Friday, January 11, 2019

The Self Destruction of the Human Race

Humanity, the species that was given dominion over the Earth and all that was on it by God. The Creator also gave humanity free will which brought about our expulsion from Eden. What else did the great originator of life give to humans? Pride, lust, covetousness, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. For a supposedly omniscient being I don't think he/she thought that one through too thoroughly. Even I, a mere mortal with limited knowledge of the cosmos, can see far enough into the future to realize that the combination of emotions and thought patterns that have been given to humans is a recipe for self annihilation. All you have to do is listen to what is called news and it is plainly obvious that the human race is bent on self-destruction.
Let us not put all the blame on modern man, though. If you are a Christian, and most of the world is today, all you need do is read Genesis. Satan, disguised as a serpent, convinced Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, then to talk Adam into doing the same. Ah, deceit. Granted, that came from the Great Liar. And Eve, being pretty gullible and innocent, took that nasty serpent at his word. Adam was the same. They didn't know any better. Innocence can be so damning.
One small step forward from the expulsion would be the story of Cain and Able. Uh, oh! Here comes even more treachery. This time between men and a lot more bloody. The beginning of mortal crime – murder. Covered up by lying. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. And just think, the Holy Bible is filled from front to back with lies, treachery, murder, thievery, and all other kinds of mortal crimes. Even the Messiah, Jesus Christ, was crucified by his own people because of lies while a real criminal was set free. Sounds a little like our modern day court system.
According to Jewish history, The Jewish diaspora started with the Assyrian conquest and continued with the Babylonian conquest when the Tribe of Judah was exiled to Babylonia in the 6th century BC (I refuse to be politically correct and be offended by religious references). Christianity started with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth some 2100 years ago. I make these references for examples. Most of the world's population is now Christian yet that religious order is actually fairly young.
I do not profess to be Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or any other organized, main stream religion. Nor will I downgrade or disrespect anyone's beliefs just because those beliefs are not in accord with my own. I believe that whatever makes you happy is fine with me, just don't force me to believe as you do and I won't force you to believe like I do. I just want people to have an open mind and hear what other people think and believe without judgment. I am using Christianity and Judaism as a way of explanation and example only at this time. There are other religions and belief systems that will be used later.
There have been more wars fought in the name of God than for any other reason since the Middle Ages. The Crusades are a good example of that. Here we have the Roman Catholic Church waging war against the Muslim Turks. Why? To protect pilgrims going to the Holy Land. The only problem with that is that Jerusalem was situated in an Arab region. It wasn't until Israel was recognized as a sovereign state in the late 1940's that it became the Christian-Judaeo land that it is today. Even though it is where Christians believe that the Christ was born and raised, the area was Palestinian. Was the Catholic Church wrong for waging war against these people? Especially since they were only protecting what was theirs? It is a moot point now, it's all done and over with. Kind of. The Israelis and Palestinians are still waging war against each other.
Islam has waged jihad against the world since its inception just after 1000 AD. Death to the Infidels! The Quran, from what I understand, is pretty much what the Old Testament is. Death to all nonbelievers and ours is the only true and correct belief system. There are rules that have to be followed and if they aren't, well, too bad, you die a horrible death at the hands of the holy ones. Christians don't want to remember that part of the Book.
Even within the Christian faith there are divisions. Catholicism, Protestant, Mormon, Seventh Day Adventist, Jehovah's Witness, Methodist, Baptist, Southern Baptist, Organized and Re-Organized... the list goes on and on. Let us not forget the Orange and the Green. Protestant against Catholic in Ireland. Each denomination has its own belief system. The most humorous thing about all these religious wars between Christians is that they all believe in the same God, the same Holy Trinity, the same Heaven and Hell. The only differences are the pomp and circumstance. Yet there have been wars.
The Jewish people have been persecuted since the beginning of time, I think. Everyone has been against them. Over the millennia they have learned how to protect themselves. Instead of running away from slavery and/or persecutors, they have learned to stand and fight. Especially after the Holocaust (which, by the way, DID happen for all those non-believers out there). Theirs is not an offensive role but a defensive one. All they want is to be left alone and keep a tiny piece of land in the middle of Arab country that contains their most holy city, Jerusalem. Would it be so much to ask to just let them have it?
As stated above, Islam has waged jihad against everyone for the last 1100 years. As the youngest religious order, I really don't think they have a leg to stand on. As with Christianity, there are different orders of this ancient thinking religion and they make war between themselves as well. And, they kill off their own for things that shouldn't even be worried about. Death to gays. Death to adulterers. Death to non-believers. Death to those that eat pork. Death, death, death. Islam, the religion of peace.
Are religious beliefs so ingrained into people's brains that they are willing to die for them? Is any one religion any better than the others? Every religion preaches peace, except Islam, yet one of the major parts of each is to kill others (at least in part; most religious orders today don't believe in killing off the opposition as they once did). Even today there are religious wars; the jihad against all infidels more commonly called the war against terrorism. Hitler killed off Christians and Jews by the millions. Religion has been the cause of more mass extermination of mankind than even greed yet each religion preaches peace. Where is that peace? Where is the tolerance of other's beliefs? In my opinion such things don't exist within any religious thought process.
Greed is the only other reason for wars. Greed of land since the beginning of recorded history. Rome wanted to rule the known world and almost achieved that goal. England, also, wanted to rule all it could and succeeded in conquering lands around the globe. City States of Greece, tribes of ancient civilizations, the Celts, the Normans, the Vikings; all fought to conquer other lands. Even the Indians of the western hemisphere fought each other over land.
Untold millions have died over the millennia at the order of their rulers just so those men of power could gain more. Look at those ancient kingdoms now. Rome is but a city in Italy. England's holdings have diminished to a handful of countries with complete control over only that tiny island resting in the Atlantic Ocean. The Normans, Celts and Vikings have all but disappeared from the face of the Earth. Empires rise and fall across the centuries never lasting very long in the fabric of time. Yet, those that died for those empires believed they were doing what was right and that their rulers, their kingdoms, would last forever. Nothing lasts forever.
What of Germany and Hitler's great ideals of ruling the world with his master race? That ended well for him, didn't it? And what of the great Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? Now a conglomerate of independent nations. Empires, countries, entire regions of continents are conquered and lost over and over again. All the while killing off millions. Isn't this a self-destructive way of thinking? Or is it just population control?
As you can see, our self-destructive tendencies started with the evolution of homo sapiens. Even those very first of mankind were killers. It is theorized that modern humans exterminated the Neanderthals. It is very possible. Mankind has feared what it doesn't know since intelligent thought evolved. Mankind believes that what they don't know will kill them. Why has the government kept secret the existence of alien life? Why has the Church denied the existence of life on other worlds? Fear. Well, fear and egotism. What man fears needs to die before it kills us. Those early humans, the homo sapiens, feared what they didn't understand.
Some scientist theorize that Neanderthal and Homo sapiens co-inhabited and even interbred. Others don't think they lived during the same time period. Still others believe that we evolved from them. No matter how you look at it, something caused the extermination of one species and left the other to survive. Homo sapiens' higher intelligence would account for better survival abilities and thought processes of how to do away with others.
We are killers at our core. Over hundreds of thousands of years that is what we have done to survive, kill. Only, we don't, and haven't, killed just to survive. Mankind has killed out of greed, lust, envy, anger. Sometimes we kill for no reason whatsoever other than to just see someone, or something, else die. That is our self-destructive nature.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is so much truth in that statement it is almost terrifying. Take a look at the political arena today. The hatred shown by the liberals toward Donald Trump is so bad that it has gotten violent. Politicians have been shot, harassed, accosted, humiliated. Elected officials have spoken openly of violence against conservatives, even threatening death. All for more power.
Governments and politicians make laws that do not pertain to themselves. The government is all powerful and is above the law. I'm not just talking nationally and I'm not just talking elected officials. Ever hear of the blue veil of secrecy? You know, the brother's code among lawmen? It doesn't matter what a lawman does he/she will be protected against discovery because all other lawmen will not say anything against them. Hazzard County is alive and well in these United States. Boss Hogg and Roscoe P. Coletrain are on the job! But, how does this pertain to our self-destruction?
Corruption is one of biggest forms of self-destruction. It is the powerful against the powerless. Millions die because of the powerful in many different ways. While the elite wine and dine extravagantly, the peasant starves. While the elite are protected by walls, gates and guns, the poor are left to the wolves. The Bolshevik Revolution of Russia is a prime example of what can happen when the poor finally get tired of the rich. The Romanov family was executed by the rebels because of their extravagance and not caring about the people they ruled over. Granted, communism wasn't much better for them but at least everyone was poor.
Back before modern technology and instant information, it would take days or weeks for information to travel. If the President sneezed wrong on the East Coast it may take a couple of weeks for the people in the West to hear about it. Was there corruption back then? Of course there was. As long as there is humanity there will be corruption. Was it as bad as it is today? I don't believe so. In the days when corruption would have been much harder to detect, it was less prevalent than it is today with instant communication. When Trump farts in the Oval Office at 02:30, people in South Africa know it by 02:45. Why is it that politicians think that their corrupt ways are kept secret better today than they were before Al Gore invented the internet and cell phones with cameras came along?
People will still lie. That is why. If you don't like someone, lie about them. Tell some ungodly, horrific lie about them that cannot, or it is extremely hard to, be proved or disproved. The public is nothing more than bunch of idiotic sheeple that will believe whatever is told to them by the people in power. If lying doesn't work, just call them racist, xenophobic, bigots, misogynistic, etc. That will get them. What does this all come to? People destroying other people for other reason than they don't like them. We are destroying ourselves over nothing more than emotional prejudice.
We have prisons full of people that made mistakes, from simple, unintended infractions to premeditated murders with a full spectrum in-between. Why? Because humanity is humane. We incarcerate law breakers no matter how insane the broken law is. We refuse to kill the killer but we will drive him/her insane with boredom for twenty to life. We incarcerate the weed smoker because he/she wants to self-medicate or just chill and destroy the refrigerator. Justice is not just because it doesn't matter who is right or wrong, who is innocent or guilty, only what can be proven to the satisfaction of a judge or jury and that has come under scrutiny lately with the Brett Kavanaugh accusations.
Here in the US today it can be seen everywhere. The elitist ruling class push for gun laws to disarm the people, demand that there not be a border wall to keep out undesirables, and want economic equality all while they are protected by walls and guns and huge bank accounts. They don't want to save the people from harm, they want to do away with those pesky little vermin that get in the way of their power. What they don't understand is that once the poor are gone, there will be no one to lord their power over, thus becoming powerless themselves. Just as humanity doesn't realize that once we are done destroying our home (planet Earth) and each other, there will be nothing left. Oxymoron in its finest form. We will destroy ourselves to make things better for ourselves.
I am totally surprised that the human race has lasted as long as it has. There is so much hate, greed, envy, and lust in the world today. People killing each other over nothing. Not to mention the total insanity of some people. Terrorism is at an all time high with radical Islamist jihadists bombing places and running people down with vehicles, radical people of both liberal and conservative ideology trying to kill the other side, foreign nationals violently breaking down national borders to other countries, illegal aliens killing natural citizens and breaking every law the invaded nation has... the list goes on and on and on. Recipe for self-destruction. We are killing ourselves off for no reason. How have we lasted this long?
War is not healthy for children and other living things and you will believe that if I have to kill you to get you there. Modern thought process. Do as I say, not as I do, and, me being the peaceful, tolerant person that I am, will beat the hell out of you if you don't. My agenda is the only right one even if it involves killing unborn children while professing compassion for foreign children, even if it involves tolerance for a certain ideology and intolerance for anyone who doesn't believe that way, even if I profess hatred for my own color because I am tolerant and accepting of a different color, even if I have to lie about my ancestry to get ahead while professing honesty. Hypocrisy is rampant and violence has become the norm for intolerance to that hypocrisy.
As we destroy our own homeworld, we are in search of other planets that are inhabitable by humanity. Mars, the closest planet to Earth, has been a great prospect for colonization. Granted, we would have to nuke both poles to get an atmosphere but that's okay, we'd be able to move there and exploit the planet taking its natural resources to make money with. After a few decades and millions of colonists, Mars would be the twin to Earth. It would be polluted, government would be corrupt, laws would be broken, murder and mayhem would ensue. After a few centuries, if it took that long, we would have to find another planet to move to and destroy.
With all our intellect, all our civilization, all our enlightenment, it is my belief that we are the bane to life. The animal kingdom, those controlled by instinct to survive, are much more civilized than humanity. The lion only kills to eat and protect. Humanity kills for pleasure and sport. We are not even as civil as a congress of baboons. The ape genus is more civilized and organized than homo sapiens. The pride of lions that live on the savanna are more humane than humanity. Crocodiles, sharks, wolves, every living thing in the world that humans fear are only doing what they must to survive. It is humanity that has encroached upon the world, not the animal kingdom. We have destroyed millions of acres of natural beauty and bounty so that we can grow crops to eat. We have killed off hundreds of species of animals for sport and food. We have polluted our land, our air and our water for our own convenience. Most of all, we have overpopulated to the point of no return.
That brings me to the point of sex. The only other species that copulates for pleasure is the dolphin. Humans fornicate for pleasure only. This is proven by the number of abortions that are performed because the participants didn't want to procreate, only orgasm for trade to get something such as drugs. Procreation is not in the thought process when she drops her panties and he whips it out. What do people think is going to happen? They think they're going to get a Sony Playstation once the deed is done?
So here we are, kids becoming parents or killing off the results of unprotected, for pleasure sex. Not that I am against sex mind you. I just don't believe in sex without protection and random sex with whoever happens to be next to you when the bar closes whether you know them or not. If you don't want babies, don't do the dirty. If the only reason you want babies is for an income, either from the sperm donor or the government, don't do the dirty. A baby, a child, is a gift of life not an income or something that should be done away with on a whim. Don't stand up for children's rights if you've every killed an unborn child. Another form of self-destruction... killing unborn children.
I realize that I ramble. My thoughts are as incoherent as a politician's promises. I apologize for that. As I read, or hear, about world events I feel the need to make comments on said events and it may be hours or days or even weeks before I get a chance to write anything down. By then, everything is jumbled up in my mind. One day, I may realize that to edit is to organize. Until that day, a-ramblin' I shall do. Rants and ravings of a demented mind.
So far I have only delved into the powerful against the powerless. Let's take a look at the common man (or woman, or thing, or whatever you want to call yourself). How do we interact between ourselves on the the personal level? As a professional driver for over 30 years I can tell you some horror stories most of which won't mean a thing to you because you don't put up with it on a daily basis. But I'll try to convey the stress that is put upon the nation's most important industry.
A semi-truck can weigh up to, and sometimes more, than 80,000 pounds. That is like 40 times more than your little powder blue Prius. With that kind of weight it takes a pretty good distance to get going up to speed or to stop. Trucks don't do jack rabbit starts and stops like your Prius. Think about a football field from goal post to goal post. That is how far it takes a truck to stop when going 55 miles an hour. It may take up to 3 miles before it can get up to highway speed depending on the weight in the trailer. You have to remember that trucks have nine to 18 gears to go through and the lower five are SLOW.
Drivers today think that they are invincible. Nothing can harm them because the law says you can't run over them. It doesn't matter if you have the RIGHT to cut that truck off. That truck can't stop on a dime. It WILL run over you and you WILL die. The professional driver will survive most likely and have to live with the fact that he/she killed an idiot but that is beside the point. You cut in front of a truck and then hit the brakes because you don't like trucks. You're in the far left lane and you remember your exit ramp is fifteen feet in front of you so... let's cut across three to six lanes of rush hour traffic that is going 50 miles an hour. Self destructive behavior if you ask me. Especially if there is a truck in one of those lanes.
You've been following a truck down the highway. He's been running along about five miles over the speed limit and then you have to go through some little one horse town and slow down to 35. When the speed limit goes back up that truck takes a little time to get back to road speed. Too long for you. You have to get around him no matter what law you have to break. Then, because you're turning off a mile outside that town, you hit the brakes right in front of him. Good way to die.
I have had people pass me on the shoulder. I've had people cut in front of me and almost take my hood off. I've had people speed up when I could get around them and slow down when I couldn't. I've even had people pass me then slam on the brakes. People are bound and determined to kill themselves when they are behind the wheel of their Prius. Why? Because they have to be first, can't let a truck in front of them, they are morons. Tell me how the human race isn't bound for self-destruction.
Radical Islamic Terrorists (yes, I will call the what they are) will do anything to kill the infidels, gang members will do anything to kill other gang members, differing political ideologies will do anything to do away with the opposition. See the trend? We are killing ourselves over nothing when it comes to the grand scheme of the Universe. We are nothing but a speck in this infinite space. Less than a speck. We can kill ourselves, destroy our world, even the entire solar system could disappear and the Universe wouldn't even notice. But we are all we have. This Earth is all we have. If we want to survive we will have make some drastic changes in our thinking.
We will have to change our basic natures if we want to survive as a species. We will have to start taking care of Mother Earth. We will have to learn how not to hate and kill. Is that possible? I have my doubts. Humanity hasn't changed in several millennia and don't see any hope for it in the future. All I see is a world that burns because of hate and greed and religion.

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Please leave a comment; good, bad or indifferent. Feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks, JDE