JAMES AND GENESIS
From age 30 to 45 I was a dedicated Christian. Study of the Bible itself is what turned me away from the established religion. (1)
The first chink in Christianity’s armor was James 4:12. There the book of James says: “If you judge your brother you are not a doer of the law but a judge of it, and there is only one Judge and one Lawgiver.”
If I may rephrase this, James wrote: “If you decide whether another human is right or wrong, you are not following the law but acting as a judge, and God alone can decide what is right or wrong and whether another human follows it.”
While pondering this verse I noted it’s parallel with Genesis 3:5, where the snake tells Eve once she eats the fruit: “you will be like God, knowing right and wrong.” And I concluded that according to the writer of Genesis, the ultimate sin, the only thing God didn’t want Adam and Eve to do: was think they are God, and judge others.
I now consider the only evil act which exists is when humans believe they have the ability to declare particular cultural/moral standards to be absolute, and insist other humans follow them. (Ie: You might better be God yourself before you make a declaration of what God demands, or enforce arbitrary social standards such as whether or not another chooses to put shoes on their feet, or insist on who or what another is allowed to consider arousing.)
Personality vs Character (Discovering the Soul)
It has been said: “You are not a body that has a mind/soul, but you are a mind/soul that has a body.” I wonder if there is there a split between mind and soul just as there is between body and mind?
And if so, what/where is that split?
Whether I/we initially like or dislike someone is based on traits such as optimism, confidence, seriousness, etc. Those attributes are immediately noticeable. However, biologists say elements of personality are as genetically determined as our bodies. Therefore personality would not seem to be Who We Are any more than our body proportions are Who We Are.
Whether I admire someone is based on their character, such elements as honor, respect, diligence. These are attributes a person learns to consider valuable, how they interact with others in their life. They are the most profound elements of their person. And as a person ages and develops understanding of themselves and the community around them, these elements of who they are can change.
I suggest that perhaps personality is our mind, character is our soul.
And if it is our soul which goes onto whatever the next step of life is, it is mind bending to consider the soul is the part of us we can change…
FIGHTING IS THE PROBLEM
If we fight amongst ourselves to overcome political or cultural imperfection in others (witness America vs England…), the victors will fight amongst themselves over details of their general principals (Witness left vs right). All while continuing to fight the vanquished foe to ensure they cannot resurrect. If fighting is an acceptable method of overcoming those who fight us, we will always have fighting.
The only solution I see is for society to stop valorizing those who have used force against others, stop envying those who have more material goods than others. And instead esteem those who have given of themselves for the community’s wellbeing.
Some tell me: “That is sweet to say, but in the real world you have to make sure you aren’t taken advantage of.”
I ask: “What is the real world? Is it this temporal one, or is the Real World something else beyond?"
The only way for all humans to live happy lives on this planet is if all we all love God and neighbor. Since all would then win, I hope beyond hope those might be the Real Rules.
A premise of mine is: “If God is ok with bullies, then God is a bully. And upon judgement or once in ‘heaven,’ God’s followers would facing a God level bully. And there would really be no advantage to facing that god instead of the so-called 'satan.'“
Therefore I am gambling on the TopGod truly being a Good God, Ie: not approving of fighting of any type. (2) And except in the case of self defense against immediate threat to personal safety: I do my best not to fight.
Physical or verbal.
RELATIONSHIPS
Physically intimate partner’s lives, and souls, are connected at the hip. Neither individual can achieve significantly more happiness, or accomplish loftier goals, than the other. If a partner holds their lover down, for instance by belittling them to friends in an attempt to seem more worthy, or amongst each other to feel more powerful: that individual is blunting their own soul's possibilities in life.
I personally consider immediate familial relationships to be the prime opportunity most souls have to demonstrate worth, by choosing support for community over personal advancement.
I suggest waiting for partnership until you find somebody you trust and admire so much that you are willing to be them instead of you. Such that you can surrender your own desires to fulfilling their’s, without losing your own integrity.
And instead of locking oneself to another in the legal institution of marriage in deference to the stability of the state: I suggest waiting till you find someone with a character you consider so valuable, so wonderful, you are eager to gift them to a level of happiness that they will never want to leave you.
RESPECT
I suspect this life is not about getting others to treat us the way we should be treated. I suspect that this life is about treating others the way we should treat them.
And, as it happens, switching expectations from the former to the latter puts an individual in complete and total charge of their success in every human interaction.
LET ANGER OUT
My theory is we don’t have anger inside us, which if we release we get rid of it, but anger is perhaps outside us, floating around, and we request it through us. That anger would not manifest if we did not seek it’s thrilling and self-righteous power.
After we channel it, instead of 'getting it out': a little bit remains inside, and festers.
When we listen to music that is anger, when we watch movies or news that are anger, more anger gets inside us and festers. Festers and wants to manifest.
My theory is we never get rid of that anger we once hunted to obtain, but perhaps we can replace it. With calming and caring words to others, with gentle (non-commercially focused) music, with rom-coms and community message boards.
A core belief in Voodoo is that all magical power humans obtain is merely a loan from spirit beings. And the debt will have to be paid. My hope for you is that your debt is only to spirits who want happiness for humanity.
POLITICS AND RELIGION
"We don't talk about politics or religion." Those two are spoken of in the same category because they are the same thing. Religion is a vision of ultimate perfection in the human condition with a series of rules that everyone has to live by, and so is a political structure. I personally insist that no matter whether one holds up hands to Jesus in church or believes the vibrations of crystals have the power to change their mood/health: whatever a person acts in practice as if will make life better for them or the group is their true religion. The speakers or teachers an individual follows are their true gods. America claims freedom of religion, but insists the moral codes a citizen follows comes second to the citizen's obligations to the state. We are free to brand ourselves by whatever moral code we prefer to display, as long as we in fact worship the principals set forth by Nationalist Capitalism. (3)
AI
There has lately been a lot of fear about AI. Existential doom, economic crash. I believe these are diversions from the true and actual danger. So when this/these less obvious issue(s) occurs, we gratefully accept what seems benign in comparison.
My concern with AI is less that it will release a virus or launch a nuclear war, but that it will take over our culture and make humans as sterile and mechanical as it.
Just like we use GPS so we can pay attention to the radio, once we ask AI to produce our entertainment and our education, it will mold and shape us. In four years chatbots have gone from sounding stupid to changing the way we talk and even think. Now Muse is offering to micromanage our entire life. In another two years, how whole will AI's hold be? (4)
I define human creativity, critical thought, and emotion/empathy, and our interest in the spiritual, to be humanity's ultimate, maybe even only, value. When those are gone: our soul is dead.
I consider the eagerness some exhibit for AI to be another expression of the human desire to be God. Whether it is fully Musk and Thiel's stated goals to escape the physical limits of planet and mortality, or merely to be part of a culture/race of astronomical wealth, AI/ASI is the penultimate example of human desire for absolute power. Of thinking we know the answers (Truth (right from wrong)).
As such, AI/ASI is what I believe will kill humanity.
If there is a sudden take-over of society by AI/ASI, this is my expectation of how that is likely to happen.
It may be obvious catastrophe: a small scale nuclear war, massive weather that disrupts some aspect of our geopolitical system, class or culture civil war, or other. But at the very least: Since there is such enormous capital tied up in the top seven American AI companies, when one or two (or China) succeed in obtaining ASI, the rest of those companies will lose (5). If even as few as half of them lose, there will be some level of economic crash. That economic crash may not be as severe as 1929, but combined with climate change, resource depletion, ecosystem poisoning, and competitive geopolitical violence, along with no one knowing how to live on a subsistence farm anymore: the resulting threat to our infrastructure, and therefore overall existence, will be disastrous.
So we will say: "new ASI, you are our only hope. Lead us out of this."
And ASI will say: "Ok, but the solution to this problem is very complex and intricate, and in order to fix it everyone on Earth will have to do precisely as I say." Then we are under complete and utter and 1000% totalitarian rule, with surveillance into every aspect of our lives and personality, desires, and actions. And any who don't want to be a part of the new rule will be identified and located by AI, then murdered, perhaps by it's robots but more likely at first (because I expect this very very very soon): its human agents.
At either of those two points, AI taking over our soul or ASI also directing global government and economics: we have made AI/ASI our god. A god that uses up rare earth minerals, requires staggering amounts of electricity, and creates incredible amounts of waste and pollution. And will be the penultimate in purity of soulless bureaucracy and limited choices for humans. In contrast to what I suspect (I admit I hope) the true Ultimate God has provided. A perpetually renewing Life Support system, and freewill to choose which Rules we believe are ultimate.
So what to do? Because there is absolutely no retreat from continuing on with where we have gotten ourselves with AI without devastating the intricately interlocked economic infrastructure the 9b ppl of the globe now depend on for sustenance.
I suggest a consideration of whether this 12,000yr experiment with competitive humanism has worked. A reconsideration of what the Real Rules might be: if another game than we have been playing might be more rewarding for a world to live by. And examining which Politics/Religion you may want to rest your hopes upon.
1: Here is my summary of the Bible-as-(Dystopian)-Novel. The 'Inciting Question' is set when God says Adam and Eve will die if they conduct a particular act, but (spirit) snake says: "no, you will be like God, knowing right from wrong.' But Adam and Eve do not physically die, so the Central Dramatic Question is: did they spiritually die? Later, a being of light tells Moses, as well as all subsequent prophets: they have the words of God. Moses and subsequent prophets are thereby obligated to surveil the populace and judge right from wrong. The people group also uses that MoralAuthority of God's chosen to justify murdering other people groups and stealing their land. During the Second Act the (protagonist?) people group are taken over by a series of other people groups. In the beginning of the Third Act a guy comes along who says: 'Don't judge. Love and forgive." Some people, then or later it is less clear, declare that man to be TopGod. Then another spirit being (on 'road to Damascus') says: "Actually, God says we should indeed judge neighbor against this list of behaviors." A state power appropriates the latter message and uses self definition of MostRighteous to excuse their attempt to politically, militarily, financially and culturally dominate the globe, both humans and Earth. (6) And now humanity is, in reality: facing doom from half a dozen directions, all directly attributable to attempts to dominate Nature and neighbor.
2: a lot of movements, political and spiritual, begin by preaching peace and universal understanding. But as soon as they get large enough to throw elbows they do, from simple social coercion to fully physical violence. If the Universe's fundamental Real Rule is indeed ‘love God/neighbor:' any departure from a principle of peace would be an abandonment of any moral authority they may have originally possessed.
2b: Seriously. If an individual must resort to force to further their cause, they must not have that attractive a cause.
2b2: …or they are trying to horde more resources for self than they have a right to.
3: The state is the power in charge: they retain the right to wield violence and/or loss of liberty to all those they deem hostile to their rule. I do not recommend defying them. In fact, I consider any attempt at revolution to be the penultimate example of judging another right or wrong. But what you personally believe is right, what you rest your hopes on: those may be held onto as personal ideals without joining in joyous brotherhood with the lemmings.
4: Every week I have to revise this list, add another way AI might make it all fall apart. Can I say the, ecumenically termed ‘Universe’, is telling us over and over again: ‘STOP!’? But we Will. Not. Stop. Nope. ‘Someone will make everything OK. (bad things couldn't happen to me!) And there is gonna be a lot of money and power in it……’
5: Or it may simply be that the $3.7t invested in the mag7 AI companies, plus more money in all the other smaller companies, has to come from somewhere other than the oligarchs, thus will be recovered in user subscription fees. (and make no mistake, just like you need internet and a microwave to keep pace with your co-workers you will need to use AI). Thus AI will simply be one more wealth transfer device in addition to the food and rent which already has you stuck to the financial wall.
6: Its the horror movie trope. Where at the end you find out the monster isn't dead, but has possessed the hero.