Here's an essay by Chris Hedges on America's future. He's the Voice Crying in the Wilderness on this one. Let's hope he's over reacting, but I suspect he's telling the truth. At least he's calling it the way he sees it.
Leanderthal
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This post is scary but I don't agree. I think we are actually moving to a better place. Like the tectonic plates colliding, sometimes there are scary earthquakes along the way. Overall, though, despite the fear and anger generated by the recent economic readjustments, I think the move over generations has been, and will continue to be, towards greater understanding and tolerance, and a revaluation of the important things in life. Yes, some of the really out-of-kilter institutions are being brought down and that's making some people panic and lash out with anger and hatred. And it is scary to have to step up and respond. It has been ever so. But I do believe the end result is a positive forward progress.
Thomas seems to believe that perfection of the human race is possible, and that we can see progress being made if we look at the big picture.
Hedges believes that human perfection is a myth because man is born in sin.
The Voice is respulsed by the sin label, as a judgmental evaluation requiring being saved from sin by some kind of judging God. This is a God created by Man in his own image.
Man is the inheritor of all things that have lived on this planet for eons,including behavior which includes nourishing and caring, but also killing and destroyin, traits found simultaneously in creatures of Nature.
As evolved, we have to live with that inheritance, working as individuals to resist the killing and promote the nourishing. However successful an individual might be in that struggle, the next generation will have to start all over again. DNA rules.
OK, Leanderthal, your reply is another moment of synchronicity for me. At the recent vespers dinner I was given a quote by Martin Luther to meditate on: "what your heart clings to and relies on, that is your god." I was trying to figure out what my heart clings to and relies on, and all I could come up with was a literal thing, which was my dog. My heart does cling to, and relies on, my dog. So is my dog therefore also my god? If so, my god had violently killed a rabbit that same morning, despite my shouting for it to stop. I had been wondering where to go with this train of thought and then... your comment above leads me onward.
Thomas,
If what some call God is the animater of living beings, that Great Spirit of the American Indians, God is in everything that lives and has its being. (The Bible quotes Jesus as saying that the spirit of God is within you. If living and being includes, even requires, both caring and killing, then you can understand that we can love and rely on that spirit and yet be horrified by it.
God seems to embody both the positive and the negative aspects of life, or is at least the source of both, something like alternating current. It's a source of energy which powers light and motion, but, if handled carelessly, grabbing it with both hands, it can at least shock, even kill.
Perhaps that's why Michelangelo's painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling shows both God and Adam each stretching out only one hand. Those fore-fingers don't physically touch, but come close enough to "create" a gap, a kind of synapse, across which travels the spirit, the animator, of life.
Your dog(god spelled backwards) might ask, "What is your rabbit?".
Sorry I am unable to fix the God, No God arguement. It will be with us at least until the Sun burns out. Some say that the Human Mind is such a mess that it is not capable of the Great Understanding.
Even though I believe in a higher power the obvious question is, If there is a God that is all powerful and in control of everything then, why do "bad" things happen? Is God dropping the ball or is Humankind seeing things wrong? That little rabbit wanted to live too, that you can rely on.
PS: I know this link is off topic but could not resist. It is the account of how Goldman Sachs commited fraud. My question is where is the investigation and arrests? Too Big to Arrest?
It is so maddening that I cannot even finish reading the article....
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/11/01/77791/how-goldman-secretly-bet-on-the.html
Old Dude
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