Let's
Add it Up
I
have come to discover over recent years, that I am a philosopher, an
old and forgotten art. Now we have a lot of people who say they are
philosophers, and they philosophize. Most are filled with shallow
foolishness. Others stab at it, missing this or that, because they
didn’t think it through.
That is
the art of philosophy, to think it thru, to find the truth, as best
we can, and train ourselves to believe it. But that takes time and
effort and a lot of information. That’s why a culture has
philosophers, to do the heavy lifting, to figure it out according to
what is known to be true. That’s the key; you can’t build a
successful philosophy, and subsequent culture on falsehoods. Whatever
you do, it has to be in harmony with the very real world around it,
or it’s not going to work. You can’t build a culture that doesn’t
believe in eating, they would stave. You can’t build a culture that
doesn’t believe in sex, they would die out. Okay, these are basic
truths that we have to follow in order to survive; to live better
than we would otherwise, we need a philosophy. Therefore it is
necessary to create a common philosophy on which to build a culture,
for a culture is built on common ideas and goals. If these ideas and
goals are flawed, then the culture will play itself out. That is to
say: it will rise to the level onto which their philosophy is based
in truth. Above that, they have no reality to build on, and the world
around you is
real,
regardless of what you might think.
My
mother was a philosopher; I didn’t know it when I was young, but I
did listen to her, and she was a well educated and very wise woman, a
woman who had a way of seeing things as they are. I’ll be quoting
her quite a bit. My father was a very smart man, he liked math, and
my father liked things to add up. He would say, “If it doesn’t
add up! It doesn’t add up.” He also liked to say. “If it’s
true here, then it’s true there.” That is to say, if 2X2=4, than
4/2=2, that simple, don’t over complicate it. If you see it here,
then you’ll see it there. I’ll be quoting my father quite a bit
as well.
My
Mother once told me, it’s better to watch the game than to play in
it. Play, be part of the game, learn how it works at ground level,
what does it take to make it happen? But, your point of view should
always be from the bleachers, and beyond. As a result of this advice,
I never saw, what my peers saw, I never heard what my peers heard.
That was an odd thing that I didn’t come to understand for many
years. So I was always at odds with my peer group. I just saw things
differently.
I was
born and reared a Roman Catholic, and learned the foundation, and
teaching of the Church. I remember once as a teenager, I asked Dad,
“You really believe all that stuff at Church?” He said yes. Now
remember, I was born in ’52, so I was right in the middle of all
the new age thinking. So I said, “But it doesn’t make any sense,
with what they're teaching at school.” He replied, ‘it’s the
only thing that does make sense, don’t be afraid to scrutinize your
God, He can stand up to it.”
Back to
being a philosopher, my Mother and my Father sent me on a journey,
that I have come to realize in recent years, I might need to write it
down, because, that’s what philosopher’s do.
I not
going to tell you my life story, nor am I going to rehash what
others believe, for that’s not my purpose, my purpose is to tell
you what I believe, what I think and how it applies.
My Dad
and I used to like to watch archaeology documentaries. It was fun to
watch them dig up the past and talk about what they thought. Then
once, in later years, they (archaeologist) were digging up some
fellows who had shipwrecked up around Nova Scottish sometime in the
eighteen
hundreds,
and had been buried by the local’s in the permafrost. Dad looked at
me and asked, “How long you gotta be dead, before its okay to dig
you up?” And I looked at him and said, “I don’t know.” But it
got me to thinking. Archaeologist is a fancy and acceptable word for
grave robber. Now, if you looked up archaeologist, and grave robber
in the dictionary, you would get two different meanings for the same
activity. One we accept, and one we do not.
Just
how long do
you have to be dead, before it is okay to dig you up? For the people,
or for profit? A hundred years, five hundred years, should you dig up
your own? How about cultures of the past, a people who aren’t
really part of who you are? On what criteria would you base such a
decision? Or do you just ignore it, and accept the idea this Grave
Robber has a degree, works under the guise of an archaeologist, and
is working for your
good.
When I
was six years old, my father gave me a bb gun, He gave me a mess of
rules to go with it, the first of which was, don’t point a gun at
anyone unless you intend to kill them, second, you can kill anything
you want, but you can’t kill a song bird, or its your ass. I knew
what he meant when he said, ‘or it’s your ass!’ Well, I learned
one bird from another, just so I wouldn’t get caught shooting a
songbird.
My
mother always said of all the things that I may possess in this life,
the language was the most valuable. You are; what you say and what
you do, this is how people come to know you, and what to expect from
you. Therefore it is very important that you know how to say, what it
is you want to say, then make sure what you do matches what you say.
Well
that is what I intend to do right here, use the language to tell you
what I think, what I believe and the philosophy I have developed over
the years. Keep in mind, as we go along, that as we learn things, our
outlook, as well as our philosophy has to adjust, or we stagnate.
Stagnation
seems to be the rule of the day; I can’t begin to list the number
of cultures that have died away because of stagnation. But I am
afraid that isn’t our problem; our problem is degeneration.
Degeneration occurs when a culture forgets its philosophy. Remember,
a culture is built on common ideas and goals. The problem with
degeneration, is it kills a culture in short order (within four or
five generations), while stagnate cultures dies a long, slow dead. ©
Chapter
1
As I
said earlier, your philosophy has to be based on truth, or as much as
you can conger up, otherwise when you put it into practice, it will
fail you, because it has no footings, or standing in reality, so when
you build on it, it just falls.
So
where do we begin, well, what motivates a man? There are three
things, food, sleep and sex. That’s it! Food, sleep and sex. The
same things that drives all the mammals, food, sleep and sex. What is
it we study about the animals, their eating habits, their sleeping
habits, and their mating habits, oh, and how they raise their young,
the maternal instinct, which is another motivating force, unique to
the female. So the male is driven by food, sleep, sex and the female
is driven by food, sleep, sex and the maternal instinct, the desire
to pro-create.
Most of
the animal kingdom is hard wired to know pretty much what they need
to know in order to survive and pro-create within a particular
environment, this according to the theory of evolution. You are your
environment, you are what you eat. For the most part, I
buy the theory,
it seems sound at its foundations, but there is a glaring problem
with it, the Being,
in human being, the one thing that makes us different from the rest
of the animal kingdom.
This is
a very difficult thing to deal with. Why? Because it defies
evolution. Evolution can not explain the being. What is the being?
The ability to think? The ability to reason? What is reason? Aren’t
philosophies built on reason? The Greeks, the Romans, the English.
The
being seems to manifest itself at a place in the mind where activity
of the gray matter meets language. There is something going on in
your mind, your gray matter, you know it, you’re not sure what it
is until it surfaces in the form of language. Now that language may
be linguistics, art, music or math, but its language, just the same,
all of which are written languages so as to be recorded.
It is
this gift of language which allows us to organize our thoughts and
ideas in our minds, and with a common language among others, can
share these thoughts and ideas, with others, in a detailed manner.
The
being also manifests itself through the exercise of its will. The
will, what is
the will, and how do we know it
exist. When the gray matter comes to life in language, and makes a
decision contrary to the way you, (the animal), feels about something
and you act on that decision, that action, is
the
manifestation of your will. The human being is the only creature
which can act
contrary
to the way it feels, (understand any action by the human is an act of
will, but it becomes apparent when the action is contrary to the way
one feels). Evolution cannot explain this.
But
what makes us beings? The very fact that we know we are beings. That
is to say, we are aware of ourselves, and we ask why?
The
ability to ask why? The ability to act contrary to the way we are
hard wired? Why would evolution bring forth such a creature? If you
look at the theory, and the things that drive it, you are your
environment, you are what you eat, survival of the fittest. So on and
so forth. Doesn’t add up. The law of averages states, ‘it is more
likely for something to occur, which has occurred before, than it is
for something to occur which has never occurred. That is to say, man
is out of place in evolution. Why would evolution produce a creature
which would turn on evolution itself? But on the other hand, if we
are indeed just a product of evolution, then how can we pollute the
earth, how can we possibly do other than what we are suppose to be
doing, it is not possible. Remember the law of averages, either we
are doing what we are suppose to be doing, or we are contrary to
evolution, and if this be the case; why?
So
evolution isn’t cutting the mustard, do I throw it out? Let’s
look at the questions we can ask. Who am I? Where am I?
Physics
tells us a story about a universe that is some sixteen-billion
light-years across. Now that’s big, real big. For instance, light,
they say, moves at 186,000 miles a second, which is almost seven
times around the earth. Now take that, seven times around the earth,
straighten that out, per second, times one year, and you have a light
year. Yet it takes light eight minutes to get here from the sun, and
the universe is sixteen-billion light-years across. They (physicists)
tell us it all came from a big bang. Basically, there was something,
it existed in a void (interesting word, void) and it went bang,
everything there is came from that bang. Trouble is, they don’t
tell me what it was, where it came from, and who made it go bang. Do
I throw it out?
No
not quite, because I think they have a some of it right, but keep in
mind the inherent flaws, lets us consider what we know.
What
we know? What we know is simply the sum of the information our minds
have gathered throughout our lives. Don’t confuse what you know,
with what you believe, as many people do. Just because you know it,
doesn’t make it true. Now there are many times when what you know
will be true, but don’t confuse one with the other. Sometimes there
are emotional ties to what we know, but if it isn’t true, than it
won’t stand, and you can’t build on it.
What
we believe, what is belief? Belief is beyond the core of your being,
it’s buried deep, it’s what makes us tick, it is what makes us
act (especially when no one is looking). Remember, we feel the core
of our being is where gray matter meets language, and where language
turns to gray matter, that is to say, it disappears from the present,
into your memory, but it isn’t gone, we simply recall it. Belief is
buried deep, like your memories, and can sometimes become confused
with your memories. But, in a stressful situation, they will surface.
Like impending danger, your beliefs will surface, and you will act
accordingly. Now you may do and say a lot of things you don’t
necessarily believe for the sake of social graces, which tells me you
believe it is important to keep lines of communication open with your
neighbor, for the sake of peace and prosperity, and to pick your
battles. Get my drift? You act according to what you believe.
Now
a philosophy is an organize way of arranging and explaining your
beliefs so that others can come to understand the things that make
you tick, and with the advent of common ground, one can build. So you
see why it is so important that philosophy be base on truth.
Truth,
now there is a word, its one Big little word. I should mention here,
that words mean things. This is what builds a language, if I say to
someone “that building is the Post Office,” I expect them to know
what the bloody hell I am talking about. Now truth is simply, that
which is (is being a verb of being). It is either true, or it isn’t.
It either is or it ain’t. Get my drift? 2+2=4 \ 4-2=2. Now there
are lots of real smart, educated people out there that will tell you
otherwise, they speak of the grays areas, 'ask, what are they
selling? And what do they believe? Can you build on gray areas? If I
pick up a book, and I drop it, it’s going to hit the floor, period.
If I pick it up again, and drop it again, again it is going to hit
the floor, again, and again and again, period. This is truth, this is
real, this, I can build on. So truth is absolute while belief is
personal, deeply personal, in the gray matter. Asked yourself, ‘do
you really want to believe things that aren’t true?’
So?
You ask. How do I tell what I know from what I believe? First of all,
belief changes very slowly. Belief adjusts itself according to what
it sees to be true, now we might talk a lot of trash, but remember,
belief is in the gray matter, and adjusts according to what it sees
to be true. So don’t be afraid to see the truth, because your
belief and your memories did. So it’s not really a matter of
deciphering what you know from what you believe, instead, it’s a
matter of going through what you know, and determining what is true
and what isn’t, that is to say, ‘going through the ole file
cabinet and throwing out the trash’. And do it in such a way that
your memories and belief see you do it. Make a bloody effort. The way
you do it is simple, take what you know to be true, and add it up, if
this is 2 and this is 2, we have 4. Then take the rest and see if it
fits the puzzle, don’t jam it in there, if it is good information,
future information will cause it to fall into place, if its bad
information, then future information will witness against it. Forming
and working a philosophy takes effort, it has to be taught and
learned. My Mother told me time and again, “don’t believe
everything you hear.” – “When everybody starts jumping off the
cliff, you come home.” – “I don’t care what they think, what
do you think?
My
father would not answer a question, if you ask him a question, he’d
ask you ten, maybe more, until you discovered, you knew the answer
all along, you just hadn’t thought about it. My Daddy taught me to
think. I remember a time I asked him the age old question, ‘if a
tree falls in the forest, and there is no one around, does it make a
sound?’ Well after a discussion about the language, and the meaning
of the word sound, yes, of course it makes a sound, because a sound
it related to the shock waves in the atmosphere which emanates from
around the tree as it falls, and of course they are present. Then he
asked me, “does it make a noise?” I thought for a few moments,
and said “no”, and he asked “why not?” And I replied,
“because noise is a matter of interpretation.’ I was right. So
you see a philosophy is neatly tied to the language and is taught and
learned.
Now
let’s go back to the foundation, what motivates a man, remember he
is a mammal, food, sleep and sex. That’s it. Except for the female,
who is also driven by the maternal instinct. Man, as a female has a
unique problem, her young are born very early in their overall
development, and mature very slowly, demanding most of her time and
much of her energy. But she too has a being, and the power of reason,
and the power to act contrary to the way she feels. Now a woman has
several other problems, first comes the burning desire to have sex,
and then comes the babies, some of which take 12 to sixteen years to
free from the nest. It can’t be done without help; it is the male
who hunts, fishes, builds shelters and provides for the woman and her
young. Look
at this!
This
is basic...!!!
This is
your foundation; woman
is the foundation
of civilization. Without her, you have nothing, that simple, that
basic.
Let’s
take a quick look at the female. The lure of a woman’s breast can
be intoxicating to a man, ever wonder why? This doesn’t manifest
itself elsewhere in the animal kingdom. The sight of a woman’s bare
leg can stop a man cold in his tracks. Why is this? A woman can toss
her hair, or bat her eyes, smile and nearly make a man sick. Why?
This kind of power isn’t found elsewhere in the animal kingdom. She
is an interesting creature, and I am telling you, if you look at the
truth,
she is the foundation.
What
are evolution's basic rules of engagement? Survival of the fittest.
That’s it. The strong eat the weak; the meat eaters eat the plant
eaters. You sleep and gain rest and energy when you can. You spread
your seed around so young are created; you are motivated to fight,
sometimes to the death, to do so. You steal what you can, from most
who ever you can; this includes your mother and father, bother and
sister, because if you don’t eat, you die.
You
run with the heard, and you run fast and hard so it isn’t you who
are taken down and eaten, like the old fellow, or the calf.
These
are the basic instincts, we are hard wired, we are mammals, and it’s
what mammals do. Yes the rules of evolution are basic and simple. We
live, we live hard, and then we die, and you don’t die of old age,
you are killed and eaten, with a few possible exceptions, elephants,
bull giraffes, only among human beings is dying of old age common.
Now
I’m sure you’re wondering; what does this have to do with
philosophy? Think about it, any successful culture acts contrary to
normal animal behavior, in fact we go so far as to accuse someone who
acts badly as acting like an animal. Look around, the animals really
have nothing, except the wild, while we have built farms, cities,
machines, ect… Why? How did this happen? Why would it happen?
Chapter 2
Okay,
to get to where we need to go, we need to deal with the idea of
abstract, or perhaps the subjective. What you have to understand
about the abstract and the subjective is; they are absolutely
depended on the being. Without the being, they don’t exist, that
simple. They are born of the gray matter, surface in the form of
language, and often times, through the drive of the will, come to be.
Like the wheel, the lever, the pulley, ect… In fact, most of human
behavior is rooted in subjective ideas, ideas that over time have
proven to be true, workable and useful to betterment of human life.
Subjective ideas, many of which run contrary to the way the mammals
are wired. Yet, let us not forget, it’s a product of the being. Now
a pulley might be made of wood, metal and hemp, but the pulley itself
is a subjective idea, born of the being.
Okay,
so where does that bring us. That puts us in a place were we are made
from the materials of this universe, and yet have the uncanny ability
to look at it subjectively, and to impose a will onto it, and
ourselves so as to act contrary to the way we are hard wired. It’s
almost as if we are on the outside looking in, or on the inside,
looking out. It doesn’t add up. It never has, its bugged man along
time.
So the
big question is, is there a God? I would think, based on what I know
to be true, the very fact that I can ask the question, dictates there
is. If there was no God, then why would there be a creation and why
would it bring forth a creature that would question it? Consider the
ideal situation in which man finds himself, everything he has thought
up, he has dug right out of the ground. If we think it up, we tend to
dig what we need right out of the ground. That in itself is
remarkable. But consider the law of averages; if we think it up, we
dig it up, so if we think about God, than he is.
We
have a magnificent view of the stadium, that is to say, we are
located on the outer reaches of our galaxy, so it doesn’t blind us,
yet we have a good view of it, as well as the rest of the universe,
we are not in a cloud, we are not tucked away deep in the galaxy, we
swing around in clear space in such a way as to pretty much see the
whole of the universe. If you haven’t looked at it, then go outside
and look at it, the universe is something to behold. The fact that we
have such good seats, tells me there is God, and he wanted us to have
good seats.
Ever
notice that when you look thru a microscope, real close, I mean real
close, you pretty much see the same thing as when you look thru a
telescope. Funny how that is. Seems we are neatly situated in a place
where the two meet, the microscope and telescope, you might even say
we are the center of things, again
we have good seats.
Okay,
let us consider the idea, there is God. What does that mean? First,
it means we are contained, that the universe is contained. Because,
if there is God, than he is beyond the universe, he is the one who
made it, and made it go bang (if it went bang).
Think
about this, put this into place. If there is God, than of course he
is beyond the universe and time and if the universe is indeed finite
(which is defined by the idea God is beyond it), and contained, than
by definition, God is infinite.
So
again, let us consider for a moment, there is God. What would be our
purpose? Perhaps part of it would be to continue on with the
creation, for as the creator, does he not create through us, using
the materials at hand. I’m telling you, if we can think it up, than
we can dig it up, look around, you know it’s true. Perhaps to know
the artist? For doesn’t every artist want to be known, as well as
his works, and don’t forget about the good seats we have.
First
we look at nature, then the creation as a whole, a work of art that
can not be surpassed. Surely this God would want to make himself
known?
Let
us dwell on the idea of an aquarium for a moment. What is it? It’s
a container. Within this container is a whole little world of fish.
Now who’s responsible is it to keep the water clean, balanced and
moving? Who’s responsibility is it to see to it there are food
resources? Now what is the responsibility of the fish? Uuhh?? To be
fish. That simple. To be fish.
Now let us consider for a moment, this aquarium belongs to you, and
these fish
in it, the fish you
put in it, were capable of knowing who you
were. Think about that idea.
Now
think about the problem you have? If you stick your face right into
the middle of things, you are going disrupt the whole of the place,
and scare the begeebers out of the fish. Now this is something you
can do, from your standpoint, and put things back to normal. But
about half your fish are going to be dead, and the poor survivors?
They’re spooked, real spooked.
Well?
You can pull them out of the aquarium, and tell ‘em hi! But we know
how well that’s going to work out. Again, if they live thru the
ordeal, then they are spooked, real spooked! So from God’s point of
view, he’s got a problem, how to reveal himself to those within his
creation, without disrupting the whole of the situation.
In
Language? I would think so considering this is the very core of our
being, the place where the gray matter comes to life. Well, if he
uses language, will I hear voices in my head, and if he is the voices
in my head, how does he have credibility. Credibility? Now that’s
important, with everybody selling God, he’s got to have
credibility. How does God gain credibility?
Now
remember, we are trying to build a philosophy, so my next step, in
working this out in a reasonable fashion, is to look around at what
we know, and what we believe.
So
what do I have so far, food, sleep, sex, the maternal instinct,
truth, being and God.
Now
there are many things which stand out as truths. Like planting a
seed, you’re going to get a plant, the same kind of plant from
which you took the seed. You breed two of the same kind of animals,
you’re going to get a third, fourth so and so forth. You look
around and you have seasons, and you realize, the spring and the fall
are wet while the summers are hot and dry and the winters are cold
and dry (depending on where you are of course). There seems to be a
force that pulls everything down, toward the earth. The moon goes
through its phases every twenty-nine days are so. Fire tends to turn
most things to ashes, except rock, so on and so forth. Basically,
truths that stare us in the face through simple observation.
The
same truths which stare all animals in the face, yet, some how, we
see them, and we tend to add them up, if this is true, and this is
true, then this is true, that is to say, if 2+2=4 then 4+4=8 and
8+8=16 and 16+16=32 – 32+32= 64 then we have something we can
predict, and with the ability to predict, than we have the ability to
predict results. Then from the subjective being, manifesting itself
through the will’s power over the body, we have the simple pulley
and crank to hoist water from a well, a lateen rig to lift water from
a river or lake, farm, ranches ect… We have taken what is true and
made it work for us. This is philosophy, to take what is true,
believe it, then consider it and make it work for me.
Now,
if we go back to the basic laws of evolution, nothing of this sort is
possible, because you don’t live here alone, and your neighbors
aren’t going to let you do anything of the sort, the moment you
gain ground, they are going to steal it, and kill you in the process.
Why? Because of jealousy, anger, envy, want, because they are
animals. So how do you do something like this, how do you set an
entire species against its very nature, in order to live better.
This
brings us to the subjective idea of law.
Law is a set of rules one must obey within the parameters of a
culture. Law is what keeps us from acting as animals, so that
subjective ideas can come to light for the betterment of the whole.
Useful things like, ‘you shall not steal,’ you shall not murder,’
‘you shall not commit adultery,’ you shall pay your fair share to
the common.’ With these kinds of laws in place, and enforced, than
things can be built, a man can grow a crop and keep what he needs and
trade some of it for other things, like meat, wine, wool, ect… A
man can build a house and not worry his neighbor will murder him and
take it. So now we have a community living according to subjective
ideas, (including law) and are living better because they are
building and creating wealth. ©
Chapter
3
Now
what do I have so far, food, sleep, sex, the maternal instinct,
truth, law, being and God. Wondering why I listed law?
There
is much more to law than meets the eye, on the surface, it appears to
be a set of rules, but these rules sets us against our instincts, our
basic belief, survival of the fittest, so in order for law to work,
one has to believe it will work, and live accordingly, and with
success come to believe in the law. That is to say, if one is reared
by the law, and the law works for this person, and he grows to
respond according to the law, than he has sub planted his natural
instinct (his evolutionary response) with law. Another way of putting
it is, he is now finding satisfaction for food, sleep and sex in the
law, instead of through his own natural instincts. He is also likely
to pass this belief on to his children, and so on until such time it
fails to work any longer for whatever such reasons.
Interesting
thing the law, the law is so much a part of us that few (if any) of
us even have clue what our natural instincts even are, though the art
of parenting is doing just that, purging instinct from our children
and instilling the law. Does that sound like a good thing? Remember,
law is a subjective idea, it would not exist without the being and if
it didn’t work to some degree. We are going to have food, sleep,
sex and babies, period! So in order for law to work, it has to fill
these basic needs, for these are the motivators, these are the things
that cause man to act, according to what he believes.
If
he believes in the law, than he will act according to the law, yet,
if he doesn’t believe in the law, and
appears to
act according to the law, than he is stalking prey! Think about that.
Remember, things need to add up. So in order for a culture to have
law, its important for its members to believe in the law, and enforce
it among those who don’t.
Do
you have the right to do that? To enforce a law you made up,
subjectively, right out of your mind. For the good of the culture?
Who’s to say your law’s better than mine? Does might make right?
Does the majority rule? Who’s to say? Yet we enforce laws everyday.
Where did these laws come from? Why is it I need to obey them? How
does law gain credit-ability? On what authority can you base law?
Now laws came into practice through several sources, by far the most
common is the top dog syndrome, or might make’s right. This occurs
when the dominate male starts dictating the rules of behavior to
those around him, and are enforced by the brute force of the top dog
and/or his cronies. With some success, the rules will tend to take
hold simply because they work, because the basic needs are meet with
less effort on the part of the individual. As a result, the laws are
continued to be used and become part of our belief. At this basic
level we call it the tribe.
Now
we have to keep in mind that man is very self centered, he is going
to have food, sleep and sex, or he will die in the pursuit of same.
So we also have to realize that according to evolution, we are here
alone, we are born alone and we die alone. No one can be born for us,
and no one can die for us. ‘Morley was dead as a doornail.’ Is
what dad use to say. When you’re dead? You’re dead. So that
dictates that food, sleep, and sex are as important as life itself.
So
with this idea in mind, it is easy to see the limits of the tribe,
its growth potential are limited to the thoughts and ideas of the guy
in charge. So once you have a law along with traditions which work,
the top dog tends to stagnate things. Why? Because he is in charge,
and as long as things don’t change, he remains in charge. This can
go on for generations, for when the chief dies, the next one in line
changes things just enough to place himself in charge, then
stagnation becomes the rule of the day, because as long as things
don’t change; he’s in charge. So you see the natural progression
of the tribe is stagnation.
Now
we have established that God is. Now at this point we don’t know
who he is or where he is. But that doesn’t limit man from using the
idea of god to his own ends. Thus, with this idea of god common among
men, many a god has been created to give the law authority above and
beyond man, in other words, to give the chief cover, and as this was
passed down through the generations, the chief himself came to
believe in this god or gods. But in this case, the law is only as
good as its gods. Now consider; if the god is fictionist, then law
based on him will be flawed.
Every
now and then a chief would come along who had great wisdom and could
see pass his own self interest, with a vision for the people beyond
food, sleep and sex. These chiefs, wrote into their law the idea of
the people writing their own law. As this idea grew, so did the
culture because the law’s limits were raised to the level of the
people involved, and thus we had the Greeks, and the Romans, and many
of our laws today are based on English law, which in turn is based
on Greek and Roman law.
Notice
here, we site law by the name of the people who thought it up, and
ultimately destroyed it. The Greeks, the Romans, the English. That’s
because there is a fundamental difference here. In the case of a
tribe, the law is dictated by a king, chief or what have you. He and
the god (s) above him are the law. Whereas with the Greeks, Romans
and English, the law stood on its own, and was passed on from
generation to generation in tact and those ‘in charge’
administered to the law, but they themselves were not the law,
indeed they held the law above themselves. In other words, ’they
believed in the law.’
Wondering
what killed such great cultures? Why did they fail? There was a time
when the sun didn’t set on English soil, now that is a successful
culture. What happened?
I
call it degeneration. It’s when a culture is so successful, that a
steady supply of food, sleep and sex gives way to various forms of
distractions, and as the generations pass, we are so busy with our
distractions, and because you don’t worry that much about food,
sleep and sex, we fail to teach our young the foundations of their
philosophy, and why it works. As we slowly forget our philosophy, the
one bringing us a steady supply of food, sleep and sex, we begin to
think we can write anything into the law and it will be so. And so we
do, and the next thing you know, the law, nor the abiding philosophy
are no longer based in truth, and begin to fail, but because the
culture has forgotten what made them great (the truth) they don’t
know how to fix it, after all, those are old fashioned ideas. So as
time goes on and the culture weakens because it’s lost, (even
though those in the culture are too arrogant to realize it) their
enemies come over the wall and loot what’s left, and you have
sudden death (to the surprise of the culture). So the law, and its
abiding philosophy has
to be base in truth, and that truth has to be passed on from
generation to generation in tact, and has to be believed by each
generation, or they just become predators in the tall grass of the
law, bending and twisting it to their own ends. Either you believe in
the law, or you don’t. ©
Chapter
4
So
now, in order to build anything, we have to have a steady supply of
food, sleep and sex. If we are going to attempt to act contrary to
our instincts, and act according to the subjective ideas put forth
earlier, than we need a foundation. We need a steady supply of food,
water, shelter and sex.
Now
food was found through the idea of farming, that a man could grow ten
times the food he needs with a plan and an effort. Another man could
raise more meat than he could ever eat with a plan and some effort,
and so we have the ranch. Yet another man can raise enough flax to
clothes himself ten times over. These same men might be drawn
together through a common source of water and agree to trade amongst
themselves, cloth, for flour, flour for meat, meat for cloth, and so
on. So each man can specialize, allowing others to provide certain
needs, and together they live better lives than they would each one
on his own. They also come to realize that two men can grow ten times
what they need, which doubles the surplus, by adding only one man. So
then comes the idea of family, with a woman, you can build a work
force, and with a work force, you can build wealth.
These
same men might find it necessary to come together as a fighting force
in order to protect what they have from others, for the law within a
culture, extend only to that culture. So other cultures might find
their source of food, sleep and sex by looting what you have built,
it calls for less discipline and effort on their part. Now keep in
mind that on both sides of this equation are men willing to fight and
die for food, sleep and sex, (if it's true here, than it's true
there.) Again, these are the motivators.
So
now we have a culture that’s growing, with many people working at
different things, producing wealth, and are now in need of a common
tool to help move trading along, into the picture comes the
subjective idea of money. You can sell your goods for money, and with
that money you can go and buy those things you need that someone else
produces. It’s a tool to ease trading, that’s all it is. Now gold
has been the standard for money a long time because it is beautiful,
resilient and stable, but it’s only value, is the value a man puts
on it. If a man does a days work for a piece of gold, than that piece
of gold it worth a day work, that simple. What will a day’s work
buy? Whatever that piece of gold will buy.
Now
there is an inherent danger here, if you can buy food, sleep and sex
with money, you might lose sight of how and why it came about and end
up believing in money instead of depending on philosophy. If this be
the case, and it evolves into the rule and everybody is in pursuit of
money, than who’s building the wealth? Keep in mind, money is not
wealth, money is simply a tool, wealth is the grain, the ability to
ground it into flour, meat, fish, cloth, wood, leather, so no and so
forth. So if there is nothing to buy, if no one wants it, than money
ceases to have value. You can’t eat gold.
So
we have to be careful in how we look at money. Money is the grease of
trade, but a day’s work gives it value. For instance, I give
you a twenty dollar bill and you go and buy a twenty dollar watch.
What’s the value of the watch to you? Zero. Are you going to worry
about a thief, are you going to keep it clean and in repair? Why
(outside of emotional ties)? Because you have no investment, one
minute you don’t have a watch, the next you do. It’s no different
than had I given you the watch instead of the twenty dollars. Neither
has value. But if you go out and work all day to earn that twenty
dollars, and you go and buy a twenty dollar watch, you now have a
watch worth a day’s wages. You’ll take care of it, protect it
from thieves; repair it, for it now represents a day’s work(your
time.)
So
money represents the work you do, or the work (time) you put into
something, and it is a convenience way of storing work (time) already
done for future use. The better you are at what you do, the more
your money is worth; therefore the money is only worth as much as the
culture puts into it. Money is also a powerful tool to try new
things, to fuel common projects, to provide for the common defense,
to go different places, to see new sights. So you must work money
into your philosophy, but keep it in perspective, it is a tool, the
work (the time) has to be done, or the money has no value. Again, we
have to believe this at our core, in the gray matter, like the law in
order for it to work; otherwise we are just thieves lurking in the
tall grass. If we slip up and end up believing money will provide,
then it doesn’t. Why? Because it isn’t true, you can’t eat
gold. Wealth is not built on money, it’s built on work. Regardless
of the subjective nature of this discussion, work is real, work is
what moves stones, plows fields, herds and keeps track of animals,
builds shelters, so on and so forth. So even though money is a
subjective idea, it has to be rooted in what is real, what is true or
it collapses.
Sleep,
like food is very demanding. Like food, when under pressure, can be
done without, for awhile, but like food, after awhile, it catches up
with you, and you’re going to sleep, like it or not. The problem,
as a mammal, is you are very vulnerable, and off your guard, when you
are asleep. Something, or someone could sneak up and eat you, yet it
is something you have to do. So the seeking of safe shelter is high
on the list of priorities of most animals, it’s evolution, survival
of the fittest. I have to sleep, therefore I have to be safe when I
am asleep, that simple.
So
a man could build a simple hut and be protected from most things that
might eat him, but another man could destroy a hut, and did. So the
idea of the city came about, walls, motes, palisades, ect… But the
man making his living sacking those fool enough to work is not going
to be deterred, and so he mounts an army to come through or over your
walls, motes, palisades, ect… So now you have to mount a defense,
or join them.
So
if I am going to have a working philosophy, it is going to have to
deal with sleep, which calls for friends with common ideas and goals
so as to come together for the common defense against those who would
take what you have built, while you sleep. I (one of us) needs to be
awake, alert and diligent, for another man will use your weaknesses
against you, the Trojan Horse, the siege, ect… So we are driven to
find a safe place to sleep, a truth I can believe in and build on,
and which has to be included in your philosophy, if it’s going to
work, and you have to believe in it, or you will lay awake at night
worrying, and lack of quality rest will bring about your demise. But
if you do believe and sleep well, but forget its footing and where
it’s rooted, then you might neglect those things which secure it,
and off your guard, over the walls your enemies come, while you
sleep.
Then
you have sex, it’s different from food and sleep insomuch as one
can go along time without it without physical harm, but nobody wants
to. It’s the instinct which perpetuates the species. It’s a hard
driving instinct, like eating and sleeping which isn’t going to be
denied and which has to be dealt with. Well, because of the need of a
workforce, and this workforce is tied to the idea of family, the idea
of a man keeping a woman evolve into marriage, or did it?
Chapter
5
Now,
if we are going to look at this honestly, we have a couple of
problems here a kinda kin to the chicken and the egg. Remember I said
earlier, evolution can’t explain the being; the human creature is
made of atoms, period, atoms, I don’t care how you pile them up,
aren’t going to be aware of themselves. Well I see a problem with
man himself as well. If you take the being out of the human creature,
he is not going to be a successful species. He is not, as a rule,
strong enough, fast enough to survive anywhere, except maybe a
tropical rain forest, and even then, he’s easy pick’ens for the
predators. Without the being to make use of all that brain power, the
physical human creature isn’t really much good.
It
is kinda like the birds, evolutionist want to tell me they are a
product of random selection over millions of years, yet when you go
through the process of changing a reptile into a bird, you come up
with an intern creature which is going to be eaten. You can’t have
a creature which uses flight as its primary means of escape, not be
able to fly! Which is what evolution is trying to say, that a
creature run along the ground, jumped into the air, flapped its
forearms until one day its bones hollowed out and its scales turned
to feathers and it took to the air. That creature, I promise you, by
the laws of evolution, was eaten, every time it run and jumped and
flapped its forearms. The moment it left the ground, somebody ate it.
Then
you have the bovine of the plains, they eat grass, they have five
stomachs so they can make good use of the food sources available in
grass. Now which came first, the grass on the plains, or the five
stomachs? Now bovine are depended on numbers to survive, like grass,
the grass grows quicker than the bovine can eat it, so the bovine has
to grow faster than the predators that eat them, so with pressure on
their populations, I ask you again, which came first, the grass or
the stomachs?
So
which came first, the being, or the human creature, flight, or flight
as a primary means of escape, grass or the fives stomachs, the
chicken or the egg? Seems to me there is design within these
evolutionary events, and if there is design in these, then the whole
of the creation is by design. Now design is a subjective idea, and we
know that subjective ideas are a product of the being, so now it
stands to reason that a being is responsible for the layout of the
creation as a whole. We have also come to understand that everything
is enter connected, and so if there is design, than is stands to
reason, because everything is enter connected, there is only one
design, and if there is only one design, than it stands to reason,
the is only one designer.
So
again, the idea of God comes back to haunt us. Now let us consider
what we know. The universe is sixteen billion light-years across, and
it seems if we look through the microscope, it’s as small as it is
big. So if there is God, than he is awesome. Now if God is, and he is
as awesome as the creation suggest, than he is capable of making
himself known to us, and it stands to reason, that he would. So now,
as a person trying to put together a working philosophy, I almost
have to incorporate God into it, in order to make any sense of it.
One of the things I’ve learned, is things add up, they make sense,
the universe is constructed in such a way it adds up. Therefore, if
God is going to reveal himself, then there will be evidence to that
effect; in other words, it’s going to add up. But when you consider
subjective ideas are the product of the being, then much about God,
and understanding him will be subjective.
So
let us go back to the idea of the aquarium for awhile and the problem
God has in revealing himself to us. Remember it’s not an easy thing
to do without disrupting the whole of the environment, and placing
the fish into a state of shock. I think we decided that the best
approach would be language, to speak to us, perhaps even to write it
down for us. So how would he go about doing this, and gain
credibility? In other words, how would we know it was him? I would
think, because it would add up, and it would
add up, if it was true.
I
(supposedly) live in a time, some fifteen-thousand years beyond the
dawn of modern man, so I would think an effort would have been made
by this time. So the thing for me to do is look around and see if any
such evidence exists. There are many Gods to choose from, but
remember, we need credibility.
Now
there seems to be one particular God out there with a long history,
which in itself lends to credibility, and that is the God of the
Hebrews. Now I know what you’re saying, ‘why would God choose
just one people, and if the God of the Hebrews, than why not somebody
else’s God? Don’t forget, God needs to build credibility, and I
think the God of the Hebrews has done just that.
Understand
it’s not my purpose to preach religion; it’s my purpose to
provide the path to my philosophy and to provide the foundations onto
which it is built.
I
think one of the pillars of this credibility is the Hebrew people. If
you think about whom they were, they weren’t much, a tribe of
nomads roaming around in the Sahara desert with no land and no
direction, a sad bunch of people really, who no doubt, should have
become extinct. But they didn’t. What they were to God was a pen
with which to write. They were just putting together a written
language, it was yet to be corrupted with slang and a lot of
philosophical ideas, it was pure. So, God took a failing people in
hand, with a newly developing language, and through their history,
revealed himself to us. Now you may ask why doesn’t God talk to me?
He does, but the pen he used was talking to the Hebrews. That’s
what you have to keep in mind, the Hebrews were the pen, the
scriptures are written for everyone, but the pen he used was speaking
to the Hebrews.
Now
if I pick up a pen and I write a letter, the letter will say what I
want it to say, but if the ink is blue in the pen, the letter is
written in blue ink, if the pen is about out if ink, then it skips
and blots, and the letter will still say what I want, but it will be
full of skips and blots. In other words, I am limited by the
attributes of the pen I choose. The same is true with God, when he
choose the Hebrews to act as his pen; he wrote what he wanted to say,
using the attributes of the pen.
This
God of the Hebrews also seems to be consistent, that is to say, the
same person throughout the history of the bible, and he seems to tell
a consistent story throughout, that is to say it has a beginning,
middle and an end. Written over a period of some fifteen-hundred
years, this is not possible. I don’t care what you think or say, a
people are not going to make up a story over a period of
fifteen-hundred years, their ideas will change, their philosophy will
change, and their interest in telling the story would fade. It’s
not going to happen, with a consistent personality dominating
throughout the whole of the story; no, this is beyond the reach of
man.
On
top of that, this God predicted the future time and again, and the
Hebrews witnessed these predictions come about, time and
again; again, beyond the reach of man. I know a lot of people today
say, ‘well those were just stories.’ Well, maybe? But our modern
grave robbers are telling us it’s all true as they dig up the
evidence from the graves of the Hebrew people. We have evidence of
the great flood, (it's everywhere) and every ancient culture starts
with the story of the flood, but the history of the Hebrews
penetrates the flood. You don’t find this curious?
So,
not only do we have God, we have to include him as part of our
formula in our rational pursuit of a working philosophy, which, if
you haven’t notice, is a pursuit of the truth. So along with my
mother and father, I will be quoting the bible quite a bit. ©
Chapter
6
So,
again, food sleep and sex are our motivators. But remember; when I
speak of these I always say ‘of the mammal’, why? Have you ask
why; yet? Because the being in human being, complicates things.
(Now here I need to clarify the term being. In philosophical terms,
to be means only to exist. The desk at which I am writing this essay
has being no different than myself; that is to say, I exist and so
does the desk, I be, it be(s). When we speak of creatures, we say
lion, tiger, bear and human being; we qualify human with being, not
because the lion, tiger and bear don’t exist, but because the human
being is aware of being,
'we
exist because we know
we
exist’, there is consciousness of self.) Animals are no more aware
of their existence than a rock, why, because they are made of the
same things, atoms. Well an animal is much more complex(ed) than a
rock? But it is still made of atoms, and atoms react according to
what they are and with what they come in contact with, this can all
be spelled out mathematically, via chemical reactions and DNA. There
is no path
to consciousness; it is still a pile of atoms. This dictated by the
theory of evolution and the entirety of the animal kingdom. They are
what they eat; they act according to their drives for food, sleep and
sex. Even the chimp, who’s DNA is only fifteen percent different
than the human still acts according to the laws of evolution. The
chimp, the most intelligent of all the animals, hasn’t built any
houses, tills no soil or laid any roads, nor is there any desire to
see beyond the horizon. The chimp, the most celebrated of all the
animals, because of its great intelligent(s) and similarities to man,
is studied by observing their eating habits, their sleeping habits
and their mating habits. Although man is still motivated by the big
three, his being (consciousness) tends to complicate things a bit.
So
now, as a product of the being, we have subjective ideas such as
curiosity, possession, lust, fear, creativity, shame, beauty,
sharing, love, pride, humility, purity, chastity, service, loyalty,
individualism, nobility, honesty, justice, law, power, self and God.
None of which contribute to the survival of the human animal, but all
contribute to the human living better than he otherwise would. These
are all things that will motivate the human (being) to act, but
not always in line with the way he feels.
How
do you train a chimp to do things he would not ordinarily do in the
wild; like balancing a ball or jumping through a hoop. You change his
environment, you change the way he responds to his world:
conditioning response. You don’t try and rationalize with him. So
when it comes right down to it, the chimp is still acting according
to the way it feels, it’s what drives the animals. Well, you ask,
humans learn from conditioning response? I won’t argue with that,
but who thought up the conditions and the responses and why? When we
act contrary to the way we feel, we impose our will and if our action
is valid, then we teach our children to act in the same way
(tradition), but because they were taught,
their feeling don’t contradict their actions, therefore they have
been conditioned, but you were not, you created the response to the
condition. We have the power to impose our will upon the world as
opposed to just
being a part of the world and through tradition, impose that will
through generations. My mother always said, ‘you have the power to
make
yourself
anybody you want to be.’
So
let’s examine this a little closer, if evolution is the rule of the
day, and God created it, than it is by design, and the animals are
what he wills them to be (as is the rest of the universe). Now we
contradict the design of evolution in so much that we are aware of it
and act contrary to its precepts, and go so far as to impose our own
will upon it. That is to say we have being and will. If the universe
is, than so too is its creator, and if the universe can be understood
through mathematical deduction (language), than it is by design,
which is subjective, a product of the being, and because it (the
universe) exist, it is a product of the will. A man can design an
automobile, but that doesn’t mean it exist, the automobile remains
a subjective idea, a product of the being, until the man through the
exercise of his will creates it from the materials at hand, only then
does it exist (as an automobile). Can an automobile exist without its
creator? Therefore God has being and will. If God has being and will
and we have being and will, then we have some aspect of God in us.
Genesis 1-27 ‘God created man in his image; in the divine image he
created him; male and female he created them.’ Seems to me it is
safe to conclude that the male and female, the hands, feet, eyes,
nose so on and so forth, makes us human, for we are like the mammals,
therefore the being (consciousness) and will (action contrary to the
dictate law of nature) must be the divine image, because none of the
animals posses these. Human beings, therefore it is safe to conclude,
are not animals. We are Man.
Also
consider Genesis 1-28 through 2-7, here we find God gave dominion to
man over all the earth, the fish, birds and all the animals and as we
go into the extended story of creation, we find a story about God
forming man out of the clay of the ground ‘and blew into his
nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being.’
This seems to be a curious idea, it seems God made the whole of the
universe, and then with a personal touch, he made man a living being.
It also seems, the earth having been made a functioning environment,
was given to man. Let me state here, this idea removes evolution's
credibility.
So
why is it important to establish the idea of man, as a
separate creature from the rest of the world? Let’s go back to the
idea of the aquarium. You prepare an aquarium with everything the
fish are going to need; you set it up and get it running. Then you go
and pick fish to put in it, what is the responsibility of the fish?
To be fish, nothing more. So what’s important here, the aquarium,
or the fish. Now you went to a lot of trouble to set up the aquarium,
money, time, effort; but why did you set it up? So you could put fish
in it. My point is; we are not a product of evolution, why? Because
it doesn’t add up, we contradict the entire idea, but if you take
the story of creation, and you balance it with the idea of the
aquarium, it fits nicely with science. The earth (the universe as
a whole) is our aquarium; God prepared the earth for the sole
purpose of putting us in it. So I ask you, what’s important, the
earth, or man? So... what's the responsibility of man..? To
be man.... in the likeness and image of The Creator. That simple.....
If......... we were to do that, God indeed, would take care of
everything else.
George Henry Nichols
