Up In The Sky, It's...

"The man who does not think for himself, does not think at all." -- Oscar Wilde

"If you believe in Truth, then you must also believe that you do not know it." -- Joseph P. Farrell

For the last 150 to 200 years we, as a culture, have been obsessed with the complete and ultimate ruin of our species.  Why?  Why do we have this deep-seated desire to see our ultimate demise?

It doesn't matter what believe system you ascribe to, be it atheist, New Age, or any of the major or minor religions, all of them are ultimately focused on complete and utter ruin.  There's an anti-christ under every rock, a twelfth imam in every water well and a tenth incarnation of Buddha around every turn.  There's saviors riding on every cloud, blue kachinas in every town square and Altairians on every moving light in the sky.

In every case, we want to believe that some authority will come to save us from ourselves, and rule with an iron fist, and anyone that doesn't adhere to whatever will be tortured, murdered or otherwise unpleasantly dealt with.

With this sort of cultural underpinning, it is no wonder we always end up with dictators, monarchs and other unpleasant totalitarian leaders.  We collectively beg for it.  We seek it in all we do.  We live for the hope of having what amounts to a great Parent In The Sky who will tell us when to brush our teeth and when to go to bed.

Basically, we are all trained from birth that we are incapable of handling our own affairs.  We are worthless scum who need to be herded like cattle and placed under the watchful eye.  We are incapable of maturing both as individuals, and as a species because we tell each other constantly that we are not allowed to think for ourselves, and we ridicule anyone who does.

We tell outselves that we are incapable of determining what is morally right and wrong without resorting to some ghostly authority 'out there,' who will dictate our every movement, read our thoughts and punish us for our mistakes.  Is it any wonder we are in the mess that we are?

It takes on such mundane expressions.  We need authorities to tell us what the weather is going to be, because we can't trust our own perceptions and experiences.  We need a Santa Claus to objectively watch our every action and determine if we are worthy of gifts.  We can't possibly understand the complexities of celestial mechanics or the workings of the human body.  We have to leave all that to experts highly trained in the mystery schools and hidden arts.

There is an amazing dichotomy among the vast majority of people.  They believe fervently in gods that are loving and doting upon creation, but then will inevitably destroy it all because some part of that creation is displeasing.  We set up these gods to be moral authorities, whose tenets we must follow blindly, yet those gods behave in decidedly immoral ways.

Christians, for instance, can simultaneously believe in a god that in one part of the book offers the Hebrews wealth and power and kingdoms as the chosen followers, and in the second part, the son of that very same god is tempted by ultimate evil with the EXACT same things and refuses them.  In the first part of the book, the god offers 10 rules that must be followed unquestioningly, while in the second part, the son of that same god SUPPLANTS the 10 rules with two, yet christians still demand that everyone adhere to the original 10.  How does someone hold such dichotomies and contradictions in their minds with such fervency?

How can we as a species abhor dictators and kings, but worship gods that are both?  How can we claim moral superiority in the name of some god, and yet that very god acts in ways that are decidedly immoral and unjust?

Ultimately, how can we claim to be the pinnacle of a perfect creation from a perfect being, and yet sit around wringing our hands in anticipation of its destruction at the hands of a wrathful creator?  Those are the actions of a child, who frustrated that their sand castle didn't turn out perfectly, kicks it to the ground in an infantile act of anger.

As if all of this isn't absurd enough, there is the recent notion that some select group of folks will be chosen to sit in the peanut galley and watch the whole thing while sitting on their morally superior duffs.  Now tell me, from a true moral standpoint, is it right that some arbitrary group of people be selected to watch horror and destruction, doing nothing to stop it becuase they have some moral superiority?  What complete rubbish!  First of all, we are bound by moral action to do all we can to stop the horror and suffering.  Second, it sets up a system whereby people compete in the most horrific ways to be the ones sitting in the stands watching this horror.

And this is what we call religion?

Why do we require some outside force to come in and destroy all that humankind has every achieved in order to establish the most horrific and authoritarian dictatorship ever conceived?  Even more confusing is why do we call this the new Golden Age?

Instead, why don't we take our futures and our destinies into our own hands?  Why don't we take full and unequivocal credit for bringing in the Golden Age by the labor of our own hands?  Why do we need Second Comings, Twelfth Imams, Tenth Reincarnations, and Space Aliens to do what we are completely capable of doing ourselves...whether it be complete and utter destruction, or the institution of a Golden Age?

There's no excuse for this sort of purile and unquestioning servitude, other than our own acquiescence to it.  We human being are quite capable of great beauty and unthinkable horrors on our own volition.  We don't need any outside agency to achieve either of these extremes.  So why not consciously choose the path of our destiny?  Why not choose peace and beauty and harmony as expressions of our collective natures, rather than authoritarian death and destruction through inaction and avoidance of responsibility?

If we can have anything we want, then let's choose to make 2012 a year of renewal, regrowth and re-creativity, rather than all sitting around cowering at the possibility of some boogy man leaping out of the Central American rain forest, or vengeful god riding the clouds meting out bloody destruction?

Take it upon yourself to reason and learn and be responsible not only for your present situation, but your future, as well.  If, as the book says, we are made in the image and likeness, then we have the capacity for endless creation or utter destruction.  It is our choice which one we anticipate and desire.

We can choose the modern meaning of apocalypse, which is ruin, death and rot, or the original meaning, which is to reveal the truth (literally to open the veil).  The old ways are dying, there is no doubt about that.  Five hundred years of crushing slavery is falling apart.  Now is our chance to choose what will replace it.  Stop focusing on the death and start anticipating the new growth and beauty that follows.

Renewal is a painful experience, but it doesn't have to be hopeless.