Saturday, December 31, 2011

REWRITING THE BIBLE (an ongoing exercise in clear thinking)

Um. Okay... You all know the Genesis story from the KJB, right? Right. Even the atheists know it.

Hell, atheists know Genesis better than most Christians, okay.

Here we go.

In the Beginning, God created everything. Seriously. He did. He created the Angels, put them to work assembling Creation. This required an extraordinary amount of Time; and, Truth be known, Creation isn't finished yet.

But we're talking about Creation as it pertains to and is germane to the planet Earth, because you’re an Earthling and it concerns you.

From one perspective (God's perspective), the entire Universe was constructed instantaneously, and it collapsed immediately afterwards. Big Bang and Big Crush. Snap of the fingers.

God knew it was a beautiful Creation, full of ALL SORTS of stuff, and VAST. But all Creation is ultimately destroyed. Shiva and Vishnu, right? God put a LOT of planning into the Universe KNOWING that it would be destroyed instantly.

Tibetan monks to this day still construct elaborate and beautiful mandalas made of sand, then destroy them, as an acknowledgement of the cycle of Creation and Destruction. The mandalas are viewed briefly, enjoyed by a few lucky onlookers, then they are destroyed.

Now, in order to ENJOY and APPRECIATE his work, God injected LIFE into the Universe. Let's discuss Life for a moment.

Life is a seed that interacts with the matter of the Universe. Once that seed is planted in the raw cosmic chemistry, it becomes a little bitty PROCESSOR of raw materials. It starts Eating, right. Life starts Eating and Metabolizing (a process of converting mundane matter into ENERGY, okay).

In higher life forms, with evolved senses for perceiving different aspects of the Universe, the eating takes on a different meaning. We CONSUME things with our Eyes, also, with our Ears, with the touch of our fingers upon the textures of existence.

As the Matter of the Universe is consumed by Life, the INFORMATION about that Matter is transmitted back to God.

So, we consume the Universe in a variety of ways, and our bodies process the information, and that information is passed on to God for his perusal and edification and enjoyment. If God is ANYTHING, he’s curious and desires satisfaction.

See, God doesn't really know what's IN the Universe. He just designed it. Kind of the way an architect doesn't actually BUILD the thing he designs. An architect doesn't have to be a polymer chemist for him to design structures made of composite materials, right. An architect may even WONDER about the processes and materials that go into making his dream manifest into reality.

Or an architect may not care about the origins of his building materials, so long as the design is completed to his satisfaction. In the case of God and his Creation, he DOES care about the composition, but the Angels actually built the thing on his orders, so he doesn’t really know first-hand what went into its construction.

But he wants to know.

To that end, God uses Life to examine and analyze the actual composition of the Universe. We gobble up the Universe THROUGH OUR SENSES, and that information goes back to God. The concept is beautiful in its simplicity.

Well, it’s simple to God, anyway.

So, God dreamed up the entire Universe as a masterpiece for him to enjoy, dispatched his Angels to build the thing, and they did. Then God injected Life into the Universe before it collapsed, to provide him with all the minute and beautiful details of this magnificent Creation.

That’s how and why the Universe was created, and the Meaning of Life, all rolled into a few easy paragraphs.

As with nearly all artists and creators, God decided to place his signature upon the Universe, and so he created one animal in all Nature that resembled him. Mankind was God’s signature upon Creation.

At this point, for the sake of the frustrated Darwinists out there, I’ll take off on a tangent for a few moments.

When God creates something, it doesn’t just POP into existence, fully realized. When God created Life, he set Evolution in motion. Evolution is the way God creates all life forms, okay, so just accept it. That’s not most important bit of the story, anyway.

So, God rather vainly signed his masterpiece by including an image of himself within the Creation. That signature was Man.

Now, one of the foremost Angels on the construction project, Lucifer, loved Creation as much as God did. It was the most beautiful thing EVER. But Lucifer was APPALLED when God signed the Masterpiece.

To Lucifer, Creation could stand on its own without a gaudy SIGNATURE right in the middle of it.

Lucifer HATED the signature. Lucifer took his complaint to God directly, and God brushed him off. This was just too much for Lucifer to bear, after the amount of work that went into the Creation, and he started a bit of a revolt among the Angels.

A good number of the Angels agreed with Lucifer, you see, that Mankind was just an arrogant smudge on an otherwise brilliant piece of work.

Well, this revolt shook the cosmos, verily, and it was very much teetering on the brink of an angelic mutiny in Heaven. So God directed his champion Archangel Michael to banish Lucifer.

And he did so with prejudice.

Lucifer was cast down to the Earth, the home world of God’s very signature, Mankind. Lucifer’s punishment was to preside over the affairs of Mankind. So, Lucifer’s dominion became the Earth.

When we speak of Hell, we’re actually talking about the Earth, okay. Lucifer reigns in Hell. Lucifer’s dominion is the Earth. The Earth, therefore, is Hell.

Don’t get me wrong, Lucifer wasn’t disempowered entirely, he was just banished out of God’s kingdom and sent to reside WITHIN the masterpiece of Creation, on Earth, which was so humiliating that it still infuriates Lucifer.

Still stinging from the banishment, Lucifer decided to exact revenge immediately against God. To that end, Lucifer approached the first true human beings, who were very wide-eyed and innocent, really, and started jacking with them.

Allow me to say something about Humans at this point.

Yes, it took about 7 million years for our species to evolve, and we DO most closely resemble God in appearance and intelligence. But, for millions of years, Mankind existed right alongside the animals in perfect harmony with Nature, BEFORE we became true Homo sapiens.

We evolved with the animals, and we became more and more sophisticated alongside the animals, and we lived by Natural laws. We WERE animals, no different than them, really. We lived in groups, like apes, we had some social order, but like animals we knew that the weak and injured were a burden upon the group’s collective survival.

So we moved on when our brothers fell to injury and disease, and we kept the species strong in this way.

This is the way Mankind behaved for millions of years, and we lived in harmony, evolving with Nature upon the face of the Earth, just as the animals do.

Until, that is, Lucifer approached our species and started jacking with us. This happened relatively recently in the history of the Universe, and the first person Lucifer contacted was a female — who, for purposes of clarity, we shall call Eve.

Now, keep in mind, Mankind was pretty sophisticated at this point, there were already whole populations of people when Lucifer approached Eve. The reason Adam and Eve were called the “first humans” will become apparent, I promise you.

So, Lucifer approached Eve and, with vengeance in his mind, he offered Eve something that she didn’t understand but that appealed to her very much. He offered her expanded awareness, promising her that she could perceive Creation the way GOD perceived it.

She was completely taken aback at first, but Lucifer was persuasive.

The exact vehicle of this expanded awareness is not entirely clear, but we can reasonably assume that it was an organic substance with psychotropic properties. The Bible called it the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Make of that what you will.

Suffice to say when Eve ingested this substance her mind was almost immediately expanded FAR beyond her prior level of awareness. She became entirely self aware, and she intuitively understood things about Nature that were positively dangerous, because it bordered on the same understanding as that of the Creator.

And that’s dangerous.

Well… Eve was awestruck, needless to say. She returned to Adam, wishing to tell him everything, but she was torn with guilt, which was an entirely new experience for our species. She knew she had defied God’s strict orders about consuming certain “forbidden” compounds, and she knew Adam was on a first-name familiarity with God; so she was rather reluctant to confess everything up front for fear of inciting both Adam’s and God’s wrath.

Instead of confessing, she deceived Adam into ingesting the substance also, that he might share the blame with her. I’m not trying to be sexist by vilifying Eve, I’m just telling you how it transpired.

The results were instantaneous and Adam knew he had been tricked, but he also knew that chastising Eve was moot at this stage of the game. The deed was done. Mankind had just become full blown Homo sapiens, with full knowledge of the consequences of our actions BEFORE we acted.

So, we now were burdened with FREE WILL and SELF-DETERMINATION, not merely hunting and grazing and rutting and pumping out offspring like all the other animals. We had just become Human. Now we understood that we could MANIPULATE Nature, that we could tamper with Creation itself.

Which would infuriate God when he found out, just as Lucifer intended.

And, yes, God was quite upset when he discovered that Adam and Eve had just transcended to near god-like awareness. He called a sit-down meeting with them and Lucifer, which probably proceeded like this:

GOD: Adam, Eve, sit down. You know, of course, that I’m instantly aware of all changes that occur within my Creation. Right?

ADAM & EVE: Yes, sir.

GOD: So, Adam, what do you have to say for yourself?

ADAM: Sir… I know now that apologies and explanations are useless. All I can say is that I’m guilty. But it was Eve who tricked me into taking the stuff.

GOD: Adam. Look, I was almost ready to forgive you, okay? But you just compounded your sin, right here in my presence, by pointing the finger of BLAME. Okay? Do you understand how PETTY that is? Yes, of course you understand it, but you DID IT anyway. So, you’ve just insulted me in addition to defying my direct orders.

LUCIFER: Pardon me, but how is that an insult?

GOD: Lucifer, SHUT UP. I’ll deal with you in a moment; but, to answer your question, Adam insulted me by behaving like YOU, by trying to transfer blame for his actions onto somebody else, which is NOT a quality I imparted to my greatest part of Creation, Mankind. YOU, Lucifer, just SPOILED the greatest part of my Creation. I hope you’re happy.

LUCIFER: I’m not “happy,” and you know it! But you deserve this for being so arrogant, God, for signing your name to Creation. How VAIN is that, I ask you?

GOD: I told you once to shut up. There’s no second-chance on this one, Lucifer. So heretofore I remove your visibility, and I remove your ability to speak to Mankind, except in a very, very tiny and annoying voice. From now on, you rule the Earth and the affairs of Man, but only indirectly, just to frustrate you. That’s my punishment against you. Done.

[Lucifer, now muted and invisible, storms out of the office, enraged. God turns back to Adam & Eve]

GOD: Now, as for you two… Eve, not only did you directly disobey me, you deceived your husband and thereby aided and abetted Lucifer in distorting my greatest part of Creation. I love you guys, but you’ve transgressed my orders most egregiously, okay? You have brought a great burden upon your species, the anticipation of pain and guilt, which just compounds any actual pain you suffer. You will be able to TERRORIZE one another with THREATS of pain and violence that will affect your entire species in detrimental ways.  That’s what you brought upon yourselves.  Now, my punishment against you is that you will no longer live in Harmony with Nature. You’ll no longer be able to understand and coexist and communicate with the beasts of Nature. You’re going to be outcasts in Nature, do you understand?

ADAM: You’re kicking us OUT of Nature?

GOD: Exactly. Worse than that, actually, because you will live side-by-side with Nature, but you won’t be able to control it or understand it or live in harmony with it. Now, get out of my sight. I’m really, REALLY pissed off right now, and you don’t want to further antagonize me. Begone.

That’s pretty much the long and the short of the actual Creation Story, as it pertains to Earth, which is all you really need to know at this time, because you’re not capable of affecting Nature beyond the bounds of Earth.

Ever since then, Mankind has operated against Nature. Everything we do is against Nature. We can’t understand Nature, we don’t live in harmony with Nature, our Science is completely backwards and detrimental to Nature.

Lucifer loves it, because our disrespect and abuse of Nature enrages God. See, Lucifer personally considers Nature his OWN Creation and still loves it very much, but he HATES Mankind and loves to see Mankind mutilating the Creation (simply because it hurts God to the core).

It's complicated.

Everything that occurred in the Old Testament after Mankind’s exile from Nature is pretty much the story of Humanity suffering as a result of its own greed and disrespect of God. Indeed, everything since the exile has been a tug-o-war between God and Lucifer to sway Humanity one way or another as we exercise our Free Will.

You can easily identify who is winning the fight — on Earth, anyway. Nobody can defeat Lucifer on his home turf, the Earth, which is why we see Humanity engaged in a broad range of Life-ending activities. Killing the forests for personal profit, poisoning the atmosphere, aborting our own unborn offspring, harvesting animals to the point of extinction, et cetera, are all examples of exterminating Life.

Exterminating Life is one thing that really, really pisses off God. He does NOT tolerate it.

Life, remember, is how God experiences his Creation, it’s how he appreciates his Creation. To exterminate Life is to knowingly obstruct God’s observation and appreciation of his masterpiece. Like covering the lenses of God’s security cameras, okay?

You do not want to be guilty of exterminating Life.

At this point, let’s consider what it truly means to Kill.

Our knowingly endangering whole species to the point of extinction is exterminating Life. When God said, Thou Shalt Not Kill, this is what he meant: You SHALL NOT Exterminate Life on Earth. The warning has nothing to do with murder or war or defending yourself. God knows that taking Life is part of Life on Earth — it’s necessary for all species to feed upon all other species in Nature.

So, there is nothing inherently wrong with killing for food or in rage or in self-defense. Even war is necessary sometimes to prevent Mankind from exterminating his own species.

That’s the way Life was designed.

But for Mankind to INTENTIONALLY threaten his own species or any other species with extinction is expressly forbidden by God. Again, don’t be guilty of exterminating Life.


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