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Why do most people spend a good portion of their lives worrying, struggling, and failing to measure up to impossible proclamations of required behavior poured forth from religious edicts? Behaviors and beliefs deemed necessary in the quest for Eternal Paradise?
Why do we desire Eternity at all? So much so, that the destination becomes the priority over the Life trip itself.
Why do we embroil ourselves in the Inherent Sinful Nature theory? Would a Creative Force implicate a creature with innate sinful concerns and desires, place it in a Dimension of untold mystery and beauty, only to condemn to Eternal Torment those that would be what they are?
Impugn that there is a free will choice in the matter?
I've asked these questions, as has anyone honest enough to admit it.
Following is one of the best answers I've heard. Yet another 'tale' by my fellow author and dear friend,
Benthre. If I have a desire for Eternity, it would be to become the Wind in the Canyon.
Cathedral of Life
" What purpose would depend on a belief other than to put no credence on this life but as a dangling
carrot, a reward if you can succeed in being what you are not?
Human, with nothing "naturally innate" but Basic Biological Organization.
If we attach values to human activities, we see purpose. But if we don't attach value to our activities anymore than we do a bug, belief isn't necessary.
Instead we see--a Scheme. But that's personifying the whole thing too because it sounds so planned.
If Destiny rules, where is
Mind?
Change the word 'Scheme' to 'Schematic', and we see a blueprint that includes both us and the bug.
That de-mystifies the whole life process conceptually speaking.
Now we are, if for no other reason than just that, and the bug is, and the tree, mountain and space.
But are what? Are part of it. It what?
Whatever it is.
If born and reared in a grand cathedral, we would attribute life
as grand (having never seen anything but the cathedral). Now
suppose we're not talking about a human's church but a canyon.
It's a delight to the senses either way, from pipe organ (wind
whistling through) to icon (outcropping) to mystery (the cross
of shadow).
Upon further examination
with a curious mind we see how the canyon/cathedral is formed.
Wind. Water. Time. We go whoa, something bigger here than me. Do
we then go prostrate to a deity behind it all? Or do we smile
and say something like 'holeeee shit'.
Now back to the neural
network of the brain, to our life's experiences within the
cathedral, to our life itself. Childlike awe, without
outside interference, might deduct naturally that the only set of
rules at work lie within the design itself. We observe by
necessity that if we don't obey those rules, we suffer. So we do
obey those rules and, more or less, live out our lives.
What has happened? Life has
happened. Is the design and our part in it from an act of love?
An act of hate, as in punishment? Any act at all? We don't know
(we're a child). Not knowing doesn't stop our wonder at the
creation of the cathedral, though. Not knowing doesn't affect
our life within it, either. The only thing affecting it are the
forces themselves, so we just call all of it god.
Uh-oh. Now we've given
"it" a name. From that we'll give it human attributes,
and from that, good and evil. When all along, "it" is
just doing its thing.
Where am I going?
A child without instruction doesn't need a concept to enjoy the
cathedral. The bird. The bug. The cloud. The rain. Earth Eden.
Where the instruction comes in is when things go wrong. The
flash flood that kills someone or thing we "love."
Why? we ask.
As children, we don't know so maybe we make things
up to rationalize the event. To ease our suffering. How can
death exist in all this beauty?
On closer examination of the
crevices and by mere observation we see the schematic unfold.
There is obvious cause (wind, water, time) but do we see any
purpose? If not, then we can assume that what happens to us is
no different than what happens to everything within the canyon
and to the canyon itself.
We've watched the coyote kill the
mouse and eat it. We've watched ourselves kill the coyote and
eat it in return. We assume, as the child, that's just the way
it is. How things work. But why, our new neo cortex asks?
Instead of who cares it becomes important to know why. We begin
to rationalize and from that, create reasons as to why.
Suddenly, we have it. Ah-ha. It's because . . .
.
Yet, the cathedral didn't give us
any answer. No rock spoke to us. We made it up from our thinking
brains. We deduced . . . .
OK, now we're onto "it"
and begin altering our lives accordingly. If we appease the IT,
then we can change the outcome.
Meanwhile, the bug, coyote,
sun, wind, rain and time just keep on keeping on, unchanged.
Only we have changed. Only we have become that which, before all
this curiosity, were one and the same with the cathedral. Now,
we've set ourselves apart and we've set the Force itself apart.
The Fall.
In one evolutionary step
that took awhile (a few mil, give or take), we are no longer
part of the cathedral but outside it somehow. Yea, we are now
ABOVE it. Or we are BELOW it, depending upon which idea we came
up with.
The coyote looks on and
shakes its head. "What a bunch of dumb asses," it
thinks, and goes back to eating the bug. "What a bunch of
loons," the Wind says, while it shapes and reshapes the
canyon. "What folly," Old Man Time says, as it
continues on doing its thing.
In the meantime, there has been a vast change in the companions of the camp. Abud is old now and wrinkled, no longer young as he had been when the tale began.
Eziekel, who had been afraid even then is now dead, his body lying in the dust where he collapsed. And of the beast primordial who had lain at the edge of the encampment during the telling of the tale, it was now just a lump of large bones, its flesh having been picked clean during the twenty years (eons) that the tale lasted. Only was Jewah still awake, watchful as ever, mindful of his role in the story of the little bird
(Knowledge), for without Jewah
(Force) there could have been no tale . . . .
"Bunch of dumb asses," the coyote exclaims. "Yeah," says the bug.
"Damn straight," the
Wind replies. "What time is sundown? Gonna be a
spectacular show on the west face tonight, and I don't want to miss
it . . . ."
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