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Humanity’s Forgotten Reflection
By S. A. Ward
Chapter Fourteen – Eye of Indoctrination
We shouldn’t altogether dismiss the existence of God and instead remain skeptical, but not zealously devoted and kneeling before fear invoked worship. Organized religion is the primary issue. They exploit this fundamental question that a being like us humans has to ask itself, especially with the sheer level of physical wonder we are left to experience. If there is a god that would be very comforting. The blobfish is something that seems like it would come about from natural evolution. Other creatures, and most especially us humans, it’s hard to believe that we are some sort of biological evolutionary anomaly. We should still entertain the idea that we are a product of evolution. However, the notion that we were engineered seems more plausible. We are complex and refined to an extent that it is almost unfathomable. It would seem, there is an all-governing deity that laid the framework for life but isn’t conceited and self-righteous like it is made out to be in most organized religions. Neither should we devote our existence to drone worshiping this deity, and our outlook of them should be dictated on its way of thinking or actions. If there is a god that stems from the Christian belief, then he is a conceited, self-worshiping, tyrannical deity who feeds off of the suffering of his children and is the thought police. What the churches of organized religion have exhibited for the past two millennia is a paradoxical and contradictory arrangement from a biblical standpoint. God laid down the fundamental conceptual foundation for everything that exists and that potentially could exist. Why would he create something that he is completely against, such as sin, and then expose us to it? He is to biblical knowledge, all-knowing he knew from the start that Eve was going to eat the forbidden fruit and let it happen. This being literally has every piece of the puzzle at his disposal. So, the common conceptualization of it that arrives at duality is quite shortsighted to comprehend the capabilities or motives of such a being. Our species origins from the biblical notion are a blatant contradiction, because we’ve been basically damned from the start. The Christian God must have witnessed the temptation taking place with Eve if he is truly all-knowing and all-powerful. The outcome from when Adam and Eve were created was all etched out, so intentionally forsaking his children over something he tailored and punishes repeatedly is incoherent. Then there’s the factor of him sending his only son as a sacrifice to it all. To top it all off, he banishes his beloved children to burn for an eternity if they don’t live the way he wants them to. Created everything, is that the literal foundation of creation and sending his son to be tortured was his course of action? There are so many better routes he could have taken or maybe there is lost context we don’t have. With what we have it all seems short-sighted and leads to a vast number of contradictions. It may be a reflection of the cognitive composition of the times it originates from. It is vital to take into consideration that history is a pretty botched and fabricated subject-matter. If the information we have is actually true, Jesus bailed out on a prime opportunity to lead humanity and prove his godliness after resurrecting himself. It’s been over 2000 years.
The notion of God is relative to the human condition, a superior being in our regard. Like mentioned in previous instances, power is a relative matter, and to many the scope of potential power has been incomprehensible. The common visual interpretation of God is modeled around the human image as a divine or exalted father figure. It is naive and entirely self-centered around the human experience, one that encompasses a primitive conceptualization of purity. We weren’t granted the ability to create like God and have been left with fragmented pieces to figure it all out ourselves in an environment of infinite wonder. No one has ever actually seen God, and through our species of observation there are no other beings on earth that have our level of sentience or awareness. Our dominance of the earth has shown us that we must be God’s most prized creation, due to our cognitive capabilities and divine potential appearance. So, it has led many to conclude that he made us in his image. Many resort to religion because of their ego’s desire for significance, and they find this in ready-made religious doctrines that claim to have it all sorted out. There are billions that fall for it, so this notion gives it some form of credibility. What could possibly be a greater privilege than being a child of God and a human? His most prized creation, it gives them a sense of purpose, offering something to work towards. Religion has served its purpose with bringing some level of order and morality to our species, because if there wasn’t the consequence of being sent to Hell for doing something terrible during those primordial times, then people would or would have done whatever they wanted. Corruption and exploitation of religious systems is important to take into consideration that the religious institutions and systems were hijacked by people who wanted power. Many religious, spiritual, and ideological systems start pure and inevitably fall prey to corruption. However, it is now stagnating humanity’s growth and has brought about unfathomable suffering over thousands of years. Jesus Christ is the keeper of what’s good and Satan for evil. This is Christianity’s ideological scapegoat. It uses mental gymnastics, faith, to completely disregard the ocean of contradictions that arises. To think that the two most powerful beings who are at the very foundation of creation is a rather incoherent notion and is totally petty. Anything perceived as subjectively bad always concludes back to the ideological space goat Satan. It is short-sighted and, in its entirety, amounts to one plus one. That’s why it takes something metaphysical like faith in order to remain intact. If faith is removed, then the entire structural integrity falls apart. Going beyond one plus one is far too much work for the powers that be. Duality has some sound but ultimately glass framed answers to our existence, so that’s why it is still utilized. Organized religion seems to be an exploitation of ignorance, the human desire for significance and purpose. There is a good chance God exists, but its nature is likely different from what many perceive this being to be. Atheists are often dogmatic themselves and feel compelled to force their belief system onto others. Many people who are disgusted by religion fall into this ideology due to negative religious experiences, and it’s come to a point where it is trendy. Convinced that their belief system is superior and can lead to a just as narrow-minded way of thinking, creating a barrier for delving into other cultures. Any notion of God can at times set them off to go on tangents, trying to denounce God’s existence. Little do they acknowledge, but many of their beliefs as well require a form of faith to remain intact.
God’s divine will, the idea that he is tailoring every increment of our lives and ultimately the one pulling the strings. By this logic, our actions are already predetermined and therefore reinforce the notion that we are without free will. Once again, why punish his creation or own actions for something he is the direct cause of? It is a total contradiction, and if it is true, then we are no more than puppets in a play. Why would an all-knowing, all-powerful and all presents being do such a thing? Hinduism offers a decent metaphysical conclusion to it. Arthur Schopenhauer states in the studies of Pessimism, chapter one on the sufferings of the world, “Brahma is said to have produced the world by a kind of fall or mistake and in order to atone for his folly? He is bound to remain in it himself until he works out his redemption.” He also goes on to say how Brahma is actually deceiving himself in a paradoxical game of hide-and-seek. Another idea to be entertained is that we are like fallen gods. Schopenhauer had a wonderful, noteworthy statement, set in an area of his work about the Greeks, which will make a great contribution. “Wise men of old told the young that we come into this world to pay the penalty for a crime committed in another state of existence.” So, in a sense, we occupy an environment that has the potential to be Heaven or Hell. This goes back to once again how our minds are a sort of prison and further substantiates the character armor notion. The conceptualization of a heavenly afterlife is as well subjective and ultimately up to the beholder. The desire to go to heaven is in itself pleasure seeking, to be absolved of responsibility, pain, all the subjective negative aspects of the human condition. To return to the blissful and carelessness of childhood.
Quite a few religions seem to exude Stockholm syndrome. Their God has bound them to a mental prison through observation, their survival is threatened from seeing existential potential horror. He has in a way humanized himself with being the foundation of creation and sacrificing his only son. The religion relentlessly works to isolate its followers from any other perspectives. Anything not aligned with the religion is regarded as sin or the work of Satan, so it’s 99% completely disregarded. Then there is absolutely no escape from this mental prison. So, the followers cling and suck up to this God out of fear to avoid enduring an abhorrent fate. It is not genuine devotion and is more so rooted in the fear of being sent to Hell for an Eternity.
The human mind is basically a programmable piece of biological hardware, but we are programmed differently from that of electronic computers, in which we are specialized in survival and not objective knowledge of the world we inhabit. The avoidance of pain is our primary mode of motivation. Our body and mind don’t like to be in pain and will go to extreme lengths to absolve itself of pain in its various forms. Gods from organized religion are fear viruses used to stifle various spheres of thought. Countless people only follow various religious doctrines because they fear being sent to Hell if they go against God. The Godhead is sullied and abused for control and power by organized religion. In regard to what has already been stated, religion feeds off the exploitation of ignorance, the unavoidable human desire for significance and purpose. It revolves around these factors and ignorance as its foundational principle, the catalyst. The Bible was written in a time of mass illiteracy, and they thought we were the center of the universe. It was birthed from a primitive time in our species history and its credibility is lackluster. What is being put forth is that people should truly register its face value, what it is they advocate for and to stop being afraid of the unknown.
The pursuit of enlightenment or nirvana is just another form of pleasure seeking. The whole idea of detaching oneself from desire, materialism, intoxicating substances and pleasure is a psychological paradoxical trap, and the human condition absolutely prohibits it. These gurus, self-help folks and new age ideology people are often just conmen peddling their own variation of hope, because they too are just trying to enhance their survival prospects in our soul shredder of a world. Embracing hyper inflated self-help, delusional positivity that can have problematic and low yields when put into practice. They seek out to absolve themselves of desire and suffering, to obtain nirvana, which in itself is still linked to desire and is ultimately pleasure seeking. It seeks out to find the most pleasurable frame of mind and to rid themselves of suffering. That is a paradox. This quote can’t be emphasized enough, “Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is,” Albert Camus. Peace is an illusion and has as much resilience as a rubber balloon going up against a needle.
Personal reflections: my belief system is a conglomeration of stoicism: Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Taoism, the scientific method, Islam, Cosmicism, Confucianism, Paganism, analysis of the human condition, Existentialism, barrens chat and good old pastafarianism. I haven’t delved too deeply into all of these belief systems, but I believe all religions have great attributes for morality, how to treat others and view our peculiar existence. There’s a lot to be learned from them. They all share a common practice that is based on a pursuit for the greater good and to make sense of our existence, embracing virtue and longing for unity. Christianity gets a lot of smack, and one of my favorite statements is from that religion. “Everyone has their own cross to bear.” Another notion worthy of admiration is from Buddhism, which conveys nature or life as simply an orchestral symphony, and us humans are just one of her instruments. Buddhism also portrays the clash between good and evil as like a dance, a show, a play that is meant to spice things up. They continuously push each other to the brink of annihilation, but never fully destroy one another, quite similar to the relationship between batman and the joker. Life would become dull and quite boring from their perspective, to where it would lose its value. Conflict ultimately makes us feel alive and pushes us to our limits, like mentioned in previous segments. A quote that will contribute well, “If you banish the dragons, then you banish the heroes,” Andrew Solomon, I refrain from binding myself to dogma, but I like to take all ideas and perspectives into consideration. I love the diversity and culture that stems from them. Religion does come with its negative side, and I want to push it to the forefront, so people don’t fearfully spend their lives in time. Dear, believing in dogma over the unknown. It has created unfathomable suffering throughout history, killing in the name of God. Millions, perhaps even billions, have died by the hand of religion. I’m not interested in converting people either, but I’d like people to take consideration of this perspective and gander at it. Is. This next factor isn’t solely found amongst religious evangelists, but many of them have sought to exploit people there. They’ve taken a human’s most valuable resource, their life. Religion has served as a great tool for giving mass amounts of people purpose and solace. In regard to the unknown, we should make note of the radicals or fanatics who give religious groups a poor image all by association. Religion has simply been an interpretation about the grand phenomenon that is life, an interpretation of God’s divine energy. We’ve been left to put the pieces together ourselves. So, who can blame those who tried to make sense of it all and bring some form of order, an admirable principle within stoicism that should be more widely embraced is delayed gratification. It is embracing perseverance in a field or area of interest, without reward and recognition for a period of time that can vary to extreme degrees. So many want their praise hot and ready, spoiled by instant gratification. They perceive they’re worthy of boundless praise. Even when a haphazard and mediocre level of work is done. It is ludicrous and is another factor of rot plaguing our species. End of personal reflections.
We will now discuss the attributes of her mentality within religion and must critique the follies of Christianity. The entire notion of Christian devotees openly and zealously appointing God or Jesus Christ as their shepherd will make a great example in this regard. There was a debate between Christopher Hitchens and a Christian Pastor. Hitchens made the argument that the pastor and other Christians were essentially slaves. The notion didn’t even phase this pastor, and he actually implored it. Entirely content with being chained to fear of the unknown, needing to be told what to do and struggling in its entirety on the notion of thinking for themselves. The masses tend to be weak individually in avenues of intellect, perception, reason and overall psychological cognition. So, they band together and cling onto a herd mentality due to their blatant weaknesses. They are consciously blind and obedient to a master. Moving towards a goal in ignorance of its potential outcome or consequences. Many religious folks tend to give all their energy and will to God. They are completely convinced that what they believe to be God lurks in the sky, orchestrating every avenue of their lives down to the very basic human needs, showering them with blessings that they quintessentially beg for through prayer. They get their fill, all the while disregarding the countless others around our world who experience the true horrors and dark side of existence that they can’t even begin to fathom. It’s a primordial and short-sighted way of thinking. Locked into a seal tight echo chamber, oblivious to reality, regurgitating what has been drilled into their psyche since they were a child, being taught to shut out anything that is blasphemous or might go against God. At times, religion has proven to be a psychological plague upon humanity. For instance, the Crusades, the Romans, the Spanish Inquisition, Salem witch trials, radical Christians and Muslims. They all killed or carried out egregious acts in the name of their God, slaughtering those who didn’t conform or harness differing beliefs. This can’t be emphasized enough. The level of suffering it has brought about is monolithic. They worship this God over everything he does, and he can never ever do wrong or be wrong or make mistakes. In short, it is a lazy feel-good conclusion for significance and to reinforce their own survival, they give the glass framed scapegoat excuse for their God’s total debauchery, that all the suffering in the world is because of Satan, who is out to corrupt God’s work, or others that conclude, God is punishing us for sin. Not only that, but they completely condone it, and some seem to get off on the idea of judgment day, knowing that millions will be sent to burn for an eternity, while they get to experience childhood bliss because they chose the path of blind obedience.
The conceptualization of Baruch, Spinoza’s God, is far more coherent. Here is a passage that will help with reorganizing the common ideation of God. “When Einstein gave lectures at numerous US universities, the recurring question that students asked him was: do you believe in God? And he always answered, I believe in the God of Spinoza. I hope this gem of history serves you as much as it does me. Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher, considered one of the three great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with the French Decart. Here’s some of him.
This is the God or nature of Spinosa. God would have said: stop praying and punching yourself in the chest. What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to enjoy, sing, have fun and enjoy everything I’ve made for you. Stop going to those dark temples that you build yourself and say they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That’s where I live, and I express my love for you. Stop blaming me for your miserable life. I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don’t blame me for everything they made you believe. Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can’t read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your son’s eyes, you will find me in no book. Stop asking me how you should live your life. Stop being so scared of me. I do not judge you; I do not criticize you, nor get angry or bothered, and I am not out to punish you. I am pure love. Stop asking for forgiveness. There’s nothing to forgive. If I made you, I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, and inconsistencies. Free will, how can I blame you over something I put in you? How can I punish you for being the way you are? If I’m the one who made you, do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of eternity? What kind of God can do that? Forget any kind of commandments, any kind of laws. Those are lies to manipulate you, to control you, that only create guilt in you. Respect your peers and don’t do what you don’t want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life, that your heart is your guide, my beloved. This life is not a test, not a step, not a step in the way, not a rehearsal nor a prelude to Paradise. This life is the only thing here and now, it is all you need. I have set you absolutely free. No prizes are punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record. You are absolutely free to create in your life, Heaven or Hell. I won’t tell you if there’s anything after this life, but I can give you a tip. Live as if there is not, as if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist. So, if there’s nothing, then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is, rest assured that I won’t ask if you behaved right or wrong, I’ll ask: did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn? Stop believing in me, believing is assuming, guessing, imagining. I don’t want you to believe in me, I want you to feel in you. I want you to feel me in. When you kiss your beloved, when you tuck in your little girl, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in the sea, stop praising me! What kind of egomaniac God do you think I am? I’m bored of being praised, I’m tired of being thanked, feeling grateful. Prove it by taking care of yourself. Your health, your relationships, the world, express your joy. That’s the way to praise me. Stop complicating things, and repeating as a parakeet what you’ve been taught about me, the only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders. What do you need more miracles for? Why so many explanations? Look within, find me inside you, there I am beating on you.” Spinoza.
Discovery of evidence that directly contradicts the indoctrination systems of those in power is often denounced and buried due to the potentialities of losing their power because of the social consequences of being wrong and intentionally perpetuating lies, which is as well far easier than having to reassess everything. They actively suppress truths that are discovered to protect their power, power will do whatever is necessary to remain in power. History is, for the most part, one giant question mark and is riddled with plot holes, like mentioned in previous documents. Regarding Emanuel Velikovsky’s book Mankind in Amnesia, putting forth that we as a species or in a state of collective amnesia. Whether there was a catastrophic event that reduced our societal progress significantly is up for speculation. There have been many widely known instances where the earth endured cataclysmic upheavals and created mass extinctions that greatly changed the environment and life on our planet. There have been many accounts where society set out for conquest, committed cultural and informational purges on monolithic magnitudes. These same occurrences happen in many countries even today, where censorship runs rampant. One can only imagine the world shifting books and information that were destroyed in one, the Vatican or governments of the world maybe hoarding away. One must only take into consideration the level of control that these religious institutions had on sheer thought itself. They had total control on the circulation of information. Their word was law and whoever went against it didn’t fare well. Then there’s the notion, “We need to bring God back to our schools.” So, this God is omnipotent, but a mere human social construct can prevent him from influencing an area of space when he created literally everything? We tried to have religion run everything, and it often ended in bloodshed and rational, superstitious social order. It is vital to take into account this primitive conceptualization of God. It doesn’t consider the full implications of what it would mean to be omnipotent. Like already mentioned, this perception is constrained to duality, good and evil, one plus one, and it is completely self-centered around the human experience. Here’s an excerpt from one of Carl Sagan’s speeches. While he was looking at an image of earth transmitted by voyager 1, “Our posturing’s, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark, a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”
Aliens, in the cosmic community our species is likely that of an ant colony to an advanced alien species. They either don’t believe there is much to learn from us or interfering in our affairs at a great scale and making their existence known could create more chaos or damage than good. Think of how isolated tribes react to us trying to make contact with them. Think of the common movie plot for alien movies where they only seek to destroy us, and we somehow manage to triumph over them. Our first thought is they are likely a threat and want to destroy us. An ambassador or discrete method of contact likely would amount to a world government capturing the aliens and its equipment to study for our own benefit. As a collective we are still maturing, for them to interfere with our development could potentially cause a great deal of social damage for our species. Considering the vastness of our universe there’s no doubt other species of life exist beyond Earth. Like stated in the first chapter, our false sense of superiority deceives us. We are not as mighty as we’d like to think, however the potential of godhood is there. The Fermi paradox also comes to mind, in regard to there being a barrier for intelligent species that must be overcome to master interstellar travel. A barrier that either leads to traveling the cosmos or the barrier is too great, and the frustrations or societal conflicts escalate amounting to self-destruction and setback.
Look at how easily led astray the majority of us are. The reliability of the human experience is flawed, biased and constrained towards survival. Even the writing of this book falls back onto survival. At the end of the day, I don’t give a shit what anyone believes in. Just don’t physically hurt people in the process or bring forth oppression on their common-sense social freedoms, but once that threshold is surpassed, is when we have an issue, I’d like to end this section with a quote by the late great Christopher Hitchens, “I’m not your fucking toy.”
The Cosmics 
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