Men have become the tools of their tools. – Henry David Thoreau (Walden, Economy)
Section 1: The Burning Bush
10
The mind plays tricks, and we see faces in the clouds. People imagine a hidden agent guides the world, and they pretend the agent loves taking care of us. Meanwhile, subconscious paranoia makes us think a predator lives hidden in the shrubbery. Picturing the danger as a giant serpent while equating it with the color black makes the monster spookier. Our imagination allows us to combine the loving agent with the spooky agents into an image of two snakes twined together.
Instead of pure imagination, we can also try to figure out the world using math. The ancient Greek Euclid wrote about three dimensions, and for a long time, Euclid’s geometry seemed good enough until modern math nerds, such as Gauss and Riemann, developed a new geometry (Hawking, 2005). Imagine how a flatworm moving over a bump would feel a force stretching its body. What if distortions in space and time could explain other forces? These explanations would require geometry that has more than three dimensions. Einstein used this new geometry while developing a model of gravity (Einstein, 1920). This explanation of gravity was compatible with Einstien’s theory about energy and mass, in which time was a variable. Science fiction writers invented stories about this new physics. In Star Trek, ships warp space to reach strange new worlds. Doctor Who travels through time and lives in a box that is bigger on the inside.
The tendency to make up stories about time has existed since antiquity. Back in the days of the Roman Empire, Augustine thought God was outside of time.
“You created all times and you exist before all times.” (Confessions XI 16)
Some crazy Platonists must have told Augustine that a perfect God would not change, and therefore, God must be outside the place where change happens. We can assume a powerful being outside time could change history; however, a God outside history would be difficult to examine because people usually only perceive stuff that happens in time. Without being able to collect evidence, we can not confirm which ideas about God are correct; therefore, no one knows what properties God has. So don’t start a holy war when someone’s God story differs from yours. In the Mundaka Upanishad, the creator Brahma was the first of the divines.
“From infinite Godhead came forth Brahma, First among gods, from whom sprang the cosmos. Brahma gave the vision of the Godhead, the true source of wisdom that life demands,” (Mundaka 1.1.1)
This verse implies that the maker had an origin and was part of a greater reality. This view contrasts with the eternal God of the Christians, who planned the universe. Though people in India and Europe tell different stories, they share common themes such as creator, time, and creation.
The God of the book of Genesis is also associated with time. In Genesis 21:33 Abraham worshiped a God called El Olam. El means God. Olam means eternity. The Hebrews claim to have one God, though Elohim, a plural word, refers to God (Strong 430). This plural word possibly comes from Canaanite mythology, where El is the father of the gods (Schniedewind, 2007 1.5). Three Canaanite gods Hadad, Mot, and Yam resemble the Greek gods Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon. These three gods are the sons of Cronus in Hesiod’s Theogony. A Christian writer named Eusebius equated the Canaanite god Elus with Kronos. (Praeparatio bk. 1 ch. 10). Chronos, the Greek name for time, resembles the name Cronus whom the Romans called Saturn. We can use El, Saturn, and Cronus as different names for time. Some of you might disagree with these interpretations. You might think that Chronos and Cronus are not the same guy. But we live in a free country; I can equate my imaginary people any way I want.
In chapter 3 of the book of Exodus, Moses asked the Elohim in the burning bush to say its name. The Elohim said, “Ehyeh asher Ehyeh.” This phrase translates as “I am who I am”, or “I will be what I will be.” I capitalized the last word the bush said because the second Ehyeh might be the name (Rohl, 1998). The Elohim told Moses, “Tell Israel Ehyeh sent you.” Ehyeh sounds like the ancient Semitic god Ea. In an Iraqi story that is even older than the bible, a few people were saved from a great flood when Ea told a person to build an ark (Gilgamesh tablet XI). Ea could have been the God of the Hebrews’ ancestors. Sound like, “I am Ea,” is what the bush said. I could be wrong. Well, any word spoken by shrubbery should be open to interpretation.
The authors of the Old Testament wrote God’s name with the Hebrew letters Yod Heh Vau Heh. The nuns back at school pronounced this combination of letters as Yahweh. The words Ehyeh and Yahweh have related meanings (Strong’s 1961 and 3068). Ehyeh translates as “I shall become.” I guess Yahweh translates as “in the process of doing.” Both of these words resemble Haya, an Aramaic word for life.
In a universe that happens, we measure time using events; therefore, time seems part of the material process. Also, time seems to allow events to happen; thus, time allows the material world. In time, everything changes until perhaps even a cosmic mind eventually decays. A God outside time would not decay, but how would it do anything without time? It could be both inside and outside time. The God of Moses uses both words for eternity and activity words for names, suggesting that God is the lord of time and time itself. You might consider me a heretic for saying God could be both creator and creation. Can’t your God multitask?
The ancient Christian Clement of Alexandria thought the name of the Old Testament God was a combination of vowels.
“Further, the mystic name of four letters which was affixed to those alone to whom the adytum was accessible, is called Jave, which is interpreted, Who is and shall be. The name of God, too, among the Greeks contains four letters.” (Stromata V 6)
We do not have an original copy of Clement’s work. Over the centuries, scribes may have changed the letters in the name. Modern Greek versions of Clement have five letters. The version with four letters allows us to equate the letters with the four elements. In our temple, Saturn, the son of Heaven and Earth, becomes the father of the seasonal God. We use the vowels YEUO for the sacred name for the third perspective. This name has the letters of the seasons in their right order: Y for winter, E for spring, U for summer, and O for fall. YEUO can be used to represent the repeating cycles of time.
In the Jewish Talmud, a Mishnah lists those who will not get a share in the next world, and Rabbi Abba Saul includes those who pronounce the divine name. Today, no one remembers the exact pronunciation of the name of the Old Testament God. I suspect the vowels were pronounced in a sexual manner. However, we do not have to pronounce it the same way the ancients did. The new ways can be as good as the old traditions. Say the divine name how you feel it, and you will pronounce it correctly.
Section 2: Intelligent Design
(Conjecture) 9 e1
At age five, I thought, “In the beginning, something happened, and it has been happening ever since. If something else had happened, something else would exist.” This seemed to explain everything, but there must be a better answer. Events cause other events, and Aristotle thought there must have been a first cause.
“For there is something that always moves the things in motion, and the First Mover is itself unmoved.” (Metaphysics 1012b)
A mere fluctuation in the multiverse could activate the universe, although this explanation seems too simple. Instead, let us complicate the issue unnecessarily by saying the first cause designed the universe. We do not know what caused God to make the universe or why God chose our particular layout. Calling it God explains very little. We need more information than a name.
People combine images learned from the world to invent imaginary creatures, such as unicorns. Since the concept of God is supposed to be beyond experience, people define God with all kinds of ideas they have never experienced, such as omnipresence, perfection, and eternity.
“Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.” (Psalm 147:5)
Ironically, the Old Testament God seems imperfect, subject to mood swings, with little control over people’s choices.
Though a mind could become a million times smarter than us, there could be a limit that prevents a mind from growing beyond a certain point. Our understanding of an idea changes each time we learn something new. Learning too much would allow all ideas to contradict their original versions. Since too many contradictions make understanding impossible, a God who knows everything will be incoherent. Also, where would God store all the information in the universe? God’s hard drive must be enormous.
Imagine god started the world and then let it grow on its own. This idea will offend someone who likes to believe a supernatural agent helps them with every step. The God of Moses resembles a puppet master over everything, and Christians like a boss God and dislike the idea that God has a boss. Christians want an important imaginary friend and feel an exaggerated sense of personal worth, believing the manager of a vast universe favors them.
Supporters of intelligent design claim the universe requires an organizer and assume the laws of Nature need a mind to think of these laws. Telescopes allow us to look back in time, over thirteen billion years. We see the formation of galaxies driven by natural causes, though we never see the hand of God. Perhaps God hides somewhere science has yet to look, or we live in a universe without God, where natural events depend on multiple events, and no one controls everything.
Every day thousands of discoveries show natural events causing natural phenomena, helping us better understand how stuff works and making a supernatural agent seem less necessary. Tomorrow, God will be less necessary than God was yesterday. We should stop calling events God if a properly scientific understanding of Nature does not require a concept of God. Equating the physical connections in Nature with God confuses religious nonsense with more real events.
The universe contains cause and effect, although this does not mean the universe has to have a cause. Something has to change something for a cause to happen. There would need to be a universe before anything changes the universe, so creation would need to happen before the cause. Instead of only imagining one creation in the past, consider how the events keep happening. These events make now what it is, and the beginning could refer to whatever began the moment right now. Creation would exist as a present influence and a feature of Nature.
But then, what if we assume the universe had a beginning? We can wonder how the universe could come from nothing. You might assume something can not come from nothing. In this view, nothing needed to be changed for there to be something. According to the physicist Lawrence Krauss, even empty space is not nothing. The probability of something happening in a field resembles waves that require a lot of math to explain, and I do not know enough about physics to determine if Krauss is right or wrong. However, if nothing is not a default state, a first cause would be unnecessary. Therefore, a God to start everything would not be needed. Creationists will insist Krauss is wrong while screaming at the top of their lungs that the universe needs a maker.
Quantum activity differs from Augustine’s eternal God because fields have no personality and can’t love you. However, a mind hidden in the quantum foam could make a good science fiction story. But whatever the case, all this speculation about God is silly when we have no information about God to work with. If a powerful being outside time could change history, anything that was true could become untrue. A really powerful God could change itself. We could have a cosmos where last week, the Zoroastrians were right, and this week, the Mormons are right. I think the correct explanation for God is more fancy than a lame rational argument about what came first. Also, believing in a lame rational excuse instead of faith could be unchristian. Perhaps Hell is full of philosophers.
Section 3: The song
(Portrayal) 10 e1
In the bible, the God of the New Testament seems a lot nicer than the God of the Old Testament. This God seems to have changed with time, so it would not be an unchanging platonic solid sitting outside time. Such a God would be capable of learning. Such a God would be capable of making mistakes. This God has both changing parts and unchanging parts. If we created God in our image, the story is about how we have changed. If you made the universe, why would you make a universe where bad stuff happens? Well, you’re not the designer of the universe, though people influence the world, and that makes you at least partially a creator. Of course, situations outside your control affect your choices, although these are still your choices; you are made of those situations. You do not lose freedom by being yourself. You lose freedom when something prevents you from being yourself. You have freedom when you are yourself.
The beginning was pure light until the maker stole some light from Lucifer to build the world. This story represents time allowing events to happen, and the story is also about choosing to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. Desires stole this light and corrupted it to make the material world where desires happen. The light allowed order. Order was necessary to turn the random comic foam into everything. In this view, creation equals desires, and denying our appetites helps us return to the inner light. The cosmic importance of desire also shows up in Far Eastern literature.
“Thereafter rose Desire in the beginning, Desire, the primal seed and germ of Spirit. (Rig Veda 10:129)
Be careful when you play God. In the Gnostic book “The Secret Revelation of John,” the maker thinks of itself as the supreme God because the true power never revealed itself. Later in the story, the ignorant God gets in trouble.
“For he is ignorant darkness.” (Secret John 12:3)
Saturn, the God of agriculture, acts as both the planter and the reaper of life. Before agriculture, foragers lived in the wilderness. Technology allows us to change our environment and separate from Nature. Agriculture was part of a series of technological changes, which made Saturn the father of other gods, and these changes allowed the other gods to become major influences on us. Agriculture gave us the ability to put on the mask, sound the bullroarer, and play God. It was our original sin. We put the Earth in danger by applying technology. Unfortunately, agriculture, along with other forms of technology, will continue to exist. People must learn how to deal with what technology does. The right choice would be never to try to be the one in control if natural powers do a better job. Also, agricultural societies are held together by various rules (Farb, 1968), and I think these rules make us act unnatural.
The sign of Gemini portrays a double person: an actor and a manager. The actor lives in the material world for a short time. The manager lives forever. Other actors play other people in this world where multiple actors play together. The manager plays the game master, setting up the stage on which you play your character. Each moment differs from the last moment; a collection of events comes together when the world forms your body. This game master made the body by controlling events. The Kena Upanishad portrays how even gods cannot do anything unless the divine manager makes it so. However, small variations eventually affect the big picture, and this complexity has a way of being unpredictable. No mind could determine how every aspect of a person would turn out. The manager will only guide us a little. Such a god plants people in the world, only helping them grow a little, and this manager uses existing situations to build upon what already happened. Moreover, the game master needs to follow the game to keep playing. In a way, events happen independently, as if there were no managers.
And the events influencing other people make them different individuals. In the Catholic church, God and individuals are not the same people; people were made in the image of God. (Catechism 355). Also, Anyone raised a Catholic was taught that angels and saints work for God. The Catholic cosmos has multiple characters, but even with our separated Nature, we feel that everything connects, and we are something more than ourselves. Did cultural conditioning make these emotions, or did the feelings originate from an instinct found in all of us?
My most confused thoughts contain a universal song. Events are interconnected in a big song, where everything sings, as the singing motivates everything. The patterns of the song are the unchanging truth of what happened, what happens, and what will happen. In this process of discovery, our minds slowly learn the song. To hear the song, listen while it plays. In the future, we will hear enough of the song to know who we are. Of course, the world does not seem scripted when people choose their directions, and from our point of view, the song will be written in the future.
Once in a vision, I saw a few pages of the Great Song, recorded in a series of whole numbers, forming one big number. The physicist Leonard Susskind described the universe as information on a surface (Susskind, 2008 ch. 18). Imagine a serpent whose body coils throughout the universe, for the waters of life pass through the body of this serpent. All of us are the same person, living in different places along this river, enjoying the universe in various ways, each part of the Great Song.
The Creator speaks the number of the song as a Word. If someone knew enough to say the word, they would equal the creator. The secret name of God contains vowel sounds; however, imitating the word by only saying vowels won’t work. It needs feeling. A feeling is best told in a song, and a song produces a feeling inside you. The will to touch made the song, is the song, and gets made by the song. The will to touch exists because the act of touching feels so good, and the moment of touch produces the feeling, for only the moment of touch exists. Earthlings touch in the material world and make our world in a way where touch would feel so good. We desire our creation, and we build to experience this desire. We made the world to enjoy life. Everybody has their own song, sung by the universe. Just do your own thing.
I heard somewhere that anyone knowing the true name of God will gain God’s power. The Platonist Proclus claimed whatever produces something has to be greater than what it produces (Proclus proposition 7). This idea seems wrong, considering we are upgrading machines to be faster, stronger, smarter, and more precise than us. These devices will one day make even better tools, which will even have a better sense of humor. If the product can be greater than the maker, our creator could have been less than us. You might think that technology will make us more powerful than gods. We will not need the name of God.
But, before assuming Proclus was wrong, consider how our mechanical stuff uses natural mechanical processes that we did not invent. Engineers use these greater solutions and cannot do upgrades without these resources. Those resources come from something greater than us. We might assume technology makes the world more complex. Instead, technology simplifies stuff. Notice how a stick becomes a tool after we restrict what it does to a particular use. Each layer of technological advancement adds more restrictions to the world. The end of technology would be a singularity that does nothing. So maybe playing God is a bad idea.
Section 4: Worship
(Speculation) 8 e1
Augustine’s God was not entirely outside time since the New Testament mentions three forms of God who influence people. Christianity has one God with three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Consider the possibility that there are more. Catholic theologians might disagree with me adding to the Trinity. They could be right. How I see God is not how God sees God. Athanasius supports the Catholic version of the Trinity, and Athanasius is not someone to be contradicted.
The Trinity is how God has been revealed to us. It also is supposed to be what our soul wants. The object fits us like a glove. There are all kinds of ways we could interpret this relationship. You will need someone wiser than me to tell you what those are.
The Roman Catholics equate the beatific vision of God with Heaven.
“Because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as he is, unless he himself opens up his mystery to man’s immediate contemplation and gives him the capacity for it. The Church calls this contemplation of God in his heavenly glory “the beatific vision”: ” (Catechism 1028)
Hell happens when someone loses this vision. For Catholics, the act of loving God helps us to feel God’s grace, and they assume that anyone without this experience has condemned themselves to be a lost soul. Does only God deserve worship, or should we worship the elements in Nature? What if God wants us to worship the creation? Have you ever tried to get a dog to look at something by pointing at it? The dog looks at your hand and fails to notice the object you point at.
In the Qur’an, the Jinn named Iblis would not bow to God’s creation and became the enemy of God’s creation.
“It is We Who created you and gave you shape; then We bade the angels bow down to Adam, and they bowed down; not so Iblis; He refused to be of those who bow down.” (Qur’an 7:11)
Should we only love the creation because God told us? No. The world has plenty of beauty for us to appreciate. Lots of people equate this beauty with God. Some of these people can’t appreciate anything unless it has a religious purpose. Don’t let your love for God prevent you from enjoying the world. Even if we live in an illusion, we only find happiness by being part of the illusion. Any other way would put us in Hell. Do not let your attempt to achieve enlightenment put darkness in your life.
Once while down in Florida, I met a bunch of Krishna Men who believed in an absolute God with an absolute plan. They also need to feel impressed all the time by surrendering themselves to Krishna. When looking at the statue of Krishna in their temple, I felt no love for it. The Krishna Holy Men got on the ground, bowing to their God.
After the Krishna temple, I found a small store that specialized in South American junk. A Brazilian Holy Person knew what the situation needed and held up a little idol called the messenger of the gods. After asking what it said, the cashier said, “It’s just a rock.” The clerk was making fun of me for asking these kinds of questions. The clerk also found the Krishna idea of worship amusing. Finding a confident mystic was fun. We could spend hours insulting each other’s view of God.
I asked if the rock was for sale. The clerk said that no one needs to buy it because you pick one up at a wide variety of locations. After asking how to worship this rock, the holy person said, “Treat it like the rock it is.” This does not mean we should mistreat the rock. Treat rocks like rocks, houses like houses, trees like trees, and people like people. How people treat objects influences what people learn about the world of objects. This sounds like an excellent form of religion. The little green magic rock became part of my private collection. No one should pay money for the idol since the money would spoil the sacredness of the object.
Any stone used as a religious Icon for several generations will develop a thick black stain. Muslims bow to The Black Stone in Mecca. They bow to a dirty rock. Ideas about God change, and perhaps even God changes. God today will not be the same God as yesterday. Stones feel more permanent than God. Carrying this rock is silly. Only an insecure person would give meaning to a stone. One of these days, I am going to throw it away.
Section 5: Twins
(Speculation) 9 e1
The book of Deuteronomy has a wide variety of rules related to sex. The authors consider choices about sex to be so important they portray the biggest mind in the universe caring about your choices. Frequently associated Ideas will be confused until God and sex become synonyms. I didn’t make this up; literature worldwide is full of these associations, or maybe I am imagining the associations.
Imagine a place where life gets written before life. I got the idea after reading a Navajo story where people emerge from the underworld (Zolbrod, 1984). This idea of a world before this world also appears in the Bible. Genesis tells of the world before the purifying flood.
“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” (Genesis 6:4)
Both Uranus and Saturn are Titans, the primal parts of Nature. Imagine them as giants. Saturn’s father, Uranus, had an age before Saturn, where the Animal ruled, and all desires came true. In the age of Saturn, agriculture took place; our ancestors started living less close to Nature than foragers, and the farmers became confused when their desires seldom came true. Consequently, the farmers invented stories about a savior and waited for this savior. At this time, the return of the savior Jesus is about 2000 years late.
In those old stories about gods having sex with earthlings, the unions produce both heroes and monsters. Jesus became the most famous of these sons of gods. In the Hollywood version of the story, the hero may kill the Dragon, steal the treasure, and get the girl. These fantasies seldom work out in real life where the girl runs off with someone else, the Messiah never comes back, the monster is a figment of your imagination, and the hero is the false beliefs you have about yourself. The monsters also personify the ugly truth about your life.
King Arthur was brought to a mythical island called Avalon (Bulfinch, 1859). According to rumor, a hill in Glastonbury is Avalon, one of those places where people travel to connect with the past. Near the hill were red and white springs, reminding me of stories about the red dragon fighting the white dragon. We each understand these legends differently since everyone emerged from the underworld as unique individuals. Traditions are full of good and bad advice. The spring equinox and fall equinox inherited the conflicts created by their grandfather, Saturn. The twins in the sign of Gemini represent the dualities of Christ or the Antichrist, Life or death, dark or light, spring or fall. In some stories, Christ and the Antichrist became allies, similar to the Native Americans known as Tecumseh and the Prophet, who fought an evil that was alien to their traditions.
Traditions can become a road to Heaven or a highway to Hell when traditionalists invent stories about the past. Identity stories include Camelot for the British, the emergence stories of Native Americans, and even new stories such as Wakanda (Black Panther, 2018). These stories are entertaining and help people to feel good about themselves. The stories can include good values. Unfortunately, these stores also divide us, especially when one group thinks they’re better than everyone else.
“The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the Lord.” (Proverbs 16:1)
God in the Book of Proverbs Sounds like a crime boss in a Hollywood movie. If you do what the boss says, you will be happy. This sounds like threats from the same God who murdered most of the world with a flood when people disobeyed. In ancient Iraq, the god Enlil sent the flood (Gilgamesh tablet XI). The name means lord of wind. So what is the tongue in Proverbs 16? And who is this big wind? Is it a voice from God? Or is it the voice of the heart of people? I guess this god was the voice of tradition.
Sometimes, traditionalists act mean and hateful, like the Taliban. Puritans condemn other people’s behavior and love to hate. The Taliban wants feminine people to hide their bodies. That is not good. Feminine bodies are beautiful, and any lady who lets others enjoy the view should get praised rather than condemned. In parts of Brazil, people walk around with few clothes, living perfectly happy this way. Misguided Puritans put clothes on themselves as a protective barrier between themselves and others; they end up trapped inside the barrier. The separation makes other people uncomfortable, and the damage from wearing a protective barrier is more than philosophical when people never develop everyday resistance by not exposing themselves to the outside. People are becoming allergic to the world and afraid of each other.
Of course, you have the right to act like a Puritan, but you do not have the right to force someone else to obey your rules. You are not the other person’s boss. I have been to countries with lots of restrictions and fewer restrictions. People in less restrictive countries seem more alive. You might prefer to dress in a way you consider tasteful, and that’s fine. We should not require anyone to sexualize their image.
I have been told not to look at feminine people as if they were objects because we should appreciate the mind of the person. But no one needs to be ashamed to see beauty. People can appreciate outer and inner beauty or enjoy one, not the other. People are objects, so be proud of being an object. Though the male gaze supports toxic masculinity, toxic masculinity is another myth about hidden evil forces. Myths are partially true and full of lies. Do invisible forces influence culture? Call it God. Call it Phallogocentrism. The devil on one shoulder says, do. The angel on the other shoulder says, don’t. Whether you should or not depends on the situation. Sometimes, traditions can help.
You might worry about what would happen if a society becomes so sexualized that disrespectful behavior becomes the norm. Such unnecessary fears make people hate the freedom of anyone doing the looking. Unnecessary fears make people want to control everyone. Let us instead live in a society where we tolerate what other people do. Tolerance will help produce a pleasant environment; being offended causes conflict.
Section 6: Prison
(Portrayal) 11
In Proverbs 16:1, the tongue contrasts with the way of people. Perhaps I am wrong to assume the way of God is a metaphor for tradition. There might be better ways of thinking. I needed to break away from the voices in my head and see what real people are doing. It was time to visit a friend in prison.
My friend never hurt anyone, yet ended up in prison because the government devotes resources to putting harmless people in chains. Most of these people are poor and were put in jail on nonviolent drug charges. The courts know the poor are easy targets, filling the prisons with people who never get a visitor and have been forgotten. The way the government collects people should never happen in the land of the free. Unfortunately, people become so sure of their traditions that they make other people suffer to protect these traditions. Traditionalists then build prisons to maintain control. People in prison know sadistic guards push inmates and then punish those who push back. If someone changes the tradition, we could save people from this cruel judicial system.
Hawaiian prisoners were taken from their warm homes and imported to these cold, rainy hills, where corporate prisons use people as commodities. This prison sits near the Appalachian Mountains, next to a dirty, unfriendly town. The government set up this town of gray cardboard shacks to produce haters to run the prisons. The haters do not feel love or kindness and only know hostility and meanness. Everything in their town has become ugly because the families of the correctional officers produce no beauty.
Kudzu vines surround the Town because someone made a big mistake when they brought these vines to North America. The vines turned into a weed that threatened to cover everything. People in the town must clear the vines to prevent them from overrunning their homes. The prison was a mistake. The town was a mistake. Someday, when the town and the prison no longer exist, the Kudzu vines will cover where the town used to be. Traditions die, and no one will remember the town.
The people in the town remind me of a dog who has been beaten too much. Their unpleasant personalities make them limit themselves. People need to reach out to share happiness with others. When people work together to create a happy life, traditions are the tools they use. Though social instincts help us build traditions, even our best instincts can get used in the wrong way. People need to realize we can change these tools anytime they become bad.
Near the town, Kudzu vines covered the remains of an old building. The mass of Leaves hid a building made in the neoclassical style that Thomas Jefferson popularized. The building was made in a past age when art and architecture portrayed great expectations. The United States was founded so everyone could enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Today, only the outline of a forgotten structure remains. Looking around, all I could see was despair.
I had a teacher who said that you can not make an ethical claim out of facts alone. You have to include an opinion somewhere in the argument. Usually, this opinion will be in the form of some kind of statement about what ought to be done. So, how do we know if the ought we chose is the ought we should choose? We could look at the consequences and see what happens. So, how do we know which consequences we should aim for? We follow opinions, and sometimes we make mistakes. Don’t build anything that you can’t turn off. A modern society is loaded with stuff that has no off switch. Whoever built the first prison probably thought they were doing the right thing.
You might blame the people in charge for building our prisons. But is management really in control? Consider how people are frustrated by health care insurance; many go bankrupt when the company refuses to pay, and people blame the Chief Executive Officers of the insurance companies. However, health care is a maze of bureaucracy that the boss did not create. This maze frustrates everyone, including the Executive Officer. People like you voted for the policies that created the healthcare maze. People like you voted for the policies that created the prisons. You went to schools that supported the bureaucracy. You paid taxes to the bureaucracy. Your views made the bureaucracy popular. Don’t blame a CEO for a prison you create.
After leaving the prison, I drove out to Serpent Mound in Ohio. A large dirt pile in the form of a serpent sits on top of a hill. Native Americans lived in this area until Europeans brought diseases. Smallpox would reduce a powerful tribe from thousands of members to a few dozen, and the world lost information about the meaning of the Serpent each time someone died before passing the story to someone else. No one today knows which tribe made this image or what stories were told about it. No one today knows if the natives were good or bad or if they used the Serpent for good or evil. Today, Christians from other cultures live around the serpent. Should we try to find the old meaning of the Serpent, or should we invent a new meaning? Would the new story resemble the old story, or would we end up inventing a new horror? The Serpent has been around for a long time and has seen traditions come and go. We would have a better idea of what to do if we had seen as much as the Serpent.
Prison guards think the government gives them the authority to punish people. The myth of the Serpent helped me imagine a more important boss who never gave the government the right to punish. Think of all the wrong ideas people tried to enforce on others. The Serpent personifies a hypothetical alternative to any idea. What if you are your own boss? What if nothing is holding you in civilization but imaginary walls?
Nature needs someone better to fight for it than me. Others are smarter, stronger, and have credentials. My life was wasted wandering around alone. After leaving the serpent and driving out to the flat land of central Ohio, it all seems so big that my concerns seem unimportant. People end up injecting personal obsessions into their visions. Instead, we need to listen to what the world says. Nature has been calling for help in ways everyone can hear. Then I heard something. The Serpent was speaking. Writing about talking snakes, I really flipped out this time.
Next Page Chapter 4
Sources
Aristotle. Metaphysics. Translated by Hugh Lawson-Tancred. London: Penguin Books, 1999.
Augustine. Saint Augustine: Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
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