Saturday, April 23, 2011

Weird Theology – or – The end is near.

In the 1960’s, there was a population poster which proclaimed:

“Half the people who ever lived are alive today.”

Throughout history there have been concepts involving  resurrection and reincarnation.  In the Jewish faith there is the belief that every soul, which would ever exist, was created as part of the creation.  They were placed in a LIMBO, a storage or waiting area.  As a body became available, a soul would be sent to occupy it – only to return to limbo until all the souls had the opportunity to experience life, and make the decisions which would determine their ultimate fate.

In the Hindu, we reincarnate to finish what was started in, or correct the mistakes of, a past life.  In some cases, it is held that we reincarnate as other creatures.  Maybe that creature becomes the storage vessel for the limbo – the wait until the souls have all been used and the tine when they are judged on their actions.

The specifics of the belief systems vary, but the basics are there: We are responsible for our choices; that responsibility is within defined in terms of some basic guiding principles, or commandments, or laws, or doctrines, or whatever one wishes to call them.

In the New Testament, The Book of Revelation talks of a “Judgment Day” ... a time when 144 thousand -- twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes –- shall be passed without challenge.  Then the time will come when Jesus will act as lawyer for those who “come in his name”, and we are told that there will be some will come, but He will not know them; therefore he will decline to represent them.  He might even condemn them.

There is one thing that is, philosophically, certain: Limbo will have exhausted its souls and they shall all be brought back, before they can be judged.  In that context, let’s look again at that old Poster saying:

“Half the people who ever lived are alive today.”

If all the souls get two bodies – the first for the first life, the second in which they get to either, enjoy and continue their prior life (a life in which they were “good”, possibly earning a place among the 144,000, of the non-Judaic equivalents); or the get to either make amends for wrongs; or, maybe, just to finish what they had started.  Once that second life has been lived, the souls will be judged -- those deemed worthy shall resurrect, a third time, into a world with no pain or strife.  They will enter a world where they get to live the “good life.”

If you believe the theological texts, their world will, eventually, succumb to the remaining edges of “Free will” and “Choices.”   We will succumb to the curse that accompanies the blessing of Divine Freedom and Experiment in consciousness.  The world will finally end.

In the Hindu, the pre-Judgment period – the time when the souls all return for the second round – is the Age of Kali … which is due to begin within our lifetimes, in the next year or so.  The Mayan had the age begin on the 21st of December, in the year we refer to as of 2012.  So think about that statement:

 “Half the people who ever lived are alive today.”

If there are two bodies, for every soul – even though we do not know the precise number of souls that were initially created – we can be sure that, when they all return, “Half the bodies that ever existed, would be in existence.”  Each with one of the Limbo souls.

So if it is approximately true … that, “Half the people who ever lived are alive today.” … than what is really being expressed is an estimate of a mathematical reality … “Half the bodies that ever existed, are now in existence.”  If it is true, as the astronomers have announced, that our astrological perspective is progressing into a new  constellation … that, as the 60’s song (from the Broadway Production, HAIR) proclaimed … that this is the dawning of “the Age of Aquarius”; … if it is true that this is the Age of Kali, the Mayan new age of change, … than it follows that we are about to enter into the period proclaimed, or predicted to be, the “final”, transitional, judgment.

What wars and horrors shall we see as part of the birthing process which will bring about the new age?

Monday, April 18, 2011

Reverse Robin Hood tax deal

Huffington Post 18 April 2011: “The estimated cost to the government of that portion of the tax deal, $42 billion this fiscal year, exceeds the stated $38 billion value of the savings from the federal budget cuts lawmakers approved last week.”

So basically, the tax deal resulted in the rich robbing the poor – and the nation as a whole.

The nation is robbed because more people will be sick – lacking medical care – and therefore be unable to work, or have net earnings(income) that is subject to taxation.  More people will be deprived of education, and therefore will not be able to compete inn the global marketplace – thus damaging trade and our “balance of payments” … resulting in a net outflow of capital … again reducing the tax base to a point where the deficit will, despite budget reductions, grow at an extraordinary rate.

WATCH THE INVESTMENTS!

The rich are not all fools.  The ones who have made their wealth grow (as opposed to inheriting what they spend & spending what they inherited) shall  move their wealth offshore.  Outsourcing will grow significantly – with, on balance, the bulk of the product produced being directed to other economies … thereby circumventing American taxation.

Is it premature to announce the death of America?  Are we now only suited to be mercenaries fighting wars in third world nations?

Even that cannot last.  We have a negative population growth and are anti-immigration, thus anti-anything that will increase the future manpower of this nation.  The Jihadists of the world need only wait thirty years … there will be nobody to resist their takeover.

Friday, April 15, 2011

The Woman Fact/Symbol

For a relatively short period – when ignorance dominate culture -- History has relegated women to a sudo-second class status.

Back in the 60’s, when Feminism was emerging and had joined with the other “equality” movements, my mom asked me how felt about “female equality.”

My response was typical of how I viewed the world – and still do:

“If women want to be my equal,” I responded, “I’ll sit at home, exempt from the draft, or other ‘compulsory’ responsibilities, and allow them to support me.”  

Female superiority has always been a given.  At least it has in all things which do not involve the unthinking application of superior physical force.  Have you ever considered that, when we view meditation –- the blanking of the mind and absence of movement – the primary symbol is a Monk, a male; yet when it comes to Wisdom, the primary association has ALWAYS been female.

We look to the western Bible – Eve who brings “SIN” to the world.  But what is that “sin”?  That she will feel pain during birth?  (Inferring that there was no pain before her actions.)  And that he will need to toil and sweat to survive?  (That he is being punished for her actions?  Or, is it his stupidity in not being the one who could analyze the facts as presented?  Adam is the one forced to work to support Eve’s intelligence and analytical skills.

In scripture, the tribes of Zebulon & Issachar are granted the same symbiotic relationship – which, in their roles as merchants and scholars, places them above all the other tribes.  It is from their territory and history that King David emerges … and one thousand years later, Jesus also emerges and is shown with his twelve male apostles, the incomparable Mary (who many ancient scripts, including several NT versions, depict as his wife, and the only one with TRUE faith and the one to who he “returns.”).

In terms of gender defining DNA, whereas the male y-chromosome is unique to the specific male line it defines, the female X-chromosome appears twice in women and once in men – a woman’s dominant X goes to her daughters and is also transmitted to her sons – who then transmit it to their daughters (her granddaughters),where it effectively communicates her “genetic knowledge” to influence a third level of descendants that is effectively lost to males.

In terms of the Biblical representation, there is a Jewish Midrash (effectively a back-story underlying, or explaining elements of, the “official” story) which tells of Eve hearing the warning of death, but, over time, there came a time, when she observed the “Serpent” (at the time a legged serpent, or form of lizard) was able to eat the fruit and live.

Presumably,during the preceding century, creatures which ate from that specific tree had died.  Now there was one who, not only lived, but, developed the power of intelligent speech.

Seeing this, Eve realizes what Adam was blind to: The tree was no longer poisonous, it’s fruit was good, and was, in fact, capable of improving intelligence.  In effect, the sequence of events argues that the Creator was actually cool with people acquiring knowledge – or the poison would not have dissipated.  Thus the “sin” was not in the fruit, but in the disobedience to orders –- men (Adam) were created to follow blindly without the facility to  think about changing circumstances; whereas women were created to consider changes in their environment, and analyze how it would affect them and their futures.

In terms of world events, look to the Islamic world in which woman are repressed – notice the most repressive nations are the most violent and produce the fewest individuals with discernable intellect.  In fact, their leadership always seems to arise abroad –- while domestic readership is marked by a tendency toward self-destruction and annihilation (genocide) of their own people.

Where are women valued - educated – and  we still see that third world status prevails?  What rational women (or even irrational one) would, as an Islamic Imam recently has, declare that suicide involving the murder of innocents, and those on pilgrimage to Holy Islamic Sites, is a form of self-sacrifice that would earn a divine reward?  Where is there any vestige of  intelligence being demonstrated by a religious leader - making what should have been a considered religious legal pronouncement - which violates MULTIPLE levels of direct quotes from the Prophet and a millennium verses of the Quran?

Of course, Christian, and some Jewish, leaders tend to be at least as ignorant as that Imam – ultimately, with the same destructive consequences.

In America, the next few decades will be interesting.

Will she seek to elect leadership like Bush & Reagan – those who prize murder and harming their fellow humans above all else – even the welfare of those they are appointed to represent?  Or will she raise to power those who have intelligence, analytical ability, and a facility to adjust to changing circumstances?

Given the current Congressional nonsense, I’m inclined to favor a developing viewpoint which projects a total collapse of America – one that culminates in a natural disaster killing a third of the population and reducing those left to a third world status that lasts at least a full generation.   If we impose a Biblical analogy, that “generation” will be marked by the period it takes for all who remember the old nation to die – before the birth of the new, more rational one.

Friday, April 8, 2011

THINGS NOBODY ELSE will say

How many people remember back to the days when environmentalists complained about the excessive wrappers of common goods?

What followed?

Was it details about the garbage generated – annually on a per capita basis?  There was that, but there was also something else.

Suddenly basic items – aspirin or other over-the-counter items were being tampered with.  Suddenly items at the grocery were being poisoned.  WHY!  Where was the logic?

Suddenly discussion about landfills vanished and the amount of superfluous wrappings – for consumer safety – increased, and the vandals vanished?  Items that could easily be poisoned, … those items that had never had “protective wrappers, still lack that protection – yet, the vandals did not touch them … they were never  contaminated with drugs or hallucinogenic substances.  How easily could something be injected into a plastic water, soda or juice bottle?  How easily could spray be applied to fruits and vegetables?  Yet they went untouched.

Only those items which generated profits for the wrapper makers were ever subject to attack.  WHY?

And who was responsible?  Or, Why did they stop?  Why, if the idea was random harm, did they not find & launch another form of attack on society?

THINGS NOBODY ELSE will say

There are often stupidities that are noticed, and unspoken.  Continuing with our example of Food Stamps:

When they were stamps, and therefore, their use easily noticed  at check-out, to buy lobster was often viewed as a sign of how the money was being wasted on “luxuries.”

Curious thing: Those who made the comments about lobster were generally overweight and had, or were on the way to developing, coronary diseases related to LDL & fat intake.  They would make the comments with nice FAT slabs of PORK in their cart.

Another curious thing:  They would never make those comments when the Food Stamps went to buy pork – even though the pork was generally more expensive  than the lobster they were criticizing.  In other words, it was that the Food Stamps were being used for purchasing good tasting healthier and cheaper alternatives.  They were also being used to support an industry recognized around the world – after all, who every hear of a State Name proudly associated with a Pig product?  Maine Lobster, Idaho Potato and … where does that heart destroying, LDL saturated, pig product come from?  Who boasts of inducing the heart disease that is  killing people – what state?

We abhor anyone who is responsible in their choices and respectful of their own bodies.  It is for that reason that we make fun of those who are vegan, or, God Forbid, vegetarian (oh right, the western God didn’t forbid it, He commanded that “the fruit of the trees shall be your meat”) or like their vitamin or mineral supplements.

OH WELL, nobody cares what the Bible says.  At least they don’t care about the half which has the laws – unless they can corrupt them.  They LOVE the second half – where all the laws are set aside.  But even there, they can’t seem to be consistent in their reliance upon “faith”, the hypocrites need to run to the law to justify their bigotry and hatred.  When it suits them, they even run to it justify for health – when the Faith doctrine of St Augustan makes it clear that it is the soul and not the body which must be tended to – pork sucking hypocrites.

We love stupidity so much we want our nation to live in it – and will work hard to outdo all other nations in proving we can become the most ignorant nation on earth.  Doubt that?  Which do we cut first: Our Armies and ability to destroy whole regions of the planet with nuclear weapons, or Education and Health Care – both of which make our young better defenders of our freedoms for longer periods of time?

Friday, April 1, 2011

Conservative Morality

New York Times 1 April 2011 – NO April Fools Joke here:

“Connick v. Thompson is about the wrongful conviction of John Thompson for robbery and murder after prosecutors in New Orleans withheld evidence from Mr. Thompson that would have cast serious doubt on his guilt. He spent 18 years in prison and came close to being executed. He was exonerated after a prosecutor fessed up.

After Mr. Thompson sued, a federal trial court found the office liable for failing to train its prosecutors about their constitutional duty to turn over evidence favorable to the defense and awarded Mr. Thompson $14 million in damages. Now, by a 5-to-4 vote, the conservative majority of the Roberts court has overturned that ruling, saying the office can’t be held liable for a sole incident of wrongdoing.”

Clearly a case of immoral CONSERVATIVE (probably Right-Wing Christian) Judges defending the right of a prosecutor to commit willful murder.  The only real question is:  How Many Has that Prosecutor Murdered during his tenure?

We know that Conservatives love to murder the innocent and are out to destroy this nation – that’s pretty much a proven fact – given that they have (under Reagan & Bush) twice doubled the National Debt without the average citizen gaining anything from it.  We now see them working to destroy Labor Unions and reinstitute a Slave-Serf system of labor.  We now see them undermining Social Security and Health Care – to further disable & disadvantage the majority of the nation – who are now entering that stage in their lives when they should be retired and enjoying time with their grandchildren.

WHO WILL THEY MURDER NEXT?