times..."
Reframe our situation as the opportunity to purposefully and consciously experiment with creating a million different civilizations over time. Perhaps 'civilization-making' itself will evolve toward optimizing itself? After a few thousand or tens-of-thousands of attempts, civilizations consisting of communities of awakened, actualized individuals pop up here and there? They work so well that they are emulated, and further improved?
Sure, I'm dreaming. But what the hell, why not dream, and act on it? What have you got to lose?
I'd like to experiment with creating a community/civilization that holds Nature, and human symbiosis within it, in highest regard, at all times. Science itself always adhering to the same credo. Since Nature has already figured out how to do everything necessary for a fulfilling existence (https://biomimicry.org/), the sole premise of the new inventive applied science is to work with Nature to organically create all that is necessary - food, clothes, building materials and biologically-manufactured structures, etc, etc.
Sounds like a fun project to me. Likely it will eventually fail, as all communities/civilizations do. But since Nature already has an conscious evolutionary impulse built into it and operating 24/7, why not create a community/civilization that harmonizes with that?
I like to think that such a community/civilization might work far better than we can imagine...
In the beginning we read of God creating man in His image. In the end we see man creating god in his image. That's literally what the bible presents. I doubt there will be much of an alternative economy beyond subsistence farmers trading a few things between themselves, and even then, most of them will be crawling out of tunnels like the Viet Cong. They can't place you into a FEMA camp if they can't find you.
The rest of us will be left sitting in those FEMA camps lamenting the fact that we all saw this coming and did a whole lot of nothing to stop it. In the end, I see us all standing in a long line waiting for some glorified TSA agent in a Hazmat suit with happy faces and the stars and stripes administering our last vaccine from a stun bolt gun.
…11Put on the full armor of God, so that you can make your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore take up the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you will be able to stand your ground, and having done everything, to stand. good god please help those that are possesed by evil return to goodness truth and you .... intersessory prayers are our rightious weapons... unseen warare
This movie scene pretty much paints the picture of what the world is dealing with, but the girl with the dragon tattoo is probably not coming to save anyone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghQ8898XbNk
Made me laugh with your closing paragraph :). I persist with little daily doings to the best of my ability. Squating on the floor of the gallery shop to engage young visitors, ignoring the parents. Balancing the accounts at the end of the month to make sure that each artist gets the most for their work that this little business can bear- this avoids a wee bit of fed and state tax. Stacking the wood last night was particularly fun. I make a game of stacking small medium and large all interspersed for fire feeding and make nice patterns with it, at least pleasing to me as no one else seems to notice. The wood rack holds a weeks worth of wood that stays nice and dry under the porch. Wheelbarrow it up from its covert storage - five loads. It was warm last evening so job was pleasant and cat was keeping me company searching for rodents that like to nest in the stacked wood.
Sharing tactics here that helps me cope with this insanity on so many fronts.
It is a difficult concept to grasp from the physical or mental being, alone, as we have such a short time in these flesh-bags.
Imagine having a relatively short lifespan of a little more than, say, 3-1/2 million years.
Even such a "short" span as that is difficult for we humans to truly conceive of, and yet, cosmologically, that is a very tiny drop in the bucket, yet we humans persist, out of defiance for our having been short-changed of years, I suppose, with which to spend our hoarded wealth, however such wealth is to be held, and so also do we manage to destroy the gift, that should/would/could, and can be the correctly loved and cherished inheritance of our varied offspring, shared justly -were our heads and hearts willing to be in The Right Place...
One might conceivably forego the bulk of these entirely learned lies that we have been inundated with our lives "long", but even such as that is to be deemed as dangerous, heretical, etc., and will end with a bang! or a silenced back alley whimper, or even a staged and paraded Kennedy-style execution, as we are shown and threatened with throughout our lives; either way the message is quite clear -"Say Nothing! - Back into the submissive position, or you will be dealt with severely!", to which I can only reply with "the lie, and the liars that tell them, are never to be bowed to", and best to accept that, and move on to the work that can (and must, if one cares to be found standing, as opposed to bowing and scraping) be done, which starts with admitting it is a irreparably corrupt system, not worthy of being "built back", but only of being ushered out like the devil's trash that it has always been, this wayward progression to dark depths of human indecency and lack of respect for life. Unplug, literally.
Without Fear of those who threaten such punishment for doing the righteous work.
After all, they are just the miserable bootlickers, doing what they are told by the one they serve, and are suffering for their lack of will towards grace, whether or not they can ever admit it.
I'll miss many of you when I pull this last plug from their grid, which time is surely coming soon, so I will try and make the best use of this tool while it's in my hand.
All of the Strength and Goodwill that I might instill among us all, if such was allowed, but it is rarely ever possible to maintain such for even one's own self- we all get tired- but I feel that it is worth holding to the ideal, even should I not perfect it's wielding, to lead by example.
Excellent work Ray, thank you - we are on the same page. Do you follow Charles Hugh Smith? He is a guru on systems and collapse - I have followed him for years and it's all panning out as projected: https://austrianpeter.substack.com/p/the-financial-jigsaw-part-2-the-end?s=w
"I used to joke that if God created man after His own image, that doesn’t say a lot of good things about Him. "
As a highly educated man you know that any theory is consistent within itself only.
If you will use the scientific method while approaching the creation story, you will see that the end result of creation process, namely the one that first came in the garden of Eden, is NOT the modern man. You are missing the smallest big detail, the snake.
"... when I already know that civilization would end in the same whimper even if it was started over a million times..."
Reframe our situation as the opportunity to purposefully and consciously experiment with creating a million different civilizations over time. Perhaps 'civilization-making' itself will evolve toward optimizing itself? After a few thousand or tens-of-thousands of attempts, civilizations consisting of communities of awakened, actualized individuals pop up here and there? They work so well that they are emulated, and further improved?
Sure, I'm dreaming. But what the hell, why not dream, and act on it? What have you got to lose?
I'd like to experiment with creating a community/civilization that holds Nature, and human symbiosis within it, in highest regard, at all times. Science itself always adhering to the same credo. Since Nature has already figured out how to do everything necessary for a fulfilling existence (https://biomimicry.org/), the sole premise of the new inventive applied science is to work with Nature to organically create all that is necessary - food, clothes, building materials and biologically-manufactured structures, etc, etc.
Sounds like a fun project to me. Likely it will eventually fail, as all communities/civilizations do. But since Nature already has an conscious evolutionary impulse built into it and operating 24/7, why not create a community/civilization that harmonizes with that?
I like to think that such a community/civilization might work far better than we can imagine...
In the beginning we read of God creating man in His image. In the end we see man creating god in his image. That's literally what the bible presents. I doubt there will be much of an alternative economy beyond subsistence farmers trading a few things between themselves, and even then, most of them will be crawling out of tunnels like the Viet Cong. They can't place you into a FEMA camp if they can't find you.
The rest of us will be left sitting in those FEMA camps lamenting the fact that we all saw this coming and did a whole lot of nothing to stop it. In the end, I see us all standing in a long line waiting for some glorified TSA agent in a Hazmat suit with happy faces and the stars and stripes administering our last vaccine from a stun bolt gun.
Death. The Great equalizer
…11Put on the full armor of God, so that you can make your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore take up the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you will be able to stand your ground, and having done everything, to stand. good god please help those that are possesed by evil return to goodness truth and you .... intersessory prayers are our rightious weapons... unseen warare
This movie scene pretty much paints the picture of what the world is dealing with, but the girl with the dragon tattoo is probably not coming to save anyone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghQ8898XbNk
Made me laugh with your closing paragraph :). I persist with little daily doings to the best of my ability. Squating on the floor of the gallery shop to engage young visitors, ignoring the parents. Balancing the accounts at the end of the month to make sure that each artist gets the most for their work that this little business can bear- this avoids a wee bit of fed and state tax. Stacking the wood last night was particularly fun. I make a game of stacking small medium and large all interspersed for fire feeding and make nice patterns with it, at least pleasing to me as no one else seems to notice. The wood rack holds a weeks worth of wood that stays nice and dry under the porch. Wheelbarrow it up from its covert storage - five loads. It was warm last evening so job was pleasant and cat was keeping me company searching for rodents that like to nest in the stacked wood.
Sharing tactics here that helps me cope with this insanity on so many fronts.
It is a difficult concept to grasp from the physical or mental being, alone, as we have such a short time in these flesh-bags.
Imagine having a relatively short lifespan of a little more than, say, 3-1/2 million years.
Even such a "short" span as that is difficult for we humans to truly conceive of, and yet, cosmologically, that is a very tiny drop in the bucket, yet we humans persist, out of defiance for our having been short-changed of years, I suppose, with which to spend our hoarded wealth, however such wealth is to be held, and so also do we manage to destroy the gift, that should/would/could, and can be the correctly loved and cherished inheritance of our varied offspring, shared justly -were our heads and hearts willing to be in The Right Place...
One might conceivably forego the bulk of these entirely learned lies that we have been inundated with our lives "long", but even such as that is to be deemed as dangerous, heretical, etc., and will end with a bang! or a silenced back alley whimper, or even a staged and paraded Kennedy-style execution, as we are shown and threatened with throughout our lives; either way the message is quite clear -"Say Nothing! - Back into the submissive position, or you will be dealt with severely!", to which I can only reply with "the lie, and the liars that tell them, are never to be bowed to", and best to accept that, and move on to the work that can (and must, if one cares to be found standing, as opposed to bowing and scraping) be done, which starts with admitting it is a irreparably corrupt system, not worthy of being "built back", but only of being ushered out like the devil's trash that it has always been, this wayward progression to dark depths of human indecency and lack of respect for life. Unplug, literally.
Without Fear of those who threaten such punishment for doing the righteous work.
After all, they are just the miserable bootlickers, doing what they are told by the one they serve, and are suffering for their lack of will towards grace, whether or not they can ever admit it.
I'll miss many of you when I pull this last plug from their grid, which time is surely coming soon, so I will try and make the best use of this tool while it's in my hand.
All of the Strength and Goodwill that I might instill among us all, if such was allowed, but it is rarely ever possible to maintain such for even one's own self- we all get tired- but I feel that it is worth holding to the ideal, even should I not perfect it's wielding, to lead by example.
Blessings to and for the ailing human family.
One could consider man as created in God's image as a creator. We can create a mess or we can create beauty. We are doing well on the mess part.
I went hunting and didn't wash for 6 days and am still alive.