UNREQUITED LOVE
There is only one PERFECT ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP possible, and that is one of Unrequited Love. The very moment your relationships become tangible, they also automatically involve another human... and ALL humans are flawed. Therefore once you involve another one of our species in your love interest, you make it reliant on an imperfect being... thus making the relationship imperfect.
To further prove that Unrequited Love truly is the only kind that is perfect, dictionaries rarely even attempt to define the word "unrequited". The closest most come is the word "requite" which is defined as: 1) making repayment for a service or benefit 2) to retaliate for or avenge 3) to give or do in return - which happens to be the closest to what we are looking for.
If REQUITED LOVE is love that we receive in return for our loving someone, then it stands to reason that UNREQUITED LOVE is love we give... that we DO NOT get in return. Basically I define that as love that you have in your head and heart, but does not involve someone giving love back to you. Therefore, since it exists only in your mind, it is in effect PERFECT. It is untouched by another human soul. It is not tarnished. It is a PERCEPTION and therefore it is A REALITY... which you might notice is a big theme for me! :-)
Taking that secret love out of your mind and heart and actually letting the other person in on your feelings fouls your perfect perception of them (the object of your love) and forces you to accept them with all their faults, quirks, blemishes, and imperfections. So that kind of love is imperfect by nature. Maybe that will help next time you find yourself in a relationship - or a crisis that one causes.
Please don't misinterpret this to mean that I am somehow AGAINST getting my love in return. I am not. I am, in fact, a hopeless romantic, in a state of constant need for getting my love in return. I only offer these words to help you out when you suddenly find yourself in a love situation and find it flawed (usually because your mate and yourself simply are flawed). LOVE... REAL LOVE... requires a large amount of acceptance. It is not PERFECT. It is often PERFECTLY WONDERFUL, though!
Republicans Vrs. Democrats
Before you start throwing sticks and stones at me, let me first say that I am registered Independent, not Republican nor Democrat. If forced to define myself, I would not say I am a Conservative nor am I a Liberal. I would call myself a Moderate. All that being said...
I have long professed that it was always best to keep a bunch of Democrats in office and a bunch of Republicans there as well. At the national level I thought it always best to have a White House of one party and a Congress of the other. I believed strongly that way because I never wanted one side or the other to go crazy their way and mess up the greatest nation on the planet, the good old U. S. of A. I thought the founding fathers were not only wise, but BRILLIANT when they set this government up to be for the people, by the people, and of the people. I have always professed that this nation's government was darn near perfect, just fouled by imperfect politicians. I thought it treason like for congress to give a president - ANY president - the right to attack another country without the full backing and yes, CONSENT of Congress. I felt the Founding Fathers really knew what they were doing when they set this deal up in such a way that no one man had such power. And I still feel that way. I think Congress should wrestle back the power they gave the Presidency a few years ago when we invaded Iraq... for the second time, by the way.
While I remain resolute on our balance of power between the White House and Congress, now I have to revise my thoughts on keeping the White House of one party and Congress of another. We have come upon troubled times and now we actually have things that MUST get done. We can not still have a bunch of one group blindly and staunchly voting against the other group simple because they ARE of the other group.
We can't get health care figured out because back in the early 70's Nixon proposed a Universal Health Care system so similar to the one currently being backed by the White House in 2009 that it is scary. Then Senator Kennedy (among many others) trashed the proposal simply because Nixon was a Republican and they were Democrats. Now we have the same thing happening, but in reverse. Democrats in the White House proposing one thing, Republicans all standing together to block any such thing. And, people, ultimately this is to the detriment of WE, THE PEOPLE.
Because Democrats and Republicans no longer represent us, which is the one and only thing they are supposed to do. All they do NOW is represent Republicans and Democrats. It doesn't matter if one thing or another is good for the American PEOPLE. It just has to do with R's and D's.
And I'm sick of it.
I'm sick of R's and D's acting the way they do. I'm sick of R's and D's representing only R's and D's. I want someone in office that represents AMERICANS. Because I'm an AMERICAN, ladies and gentlemen. I'm not an R or a D. And those who profess to be R's and D's are no longer AMERICANS. They don't give a damn about you and me. Do you REALLY think they can still relate to us? We work for a living. We're not rich. We go to fight wars. We pay the taxes for the money they spend. We attend the schools they say are fit. WE ARE THE AMERICANS... and we are this nation's hope.
I guess maybe it will take a revolution of some kind, but I propose a new party, an AMERICAN party. One that sometimes is liberal, sometimes conservative. Sometimes left, sometimes right... but ALWAYS for the majority of the people and ALWAYS for the good of this NATION and it's wonderful, spectacular PEOPLE.
This AMERICAN party would find some way to respond when an AMERICAN city is seriously damaged by a hurricane. This AMERICAN party would find some way to rebuild SOMETHING in replace of the twin towers. This AMERICAN party would realize that WE want a bailout, and if you want us to buy an American car, then give US a voucher that says we'll get $20,000 off the sticker price. Then, if we want a car, we would buy a car. If not, that voucher would go back into a pool for the NEXT American to buy a car IF he needs one and so on. That way GM would STILL sell cars... but we would all have had a chance to buy them.
And when they start thinking about bailing out banks and stock companies that have royally screwed we the AMERICANS over, well, maybe they should JAIL the thieves that did it, not give them piles of cash that my kids will have to pay for.
So how about if we try to create a THIRD PARTY, the AMERICAN PARTY and let that party represent ME... and I bet it would represent YOU to. Then we could call our country US again!
DEATH
They say there are only two things that are totally unavoidable, those would be Death and Taxes. Assuming that's true - and you could make a good case for it - then I thought I should take a crack at them in the next two sessions.
As near as I can figure it, there are really only two basic schools of thought when it comes to death. Either you die, then your spirit/soul/ what have you moves on to a different place (Heaven hopefully... or should I say "prayerfully") or you die... and then simply cease to exist.
I'd like to tackle the latter first, because I often like to do things backwards. If when a person dies he simply ceases to exist, then it would seem fairly well senseless to even give the slightest thought to dying. After all, if all there is to Life is a simple passing out of this world into NOTHING, well, why worry about it? You'll be none existent. You won't regret not being alive or wishing you did this or that or had this or that. You simply won't BE any more. So there is nothing to care about or worry over. Just stop even thinking about dying.
If, on the other hand, once we move out of this world or plane of existence or whatever you wish to call it, some special part of us moves on... well, then that would be truly wonderful. If there really is something unique about us as individuals and that something remains no matter what, then you have something to CONSIDER - but still not worry about.
This has a whole lot to do with what kind of human you wish to be, and don't kid yourself into thinking that you can justify what you do by some sort of reasoning. If you purchase this idea of a "life after death", then you almost always buy into the idea that how you are on this earth somehow effects the next phase of your existence. That would mean that you have to be "good" while you walk among the humans so you might walk among the angels later, in another life.
The trouble with that is how we humans define "good". And right off the bat you have a problem because you have included a human in your way of thinking... and humans are flawed. Humans have PERCEPTIONS of what they think is true and real and just. There's no way I could ever get to the bottom of every single nuance of every single belief system, I truly can't. What I will ask you to do, dear Reader, is to at least acknowledge the fact that you are engaging in a BELIEF SYSTEM. Please refrain from telling me that God told you to do some awful thing so you blew up a building or a school bus or a pizza joint. God didn't do that.
YOU did that.
Or more specifically, your flawed brain invented the idea of it and you managed to convince yourself that God was involved. But He wasn't. It was just you, and if we could ever get you to live long enough without blowing yourself up, eventually you'd probably get older and see that.
Unfortunately, while the above is a bit of an extreme example, the rest of our belief systems are pretty much the same, although probably a little less extreme. What you take on faith and believe is fine by me... as long as that brain of yours doesn't conjure up the idea that you are going to blow me up because God told you to. That is delusional, my dear readers, and that just IS. If anything, that little voice in your head that you think is God, might very well be playing for the OTHER team... which, if you think about it, makes more sense.
Let me convince Joey that those OTHER people are "wrong" and must be eliminated from the earth. Then let me convince Joey that this little voice he hears is coming from the upstairs apartment and not the basement. Not we've got little Joey completely fooled and convinced that his "cause" is just and must be fulfilled.
All that's nonsense, of course, but to a mind that can be molded like Joey's his PERCEPTION OF REALITY becomes eschewed... and the next thing you know the World Trade Center blows up, or a hugely powerful country invades another country to ward of an axis of evil. It happens all the time, which is why I am writing PERECEPTION IS REALITY. I want people to be a little more leery of their belief systems and try to rise above fanaticism.
We have to be careful of what we think about. We have to consciously be aware that EVERYTHING MATTERS, not just what we choose to matter. Not to preach here, but I always thought one of the best ideas was, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That makes a lot of sense to me.
But will ANY of that get you onto the next plane of existence? Maybe God will take into account that you had deluded yourself into thinking that you were doing some vile act for Him and set you up with the 72 virgins (by the way, were do you figure those 72 virgins come from? Does God set you up with them right from Heaven or are they also dead women who somehow managed to avoid the act of sex while on Earth? And once you manage to be with one of them, do you get a replacement - because now you only have 71 virgins? And doesn't that just smack of a world run by MALES who take absolutely no interest in the simple fact that about half the souls on this planet are FEMALE? Or is it just so flawed that it is pretty easy to understand that is plain and simply a case where a brain has convinced itself that it's hearing voices... that are really coming from itself? But that's a different subject for a different day).
I'm going to ask you to make an assumption that we have been espousing for generations, the idea that God is love. Well, what if God IS Love? I mean, literally a being truly made out of love? You say it all the time. But what if it's true?
Well first off I can plainly tell you that IF God IS Love, then everything you do that is somehow foul of Love would be an abomination to Him. And if you engaged in activities out of hate, then you are estranging yourself from God. So blowing up your neighbor because you hate them, would plainly be a thing that would work against you and this concept of an after life, or at least one where you hang out with God a lot.
Based on that idea, that God IS Love, then every time an idea that pops into your head that is full of hate, right off that bat you know where that idea is coming from - and you dismiss it. Because it is NOT of God or from God or however you want to put it. It is from YOU and your own hatred or from a source that you really shouldn't want to mess around with, especially not if you have some idea of going to a place like Heaven.
So, therefore, you should only engage in ideas that express or have to do with Love. I highly recommend that to help clarify your thinking.
But there is more.
Most people think that the polar opposite of Love is Hate, but this is not true. Hate and Love run pretty close together, actually, and careful analysis is required to make sure what you are thinking is of Love, not Hate. No, the polar opposite of Love is...
APATHY.
Apathy is defined as an absence of emotion or a lack of interest or concern. This is probably the worst case scenario for human beings. We were not put on this earth to not give a damn. We are put here to have passion and to feel things deeply. We are supposed to do things with gusto. Do not let your mind go so dark as to have no interest in Life, for that has just got to be boring to God... and that would seem like an abomination.
So either there is nothing after life and we just cease to exist or the more popular idea that there some sort of after life and you would be better off going to the better place than the worse place. Either way, there is nothing to worry about. Live your life with zest and a joy for living, don't do anything to others that you would prefer not happen to you, understand that God is Love and messing around in thoughts that are not about love could be detrimental to your death, and my estimation is you will be fine.
I have friends that will tell you that certain beliefs are essential to admittance to Heaven. One of the biggest of those is believing that Jesus is the Son of God. Many say that you must have this one thought and all others will be ignored. I somewhat agree that if you really read the New Testament (and by all means DO understand that the OLD Testament and the NEW Testament are NOT the same book... a simple reading should tell you that, but that's a subject for another day too), and you understand what Jesus is saying there, you should come to the conclusion that God is Love and therefore this is tied in together. Those folks do usually say things that are odd like, "deeds don't matter... it's all about this faith that Jesus is the Son of God. I contend that deeds DO matter, but I can concede that if you really believed in Jesus, you would just naturally only do Love things, or things that are motivated by Love.
In conclusion I highly recommend you only let thoughts of Love into your heart and soul. First, it might help you out in a distant time. Second, it'll make this old world a better place for all the fellow inhabitants that share it with you. So much would be so much better if we ALL could just live lives filled with Love. I truly believe that is God's ultimate goal with people, to see if we can ever figure it out that He is all about Love, that if we could ever stop hating or not caring at all, that we would finally "get it".
And the world would be a better place.
TAXES
Lots of folks say that hate taxes, they don't want to pay taxes, and so on and so forth, but that really isn't true. I don't think there's much doubt that if you're going down the highway, you'd like lights on the road, or if you have a pot hole in your neighborhood, you'd like it fixed. Most of us really want the officers of the law available if something happens. All those things and countless more are paid with taxes. So it would seem unlikely that we really don't want taxes at all.
I think what we really want or really resent as the case may be is not having enough (or any) say about what our taxes are used for. Case in point, I have a friend who is anti-abortion, strongly anti-abortion. She is just against it and that's that. She resents having government programs paying for abortions. Now, while I lean toward what a woman does with her body is none of my business, I can see how my friend has a point that she would prefer if her taxes are not spent on something she feels so strongly against. Keeping that in mind, I say that while I am not specifically for or against abortion(after all, I never go out of my way to INSIST that someone get an abortion, even though the opponents insist that they do NOT), it seems wrong to me to use common funds (taxes) to pay for one.
I am anti-war. I also know there have been times that this country has simply had no choice but to fight, so I am not necessarily anti-military. But I feel conflicted when our guys are sent into harm's way under questionable circumstances. So, like my friend above, I feel a little annoyed that my taxes go into something that I do not agree with.
So, what's the solution? Maybe the solution will one day be revolution. We probably could use a small one of those every now and then. Maybe the solution is in limited terms for politicians. Politicians, after all, are the ones who decide where or taxes ultimately go.
Or maybe the solution is with US. When we elect someone, perhaps we should take a longer look at what they actually stand for before we blindly cast a vote because they happen to be a Democrat or a Republication. I have heard many people upset with President Obama due to his desire for a national health care system of some kind and his escalation of the war in Afganistan. But he made it pretty clear in his web site prior to the election his stand on both those issues and he has more or less followed what he said he would do on those issues. I can't be upset with a guy because he's doing what he SAID he would do. That's on me to look into BEFORE I cast the ballot.
I think too many people in our great country are basically voting "against the other guy" now. That is why I again say we need a third major party in our system - and some adjustments to our system to accomodate that party. But until that day ever happens, it falls upon us to do what is commonly called our duty and vote with some research first. Oft times I will write a politician regarding an issue, and invariably they will respond. Oh, it's not personal and it is just a "form" letter, but most times it does tell me a little more about how they feel regarding a subject. If they agree with me, great, they get my vote. But if they are on the other side of the fence, well, then it is up to ME to vote that person out. So, before you complain about taxes, take a look in the mirror and make sure you have done YOUR job and put the right person in the right job. That makes the country much more of a "for the people, by the people" kind of a place.
RELIGION AND FAITH
Some people consider these to be versions of the same thing, but I see them as something totally different from one another. So much so, in fact, that I daresay they may even be opposed to one another.
I consider myself to be a man of faith. But I am far from religious. I see Faith as a belief system that quite probably is unique to the individual. While I accept that any individual can be self-delusional, I prefer to see personal Faith as a can of perfect thing. Faith, to me, is one's direct connection to God Himself, or whatever you happen to refer to your deity as.
Religion, on the other hand, I see as a way to preform a type of mass delusion. I can accept that any particular religion may very well be perfect in and of itself and may very well have all of the best intentions in mind. But anything that swirls together masses of people all for some sort of common good is almost certainly controlling and manipulative.
For instance, there isn't a man alive who can tell me what to say. No one tells me what to think. I consider that to be my job, and perhaps it might be the only job we truly have as humans. Our ability to think clearly and for ourselves is essential for us to come up with universal Truths. Religion by nature is in business to take that individual thinking away. Religions want to give you a set of guidelines to follow and they want you to blindly follow them, like they've already thought through all of Life's big and little questions and all you have to do is look up the reference and you'll know what to do.
But I say that is what education is. You acquire knowledge in this way, but WISDOM comes from how you begin to process that knowledge. If you are simply looking for someone to tell you what to do (which many peopleabsolutely are - just looking for the path to follow that takes them to Heaven), then I guess some religion is right for you. But we are being asked to do something more than that.
So I do not require some church somewhere to have some preacher talking to me about things I can easily learn about and process on my own. I learn what I need to learn and I never stop that learning process. But I do not need to be around a bunch of people all walking in lock step toward what they think is a final goal, often also hating everyone who is not of the same mind as they are. All to often the shurch on this side of the street hates the church on that side of the street because they don't think exactly the same. This must certainly be wrong, especially if you see that god is Love like I do. Because all that is simply about hate.
I've spent a lifetime trying to find the Universal Truthsintermingled within religions to finally settle on my own system of faith. I urge you to do the same. Stop hating this group or that group because they don't see things the same way that you do. Please, please tell your leaders to stop invading countries under some guise that they are evil. Entire countries aren't evil
Individuals are evil.
And you don't always know just who has your best interests in mind and who si playing for the other team. You just don't know. How many times have you heard about one preacher or another wandering around in some pasture they have no business being in? It happens all the time and it happens because they ARE HUMAN, and therefore sunject to failure and imperfection.
You shouldn't follow ANYone blindly, just because they are your rabbi, or minister, or priest, or what have you. You should try to get yourself in touch with God and develop your own sense of what Faith is. It is a personal thing. You should make yourself available to many sources of information, always seeking the Universal Truths that can only come from one true God. Then you should make that belief personal.
For the record... if you manage to do all this and you conclude that God is telling you to destroy things and kill people and torture children... or cause harm to people in any way, then chances are you are tuned in to a member of the other team.
Try to start with Gos Is Love. Anything that deviates from that one true frist belief is probably wrong and a lie.
To conclude, God and I are buddies.
The BIBLE
I'm just going to throw this out there. I know there are people who believe in the absoluteness of the Bible. They are what I call "The Literalists". I don't want to step on any toes, but I do have my opinions too, and - after all - this IS my web site. So let me just throw this out there, okay?
The Bible is not the actual word of God. Oh, I have no doubt that He INSPIRED the writings that you will find inside the pages, but he didn't ACTUALLY write it. You can tell that because there are countless references all through the Bible that tell you who ACTUALLY wrote this part or that part. I've seen no part that God decided to save back for Himself.
This is not to say that He couldn't have if He wanted to. This is just to say that He inspired these words, then let a human write them, and you should already know that I truly believe that humans are just naturally flawed. Therefore we, as humans, are capable of failure and imperfection.
So, while God told this guy or that guy things to write down, there is no other possibility than to acknowledge that He left a little wiggle room for the guy to write the actual words. This commonly is called "inspiration" and it seems to obviously work for every written work - except that of the Bible.
If I myself claimed that God inspired me to write this or that, you would have little trouble buying into that. You would also know that - while INSPIRED by God - I'm still just a plain old ordinary human, and you would look at me and my words with the same grain of salt you would look at any other work of literature.
Why is it so hard for us to accept that God inspired the works found in the Bible, but did not actually write them?
Okay, so if God just inspired the words, now we see that these words are subject to some scrutiny. We can look at certain passages and easily say that it was just recorded that way.
President Kennedy was shot with cameras rolling all around and dozens of witnesses present and countless more watching on television. Probably millions of people eventually watched replays of the horrible event. Yet we still don't have an absolute as to what really occurred that fateful day. And you WATCHED that event yourself, either live or via video tape. Is it not reasonable to assume that maybe some of the events in the Bible are not actually literally what happened?
We also have the problem of the New versus Old book. The Old book is a violent thing. It seems harse and cruel and even mean all too often. It seems so difficult for me to see God getting so worked up about little ol' us that all this violence has to occur. One side always is fighting the other side and doing so with all the backing of God Himself. I think it would be reasonable to assume that the side that lost pretty much figured they had God on their side too, don't you think? That's why it bothers me when I hear a professional athelete giving God all this credit for whatever he just managed to do. I can't see why God would be on one side of a football game or the other... and from what I've seen on television, I doubt if God is on EITHER side of many soccer games.
So I kind of figure God set out to try and communicate with our weak minded selves on a level that we would understand. The end result of that was the Old Books of the Bible. I'm also thinking that maybe He took a good look at that and realized that maybe everything there wasn't conveying the exact message that He was trying to get across.
So, then maybe He figured, well, I'll just send My only begotten Son there and see if some direct communication can straighten out a few things. While even there in the New Book of the Bible there are no chapters penned by Jesus Himself, I do see this section of the Bible to be something CLOSER to the actual words of God.
And that's why I contend that God IS Love. When I read over the New Book, especially the RED WORDS, I see a God that talks about Love just about all the time. To me, the parables are also little hints that maybe some stories of the Old Book were told to try and relate a true fact to the masses for all time. So I lean more toward closely reading those red words than anything else, especially when they are relayed by more than one source in the Bible.
Whose to say if back in ancient times they found every chapter of the Bible that should have been preserved? No one can say that. Whose to say that one group or another intentionally left out certain words, versus, or chapters that were supposed to be in there? No one can say that either, for sure. Oh, you can BELIEVE it... but you can't know for sure.
To my good friends that happen to be Literalists I implore you to at least go back to the most original form of the Bible that you can find. Learn the ancient Greek version at least and interpret things for yourself. Try to reason out that the Book you are reading in this day and age has been translated and interpretted many times over. It's been done by people doing their level best to get it right, that much I can give you. But still they are people, subject to the failings of any of us.
For my money, I don't think you can beat the Ten Commandments. They seem like a pretty good system of living with one another. And I think those words in red should all be carefully looked at and read through as many times as you can. And I think that the general tone of the New Book is a sound way to live your life.
To my good friends who say the ONLY way to get into Heaven is to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, well... I just can't believe that to be true. Because if I did whatever happened to all those souls born before God decided it was time to do some more personal communication with we humans? What about the millions of people who simply have a different belief set than that of the Bible? Are they all condemned to hell because of ignorance? My own father used to say that ignorance was no excuse of the law, therefore no defense in disobeying it.
But can you really say that a native to a land long forgotten by modern Man has a soul that is going to hell... just because he doesn't speak your language? I have problems with all of that.
Now if you say that a person who has HEARD the Word, then REJECTS it as totally false risks some eternal damnation, well, at least I could go along with your theory.
But I'm not a literalist, nor do I see any particular reason that I have to be one. Maybe God DID create the heavens and the earth in one day. Maybe He didn't. Maybe a day to God is longer than a day to us. Maybe this was a way for an ancient writer to explain what God had told him.
I don't think it really matters whether or not it was an actual day or not. I think it matters that we get the GIST of the idea, that God created everything over a period of time, probably in a certain order.
Keep one final thing in mind. While you are reading the Bible and looking over every word, others are reading other books and feeling that they are the absolute Word of God too. Perhaps they are right, perhaps not. But I have found it to be a mistake following Man things. I think you are way better off following God directly whenever you can. That's why I find more beauty in a clear blue mountain lake than a man made church. I marvel more at things in nature than things built by Man. I tend to trust things "Of God" like trees and bees more than things "Of Man" like sparkling buildings.
If you need to witness a miracle, try watching a baby being born. There's more "miracle" in that act that happens constantly all over the world than in any book. I see miracles when I watch a bird fly.
I see miracles in the stars...
GLOBAL WARMING
This arguement may just be one of definition. I have friends who seem to think that there is no such thing as Global Warming. They seem to tie this term into something to do with Man and His habitation of this planet. I have come to believe that when they say there is no such thing as Global Warming, what they really mean is that Man hasn't caused it.
There's plenty of room for debate there. I'm not sure if Man has caused this planet to be warming up or - more importantly - can Man do anything to stop the process. But I do think it is fairly foolhardy to say that it simply isn't happening at all. It is way too easy to scan photographs of where the polar ice caps were a decade ago and where they are now. It is far too easy to check for the existance of glaciers that have disappeared. It is child's play to check out mountain ice caps that simply no longer exist. So to say that the planet isn't warming defies what is easily proven.
Now, has Man caused all this to occur? Well, that's a different story. Is the air more poluted, yes. Is there measurably more carbon in the air put there by nothing but and his love and thirst for fossil fuels, yes. Is there a direct connection between these things and the fact that our planet is warming? Now that is a little more fuzzy.
This is a big old old hunk of rock floating around the solar system. It's been here a long, long time (and I address the age of the Earth in a passage a little later). It has most certainly gone through Ice Ages and warming times. Could this very well be one of those warming times? Yes, I think it could.
The most intriguing thing about the Ice Age and various other geological times in the past is that we have always seemed to think of them as a slow process, or perhaps one that was brought about by catastrophic event such as a meteor hitting the Earth or a large volcanic eruption. But I've alway been interested in whatever killed the dinosaurs, must have killed them fast. So fast that they simply couldn't migrate to warmer climes. What if this old Earth goes through changes on it's own and they happen fairly rapidly (in cosmic time)? What if this warming that we are seeing that the scientists seem to agree is happening much faster than we thought is just some normal cycle of events that they earth goes through from time to time?
That would explain a lot.
Maybe the change it natural and relatively quick. That would be a nice way to recycle the entire planet every now and then, wouldn't it? It would explain what happened to the dinosaurs. It might very well explain what happened to whomever built the pyramids (think the Egyptians built them with slave labor? That would take a pretty scientific group of minds, wouldn't it? Some say it would be difficult if not impossible to build them today with all our technology and equipment. But we are to believe that people of ancient times built them, yet these same people's TODAY are riding around on camels! It would seem to me that if you were capable of building pyramids several thousand years ago, you would be pretty far advanced today. Does this region of the planet really seem that way to you?).
Honestly, it would be much better for us as a species fairly high up there on the food chain if we HAVE caused this global warming thing, and certainly much better if we can do something or anything to slow it down or ideally stop it. If all this burning of fossil fuels has caused all this and we suddenly stop burning any of them, would the warming trend ease off or even stop? Boy, I sure hope so. But I'm far from sure that will happen at all.
Maybe this old Earth has had its fill of us and is about to eradicate a bunch of us. To be sure, if the ice caps melted entirely the geography of this planet would certainly be different. A lot of people live within close proximity to oceans and all those oceans would certainly rise obliterating many of our cities. I'm guessing many of our people would go with it. That would cut down the use of fossil fuels, one way or the other!
Or maybe this is just a normal Earth cycle. Maybe the polar ice caps melt and refreeze periodically and that's just the way it is. Hopefully we will have some time to simply relocate the bulk of our population further inland and to higher elevations. If all that's true, then this is just something to be aware of and to react to as time goes by. No big deal.
But the polar ice caps ARE melting...
PARTICULAR - But Not Complicated
This one's a little introspective, so you might know me a bit more. I'm a person who likes Life to be a certain way. If I said that I only had 5 or 6 dinners that I really liked, you might say I'm hard to please. But it wouldn't be true. I'm not hard to please at all. I just require those 5 or 6 types of dinner. That makes me what I call, "PARTICULAR - But Not Complicated.
I only like certain types of movies. I won't like the other kinds no matter how "good" they are, so don't try and make me go to them. I won't drive a car. I like SUV type vehicles or pick up trucks. I ride motorcycles, and I only ride Kawasakis. When I first started riding Kawasaki offerred a type of motorcycle that I could get on for a fairly inexpensive price that looked really big and good for the money. It was hard to readily tell that I wasn't riding a really expensive, big bike. Because of that I will always stay true to Kawasakis. It doesn't mean I hate other types or brands. I'm not hard to please. I'm just particular to these things, but not complicated about them.
As I've gone through Life I've made certain discoveries that I hold true and dear. Trying to veer me off those things is difficult if not impossible. It takes a long time and a lot of experiementing to get me to feel strongly about something. Once I'm there, though, I'm there.
So I don't like a large variety of things. That doesn't make me hard to please. All you have to do is stay within those things, because I'm Particular... and that's not a complicated thing to deal with.
HOW LONG HAS MAN BEEN AROUND?
HOW OLD IS THE EARTH?
The cynics would answer the first question with a simple, "Long enough!" But seriously, folks...
How long has Man been around? My Biblical friends would be quick to tell me that Man has been around a few thousand years and that the earth itself is only perhaps five thousand years old. There's not a single shred of scientific evidence that backs that. But that's my literalists again, refusing to accept anything except what they have been told.
The science we use for virtually all of reality, right or wrong, states plainly and distinctly, over and over with mountains of evidence that this ol' Earth of ours has been around for millions of years. Science also believes that the Universe is perhaps billions of years old, maybe trillions of years in fact, who knows?
My Biblical buddies are convinced that we emerged directly from Adam and Eve and these two spawned all of the entire human race that we have today. Mathematically, to me at least, I see no possible way that you could start with just 2 people 5,000 years ago and end up with the billions that we have now. I don't think there is a mathematical progression that will work out for you to go from the original 2 to all those that we have wandering around now. You also have to factor in how many people have died in wars and other natural disasters and what have you. To me, the math just doesn't work out.
I'm inclined to think that the Earth has been around for an awfully long time. I'm also inclined to think that mere humans can not really think in terms of millions of years. After all, our life spans are so short that we are not built to think in terms that are so vast.
If my literalists are correct, and the Earth is only 5,000 years old, then there could be no such thing as dinosaurs. Yet dino bones exist. This is not going to be an essay on evolution, I see no need to tangle with all that right now. I can make good arguements on either side of that question. But in a never ending effort to be reasonable, do you really think that the Colorado River could etch out the entire Grand Canyon in just 5,000 years? You just have to be reasonable than that for me to hear you out. That river could not have done that much cutting into rock in that short a period of time.
And there are countless other examples to show that we are dealing with a planet of far greater age than 5,000 years.
So let me throw one out there for you to ponder. Maybe the CURRENT reign of Man is about 5,000 years. Maybe Man was around before that and some sort of calamity wiped most of the species off the Earth. Maybe this has occurred many times over the millions of years this Earth has been spinning. Maybe the last tenants were the ones who built the pyramids, then some disaster took most of them off the face of the Earth.
Then maybe the survivors stayed alive the best as they could until their numbers grew again, maybe until the planet became less hostile again. Maybe the poles shifted and fouled everything up. There's some intriguing evidence to hint that this sort of thing may occur in a cyclical fashion, that we may, indeed, be going through just such a change today.
Imagine for a moment what would happen to our civilization if 95% of us were killed in some sort of event that did severe damage to the planet. My guess is those remaining 5% would find some way to survive, but they would not be full of the arts. They would be too busy just trying to live to do much else.
Eventually the planet would improve and our numbers would increase and our skills would develope again. Writing, art, and anything else above survival would start to come back into play. If we were in a bad way long enough we would lose our history. Facts would morph to legends.
Maybe that's why we are so staunch about trying to keep our heritage now. Maybe it's a lesson in our genes that we must remember...
Elsewise we will forget about Atlantis, the pyramids... and New York City...
Don't Agree? No Worries. Drop me a line, if you like
