Saturday, January 17, 2015

Destiny and the Meaningful Life


Destiny and Autonomy

“…people raised in the atmosphere of a mass movement are fashioned into incomplete and dependent human beings even when they have within themselves the making of self-sufficient entities.”—Eric Hoffer

Wait a sec, does Morgdoc really answer the Big Three Questions? Telling me I am a child of God explains who I am? Telling me this mythological tale about a war in heaven explains where I am from and where I am going?

Knowing who my parents are doesn’t tell me anything about who I am. Telling me I am a product of some Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent Creator only makes matters worse. That leaves a person spiritually infantilized until death.

As for the Plan to save everybody, doesn’t the premise for Salvation seem fairly stupid? Saved from what? The original war in heaven is a mythical tale several thousand years old, harking back to a time when the planets were in disarray from intrasolar cometary impacts. The Fall truly was the end of the Golden Age, when an advanced civilization was obliterated by celestial disorder which culminated in a massive cataclysmic event. The origin of the "War in Heaven" is solely derived from these ancient accounts. Just like the magical thinking of a child who believes he is the cause of his parent’s divorce, Man created this tale to explain why the Gods went away and took Paradise (the Hebrew Edem) with them. Capricious Gods with unrefined passions squabbling among themselves over how their children are going to grow up, to be eventually like them? I don’t need a Plan to do that. Just keep me infantilized. Enter the modern Mundunugu.

Who are you? Morgdoc tells you that you’re a child of God, born of earthly parents kind and dear, but when an adult you are a worker bee provider if you’re male, and a worker bee baby-factory if female. People are encouraged to identify themselves with roles, instead of their identity being a discovery on life’s journey.

What do you want? Morgdoc says you should become a God. First you must be a good follower and do everything, rituals, roles, and incantations the Chief Shaman tells you to do, no matter the spiritual, economic, or social cost. Everyone wants a return to the Golden Age of Paradise where all temporal needs are met, with love and peace abounding in an ageless world. But Mordoc insists (like ALL other religions) it can only be accomplished by their program.

Where are you going? Morgdoc prescribes the Celestial world, and anything less is failure, notwithstanding the lower ones are kingdoms of glory. Total happiness can only be had at the top, even if your cherished family and friends don’t make it. Once you get into any of these, you’re stuck there for eternity. But at the top you get to have infinite numbers of children, worlds without end. You’ll be so busy there will be no boredom. No need for adventure, retirement or vacation.

Who do you serve, and who do you trust? Morgdoc wants you busy with Church programs, procedures, and implementing policy. Just follow the Chief Shaman, he’ll never lead you astray. Someday, in losing yourself in these rituals, so they proclaim, you’ll discover who you are, and then all your posterity will serve you as God. Wonderful. Just what I always longed for--to become a megalomaniac being worshiped and served by my multitudinous offspring in endless fawning and choir cantatas.

Which Personality Are You?

There are basically three types of personality, those who want to be taken care of, those who want to dictate to the first group, and those who eschew both to find their own Path.  The latter are frequently the pioneers, seekers, dreamers, and the inquisitive.  The former are predominantly those who are conformists, followers, socialites, females, and yes-men.  A true leader never evolves from the first group, but feminists, tyrants, politicians, and priests do.  Those of the third group are the visionaries who stake out the boundaries of new frontiers in spite of the objections of others.  They are the ones who advance civilization, and are frequently scapegoated.  The first and second groups have nothing to offer but plagiarism, boasting, and stagnation.

Good leaders were never good followers and don’t need them—precisely why others follow them.  Only those who are dedicated to a Cause perpetuate this myth of leadership.  These personalities span the breadth of Mania (egomaniacs, etc.).  Followers are those who are ignorant, often gullible, lack self-confidence, seek purpose through other’s mandates, and live life in a fog.  Together they form a binding symbiosis of reciprocal worship.

Wrote Eric Hoffer: “The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves. Surrender to a leader is not a means to an end but a fulfillment. Whither they are led is of secondary importance.”

We come into this world naked and screaming.  We go out sighing and apprehensive.  In between is best enjoyed treating everything as a stewardship within the self and an adventure. If life is anything but an adventure, you're a masochist. Such an excellent approach to screwing up your stewardship.

This world is about accountability or its lack thereof.  What we hear is it is either God or the Devil who did it.  Seldom is “it” attributable to the works of man. All religion is based on this scam and artifice. But ultimately, full autonomy is dependent upon being your own best agent for growth, happiness, and worth. If you don't radiate it, you can't receive it in kind. The magnitude of one's divinity is not orchestrated by obeisance to a dogma or movement's leader. It resides solely within your own desire for Good.

However possible, find a way to remove oneself from the clutches of those who must dictate other people’s lives.  Such beings are empty and their souls decayed.  They have no internal worth to manifest to the world.  Their boring and vacuous personalities and gross feelings of inadequacy compel them to interpose their ethereal Utopian visions upon others to relieve their internal emptiness with the vanity of their hubris.  From these ranks the megalomaniacs are born. It is instructive to note here that everyone of them are men of charisma. As if that is a perfecting human quality. What did we learn about America's Revolutionary pseudo prophet?

The happiest possible course in life is dependent upon two principles of Stewardship: a) one’s destiny is solely and irrevocably centered in the individual and their level of accountability, and b) their public liberty is entirely dependent on minding their own business, helping others only where invited and their accountability is manifestly demonstrated by their behavior.

Recently it came to my attention the efforts of David Blankenhorn's Institute of American Values to "restore" marriage to its former social prestige. A Harvard graduate (a college founded by the Massachussets Bay Colony composed of 1000 Puritan "refugees", read early ultra conservatives, for the sidereal purpose of educating America's clergy), David is intent on growing his own movement to realize this social restoration. While an admirer of Charles Murray's (also a Harvard graduate) research and several conclusions, he has been oblivious to Charles' repeated admonitions that this objective cannot be accomplished by David's methodologies and politics. Harvard undergraduates are required to take coursework in the following areas:
  • Aesthetic and Interpretive Understanding
  • Culture and Belief
  • Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning
  • Ethical Reasoning
  • Science of Living Systems
  • Science of the Physical Universe
  • Societies of the World
  • United States in the World
Somehow David missed the boat in these classes concerning marriage and its co-optation by the Catholic church during the late Roman Empire. Prior to this period marriage was a cultural institution, with as much variety and diversity of social values as there are cultures in the world. In the 1600s it became a European institution of divine love with the High Voyeur at its head by Popish influence, rather than the economic union it had been for millennia. Being an economic union, it had little to do with the integrity or solidarity of the family (i.e. marital and sibling bliss) although its intent was to service family economic requirements. In sum, marriage do not create the filials bonds, it was an attempt at enlarging them. Such notions of family solidarity still persist within Mediterranean cultures which are largely clannish or tribal, independent of marital economic concerns. Today such an objective can be accomplished by an endowment by the wealthy. Conversely, companionships and romance, particularly during Roman and late Greek times was serviced outside of marriage. But David wants to resurrect this Hydra of love AND economic union within an economic climate vastly outstripping the resources and rewards available to more than half of America's population. David is dyed in the second personality traits, while Charles is mostly of the third, albeit with some dangerous leanings toward the second. For all his Harvard education--the most prestigious in the world by some standards--he misses the most fundamental dilemma of today's rising generation: the rewards are no longer there because those entrusted with it preservation are those who broke the "social contract." David would have everyone become the first personality type. The rising generation does not have faith in the institutions and values of their elders. Because the same opportunities their parents enjoyed are no longer within their reach (by their own skill and acumen and not artificially induced by the government or Church), they are abandoning the so-called "traditional" values for a revamped framework that gives a modicum of reward, dysfunctional or not. To realize satisfaction in their life's endeavors, they are recreating Charles Murray's four elements: Religious Faith, Family Bonds, Vocational Pursuits, and Communal Identity. They are doing what their ancestors have done since the dawn of recorded history--creating God in their own image, for better or worse. 

 Bruce: What if I need you?  What if I have questions?
God:    “Ha ha ha.  That’s your problem Bruce—that’s everybody’s problem.  You keep looking up.”

Thou Art God

Seth Smee