Mental virus

@Aedes,

wow, interesting thread! You all have such a profound understanding of history. thanks.

Virus, replicating pathogen, a sickness (poisoning ones mind)?

Religions replicate themselves in the form of beliefs/ideas, but other things replicate and are not nessecarily a sickness. The religion would also have to be harmfull in order to be viral like. Because religions contain good and bad characteristics, it's value would be based on individual judgement. This in no way implies that majority rules, because the virus may have infected the most people (they don't realize they are infected).

My view is that any religion (or other belief systems) that pramote propogation by iradicating oponents, devalues others (diversity), obscures knowledge, deminishes liberty, pramotes narcicism, and can be used to rationalize atrocites against man and nature is dangerous and needs a vaccine- even if it runs a soup kitchen on the side. Man does'nt need religion to have morality or compassion.

It would be nice if we could take the baby out of the bathwater, and salvage the good of each religion and get rid of the bad; instead of dumping them both.

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@molok69,

Honestly, I think religion is a societal veneer for a lot of stuff that comes down to human nature in the end. People will find ways to subjugate, repress, stifle, silence, murder, torture, and conquer each other whether or not their rationale is religious. Similarly people will love, care for, welcome, nurture, and teach one another whether or not there is a religious rationale.

I think that here in the US the campaign by religious conservatives against evolution is not primarily a defense of religion. It's because of the shitty science education we get in this country. Religion and science can be reconciled peacefully if their roles are separated. Keep science away from funerals and weddings, keep religion away from the lab, and let them interact when they naturally will do so. For instance I have no problem with people consulting with their pastor when forced to make difficult medical decisions about life and death, pain and suffering, risk, disability, etc. Science enters into medicine, but so do mortal fear and love and compassion and injustice, so religion has its place there as well.

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Honestly, I think religion is a societal veneer for a lot of stuff that comes down to human nature in the end. People will find ways to subjugate, repress, stifle, silence, murder, torture, and conquer each other whether or not their rationale is religious. Similarly people will love, care for, welcome, nurture, and teach one another whether or not there is a religious rationale.

I'm not sure if I can express this properly but, I believe there is, or can be, a great difference between human cultures depending upon what it is that informs them.

New Testament cultures (ideals), for example, were, I think, when it came to modern social/political reform movements or social justice movements, very positive and peaceful and 'good.' Their protests and contributions from the civil war to the civil rights' movement can be seen as largely beneficial to society.

And I believe that without the New Testament there would not have been such progressive movements; there would have remained 'injustice.'

From my belief that what cultures believe is crucial to whether they are good or malignant I will further say that in the Western countries of today the falling off from Christian values (as evidenced probably most acutely in the widespread availability and acceptability of pornography which permeates the social life) is a highly significant phenomenon.

Such a falling off of ancient value-systems (in favor of 'positive' knowledge) is important because it may lead to a dark and malignant social outbreak of some kind or another.

I would love to recommend an article which addresses this problem to anyone who may be interested in reading it. This is an article that I have kept and cherished and read again and again because of its profundity and applicability to today's world situation.

Here is the link:

FIRST THINGS: A Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life

I would be very much interested in discussing this article with someone - if anything it should stir up some good conversation.

The article is about what we in the West (especially America but also western Europe) believe in and incidentally who we are or have become now in light of the falling off of the ancient value systems.

I thought the text best where it describes the pre-Christian 'pagan' outlook or world-view. The author goes on to contrast the pre-Christian conception of nature with the Christian one -all in the light of our (post-)modern ideas. I highly recommend it.

Thank you.
--Pyth

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@Pythagorean,

I needn't remind you that Europe has brought us two world wars, multiple terrible smaller wars (the Russian and Spanish Civil wars, the Napoleonic wars, the 30 years war, the 100 years war), multiple genocides (including the German extermination of the Hereros in 1904 and the Belgian extermination of 15 million Congolese under King Leopold through slave labor), the slaughter and annihilation of the Native American people and cultures, the largest slave trade in the history of the world with 20-40 million slaves exported from Africa (half of whom died en route), poison gas, nuclear warfare, and regional carpet bombing.

Nowhere has the world gotten a better glimpse of the apocalypse as the Nazi-Soviet war of 1941-1945 (including the Holocaust, which was integral to that war), and the Western Front of WWI.

If our culture has done some of the best things in modernity, it's also done some of the worst. Are you willing to call our culture "better" because of industrialization but ignore Auschwitz and Belzec? Are you willing to call our culture better because of chemistry and physics research but ignore mustard gas, Zyklon B, and the nuclear bomb? Are you willing to call our culture better because of our political ideals but ignore Naziism, Fascism, Imperialism, Ultranationalism, and Communism? Are you willing to praise our social liberality while ignoring our gross exploitation of the developing world (which happens to this day). Are you willing to praise our global benevolence but overlook our unwillingness to stop an openly announced genocide in Rwanda?

I'm not all doom and gloom -- but our culture, more than any other in the world, has shown us how terrible humans can be to one another. You can call this a growing pain of modernization, but I'd call it an integral part of it. Our horrible arrogance, combined with our incomparable power, has inflicted death and suffering on scales never seen before.

Even the terrible catastrophes elsewhere in the world (like the Chinese Revolution, the Japanese occupation of Asia in WWII, and the Khmer Rouge) did not occur except by inspiration from Europe and the adoption of European political ideals and technology. Would it shock you to learn that Pol Pot studied engineering in Paris and fell in with French communists? Mao Zedong's primary inspiration was Russian Communism, and Imperial Japan arose in a context of radical Westernization (very well expressed in the works of Yukio Mishima).

So how does this darker half of our history play into the way we evaluate our own culture? Can we simultaneously be both the best and the worst thing ever to happen to the planet?

_______

As for the article, it completely ignores the themes I raise above, which I think are the most salient data points we should use to evaluate our quality as a culture. The article celebrates Heidegger's critique of modernity, ignoring that Heidegger was an exuberant and never-apologetic Nazi who praised the "inner truth and greatness" of Naziism, and who befriended Julius Streicher -- perhaps the most vicious of all Nazi idealogues and who was eventually hanged at Nuremberg.

The author's strange theme of Christianity being the "midwife" of modern nihilism doesn't address its implications other than frivolities like cultism and Wicca. He pays lip service to the "delirium of the Third Reich", without so much as acknowledging that this delirium turned into more than just Leni Riefenstahl movies and party rallies. So was Christianity the midwife of the Holocaust, then? It was the delivery room of the Inquisition, of course, so why not?

Is modern brutality the result of "nihilism"? Well, that brutality is contemporaneous with our greatest scientific advances. You can't have it both ways. If modernity is seen as a retreat from Christianity, then so are the scientific and intellectual advances of modernity. The same culture that gave us Rachmaninoff also gave us Stalin. The same culture that gave us Einstein also gave us Hitler, namely that "Teutonic" culture born of Charlamagne, Frederick the Great, and the Holy Roman Empire.

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@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean;8190 wrote:

(edited)
I'm not sure if I can express this properly but, I believe there is, or can be, a great difference between human cultures depending upon what it is that informs them.
--Pyth

It is my opinion/belief that the sited article (yes, I read it) 'misses the point' (I'll explain) entirely.

Christianity was not, originally, a methodology (like Confucianism) to improve social interactions or the quality of life. Improved social interactions and enhanced quality of civilization (life) are by-products of Christianity's true purpose.

Secondarily, it is my opinion that, 'to the extent that there is any present moral decay, etc., that the problem rests with Christianity's subsequent attempt (hi-jacking) to transform it (Christianity) into a model of civilized living'.

The 'metaphysics' of Christianity is based upon the belief that the human condition represents a 'corrupted state' of our true nature.
As such, Christianity provides a methodology for restoring us to our original 'uncorrupted' condition.
Our uncorrupted original condition (metaphysical interpretation) is that we are, actually, spiritual (non-physical) entities, who have 'erred' and, as a result, have wound up metaphorically 'crucified' upon (within) a material form and dwell in the realm ruled by death.

The essential result that Christianity is designed to produce is the gradual disintegration of the ego that has replaced "God" as the Supreme Being. The metaphysical belief is that as the ego disintegrates our 'indwelling spirit' (i.e., Christ, soul, etc.) resurrects from its previous condition of relative death. The next step (metaphysical) is for our consciousness to gradually cease identifying with our physical forms (upon which we were metaphorically 'crucified' - a 'cross' as an ancient symbol of matter)..... continuing.... to cease identifying with our physical forms and to start identifying with the spirit/soul/Christ.

The New Testament metaphor of Christ riding a jackass (into Jerusalem.... a pilgrimage to redemption) depicts the relationship between the indwelling Christ and the human ego-driven physical form.

The spirit/soul is (metaphysically speaking) known to have an eternal shelf-life, unlike our biological forms.

So... Christianity was originally designed to 'take us out of the material world' (the 'crucifixion') and to restore us to the paradisical state of Eden.... not to 'order' worldy society. Christianity is an 'escape hatch' from the underworld where fallen spirit/souls are captivated by rationality and sensory inputs... 5 senses... 5 'wounds of the Christ and the Crown of Thorns representing the mind-set that must be reversed in order to acheive liberation from the underworld. A condition that can last eternally (a relative 'hell' driven by material desire and ego gratification).

So... from this metaphysical perspective the cited article is an absurdity.

My final observation/comment is that if we truly desire to uplift society/culture then what it is that we really need is a new 'Model of God'.
The present Western pathetic models (of pathos) of God are, quite simply, just not working.

.

1 Reply

@molok69,

I'm a bit skeptical about the above. There is such diversity within Christianity that it's unified by only the barest fundamentals. In fact it's impossible to speak of a single Christian culture. Could the belligerent Holy Roman Empire be any more different than the pacific Quakers?

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@Play Dough,

Play_Dough wrote:

It is my opinion/belief that the sited article (yes, I read it) 'misses the point' (I'll explain) entirely.

Christianity was not, originally, a methodology (like Confucianism) to improve social interactions or the quality of life. Improved social interactions and enhanced quality of civilization (life) are by-products of Christianity's true purpose.

Secondarily, it is my opinion that, 'to the extent that there is any present moral decay, etc., that the problem rests with Christianity's subsequent attempt (hi-jacking) to transform it (Christianity) into a model of civilized living'.

The 'metaphysics' of Christianity is based upon the belief that the human condition represents a 'corrupted state' of our true nature.
As such, Christianity provides a methodology for restoring us to our original 'uncorrupted' condition.
Our uncorrupted original condition (metaphysical interpretation) is that we are, actually, spiritual (non-physical) entities, who have 'erred' and, as a result, have wound up metaphorically 'crucified' upon (within) a material form and dwell in the realm ruled by death.

The essential result that Christianity is designed to produce is the gradual disintegration of the ego that has replaced "God" as the Supreme Being. The metaphysical belief is that as the ego disintegrates our 'indwelling spirit' (i.e., Christ, soul, etc.) resurrects from its previous condition of relative death. The next step (metaphysical) is for our consciousness to gradually cease identifying with our physical forms (upon which we were metaphorically 'crucified' - a 'cross' as an ancient symbol of matter)..... continuing.... to cease identifying with our physical forms and to start identifying with the spirit/soul/Christ.

The New Testament metaphor of Christ riding a jackass (into Jerusalem.... a pilgrimage to redemption) depicts the relationship between the indwelling Christ and the human ego-driven physical form.

The spirit/soul is (metaphysically speaking) known to have an eternal shelf-life, unlike our biological forms.

So... Christianity was originally designed to 'take us out of the material world' (the 'crucifixion') and to restore us to the paradisical state of Eden.... not to 'order' worldy society. Christianity is an 'escape hatch' from the underworld where fallen spirit/souls are captivated by rationality and sensory inputs... 5 senses... 5 'wounds of the Christ and the Crown of Thorns representing the mind-set that must be reversed in order to acheive liberation from the underworld. A condition that can last eternally (a relative 'hell' driven by material desire and ego gratification).

So... from this metaphysical perspective the cited article is an absurdity.

My final observation/comment is that if we truly desire to uplift society/culture then what it is that we really need is a new 'Model of God'.
The present Western pathetic models (of pathos) of God are, quite simply, just not working.

.

That's a great compelling portrait and outline of the meaning of Christianity. In all that you have described what is the great difference between Christianity and any other virtue based religion or other classical belief systems which places the virtues above and beyond the practical demands for life and living?

I agree that Christianity's purpose is not to order worldly living, that seems obvious. But once kings freed themselves from the bonds of the Church and racial and ethnic independence movements began to take hold, then Christianity found a new role to play in the newly formed nation-states as these states created state sponsored churches. It then vied with the other, often irreligious 'improvers of society' (socialists, anarchists, etc.) and it did so in a natural way --Christianity became nationalized.

The Americans who fought against the upstart 'Confederate' nation-state, for example, did so while singing Christian hymns. For them Christianity was an agent for social change and justice. And Martin Luther King (successfully) used the ideals he summoned from the Bible to call for sweeping political and cultural changes in the U.S.

And today, of course, Christian "values" are being used by Republican candidates for president against their Democrat opponents: this is surely a unique phenomenon in American history. So I do see new non-Christian values emerging which are completely unrelated to the ancient calls for 'virtue at all costs.' And I think it is reasonable and deserving to call these new 'relativist' (anti-)values nihilistic if not in intention, then, at least, in effectual result. By nihilistic I simply mean that they conform to no consensual and sweeping humanistic doctrine i.e. there is nothing fundamental, (no benevolent dogma, for example) upon which one could place one's hand and swear to tell the truth etc.

--

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@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean wrote:

The Americans who fought against the upstart 'Confederate' nation-state, for example, did so while singing Christian hymns.

The Confederate soldiers sang those Christian hymns as well.

Quote:

For them Christianity was an agent for social change and justice.

And for the Confederates, who felt like their homeland had been invaded, it was a different sort of justice. (I don't say this to defend them or their cause -- but in both cases Christianity was applied to perceived virtue, not actual virtue.)

Furthermore, if you read biographies of Civil War figures, you'll find that the two most accomplished Confederate leaders, Robert E. Lee and Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson were extremely religious Christians. Lee felt that slavery was ultimately wrong, but that the slaves would be freed by God. He was sort of mystical about it. Another very religious and paradoxical figure from the era was John Brown, the radical abolitionist who staged the armed insurrections at Harper's Ferry and at Potawattomie, and he believed that slavery had to be defeated using violence (righteous though his aims were, his use of violence was very similar to people who use violence in opposition to abortion).

So how can it be that everyone from Jefferson Davis to John Brown, at opposite ends of the slavery issue, can be self-proclaimed Christians? Probably because the fact that they're Christians doesn't matter. They emotionally pick the issue they're committed to, then retrospectively moralize it using their religious context.

You still, by the way, haven't responded to my post about the wars and genocides perpetrated by Christian societies. I'm interested to hear how they are founded in Christian doctrine, or in a "superior" Christian culture.

-Paul

1 Reply

@Aedes,

Quote:

You still, by the way, haven't responded to my post about the wars and genocides perpetrated by Christian societies. I'm interested to hear how they are founded in Christian doctrine, or in a "superior" Christian culture.

I don't feel I have the luxury of self-hate or guilt when it comes to history. I never idealized history in the first place so the mention of modern horror stories doesn't move me. I don't feeel it. I am not succeptible to moralizations of that sort. I am dependent upon my culture and its history for what little education I have miraculously earned in my life and I feel if I let moralizers, politicians or even telemarketers make me feeel a certain malaise regarding my cultural history, then I will be all the poorer for it.

Quote:

So how does this darker half of our history play into the way we evaluate our own culture? Can we simultaneously be both the best and the worst thing ever to happen to the planet?

But only the best can cause the worst, that's axiomatic.

1 Reply

@Pythagorean,

I'm not moralizing to you. Both for deeply personal reasons (see below) and for fundamental philosophical reasons, I think it's essential to understand ourselves through our mistakes and our evils. To neglect that is to refuse to learn, to refuse to correct ourselves, and to content ourselves with the possibility of repeating our worst crimes.

And don't you think that by calling this particular culture superior as you have, while completely aware of its atrocties, you openly trivialize its victims?

Pythagorean wrote:

I don't feel I have the luxury of self-hate or guilt when it comes to history.

It doesn't take luxury. It takes honesty and self-reflection. And this isn't all historical, because it continues. And for the historical events, you don't need to search very hard to find how they still live.

Quote:

I never idealized history in the first place so the mention of modern horror stories doesn't move me. I don't feel it.

I wasn't trying to move you. I was trying to get you to account for the Holocaust, the Slave Trade, and the trench warfare of WWI based on Christian culture.

Quote:

I am not succeptible to moralizations of that sort. I am dependent upon my culture and its history for what little education I have miraculously earned in my life and I feel if I let moralizers, politicians or even telemarketers make me feeel a certain malaise regarding my cultural history, then I will be all the poorer for it.

Well, ok then. If this is now about us as individuals, I'll be forthright with you. My grandparents all survived the Holocaust, suffered unspeakable things, and lost their entire families.

And the little education I have is not something that I credit to my culture. It's something I credit to my grandparents, who survived things that perhaps only you would be unmoved by (I say this because you said above that you are unmoved by such things). So with apologies -- and this is not directed towards Christianity, but all potentiating aspects of our culture -- what on earth is the point of philosophy if self-celebration blinds us to our own capacity for evil?

Quote:

But only the best can cause the worst, that's axiomatic.

With all due respect, that neither communicates nor explains anything.

You've provided articles, rationale, and repeated assertions as to how it must have been a Christian culture that led to our current state of advancement and sophistication. And you've stated that this culture is superior to all others in the history of humanity.

But there are other aspects to that selfsame culture, including repeatedly and unfailingly the worst barbarity and destruction ever wrought upon the people of this earth. And suddenly your enthusiasm for data, rationale, and external sources, which you happily provided when talking about industrialization and universities, is reduced to a pithy cliche about how the best can cause the worst. Well, how so? What about the best caused the worst? And if it caused the worst, how can it really be the best?

This Christian culture may have had the best scientific achievements, but it has had the worst humanitarian crimes. Does that make a Christian culture the best in terms of scholarship, but morally the most depraved? That's what recent historical analysis shows us in the case of Europe.

And my specific question is what uniquely Christian aspects caused this worst? After all, no non-Christian culture has ever built an Birkenau or a Kolyma. Nor have they ever fought a Verdun or Stalingrad. So how is it that we can judge this culture as superior?? In a final judgement of superiority, this gets so little weight?

It reminds me of the very famous speech by Heinrich Himmler, who was able to rationalize away the importance of his own evil.

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@Pythagorean,

Pythagorean;8221 wrote:

That's a great compelling portrait and outline of the meaning of Christianity. In all that you have described what is the great difference between Christianity and any other virtue based religion or other classical belief systems which places the virtues above and beyond the practical demands for life and living?
--

You seem to have a really full plate going in in this thread my dear Pythagorean. You seem to be doing quite well!
I suppose that the great difference between Christianity and other virtue based systems is the promise of eternal life. The promise of eternal life and its implications demand that 'practical demands' for material life take a back seat to the cultivation of virtue. More on this later***.....

Re: Politics
The Constitution of The United States of America is, at its core, a 'living' system of ethics. It demands that we honor the freedom of others, do no harm, be tolerant of others' beliefs, believe in the equality of all flavors of humanity, and to believe that we are (U.S.) 'One Nation Under God'. These (previous) are the terms of our 'social contract'.

*** If there is a problematic situation in realizing (to make visible) the dream of Christianity and the dream of Democratic Rule it is that both systems have been derailed by what it is that I call "The Judas Syndrome". The Judas Syndrome places too much emphasis on material gain, accumulation and possession rather than advancement in virtue.

It is my opinion that after 2000 years of 'test driving' Christianity that we wind up with a planet suffocated by chemical intoxication, the mass-extinction of species, a food chain that is laced with chemicals that, in tandem, are crippling to biological life and now every public building is equipped with a handicapped ramp... so people can hobble up the ramp to buy Viagra in order to perform an act of procreation.

The missing ingredient of Christianity is a component that requires that we honor the Earth. The Earth is, archetypally, female. And, just like all other women from our past, the Earth has also been trashed because of (opinion) the 'boys only' club of Christianity. NO FEMALE DIETIES. No Earth-revering sacred female deities. Why? Because Christianity is concerned about the spirit/soul and not the material aspects of daily life.
Christianity, as such, is out of balance and presently unworkable regarding your philosophical opinions as expressed in this thread. Christianity is simply just not working.
Why? ..... Cause and effect in any analysis is problematic but I believe that the main problem is capitalism. Why? Because in order for capitalism to reach its full potential it requires an 'amoral' consumer base. Every home must be equipped with pornography and a Bible! Virtue is, overall, 'bad for business' . Judas, once again, betrays the Christ...

There is no difference in the world, aside from some 'cultual decorations', from the time of Christ and presently. The article that you cited in your original post, when stripped of its time-based observations, describes the world just as it was 2000 years ago.

So, my dear brother Pythagorean... if I were God then this (following) is what I would say to you:
Pythagorean, my son, what it is that you call 'reality' is only one level of the many mansions that exist in my universe ("My father's house has many mansions").
As you embrace and practice virtue and cultivate, more fully, your love for me and release your silly attachments to material conditions then, and only then, will you be elevated, gradually and almost imperceptibly, to higher realms of 'reality'. On these higher realms of reality, 'stuff' has already been worked out and your dream has already been realized.
So, if Jesus 'saved you' from anything it is from having to be the Messiah! :-) Just release your attachments, cultivate virtue, trust in ME and I will lift you and your entire world into perfection.
There is a big difference, my son, between practicing, in silence, the teachings of Christ and between having your present culture distort the teachings and turn you into a lunatic Messiah.
You, my son, are presently a composite of Moses, the law giver, and Christ the mystic lover of God and humanity. My counsel is for you to simply just embrace and follow the teachings.... then I will lift you up!
The fact is, my son, that you are complaining about the conditions in one of the higher levels of the underworld, which I designed. From your present level, according to your inner virtue or lack thereof, you can either ascend or descend. It is entirely a matter of your free-will. As you, my son, are lifted then so too will be your entire world. Everything that you hold dear (except for your porno collection) will be lifted with you. :-) Just follow the teachings and eschew being a Messiah.

.

1 Reply

@Play Dough,

Play_Dough wrote:

I believe that the main problem is capitalism. Why? Because in order for capitalism to reach its full potential it requires an 'amoral' consumer base. Every home must be equipped with pornography and a Bible! Virtue is, overall, 'bad for business' . Judas, once again, betrays the Christ...

Nicely stated! Also, capitalism, I would argue, even requires virtue for itself; it required the older forms of Christian and American ethics in order for it to flourish in its classical liberal form. Without the older virtues both the social contract and capitalism are being transformed, it seems to me. This full potential of capitalism that you speak of is really 'late capitalism' and this is nihilism and/or amoral consumerism. The amount of greed and unfettered shopping is astonishing and, I humbly believe, a serious challenge to society.

The greed and amorality which stems from a 'free-market' system that is completely unfettered is spilling over and producing malicious social effects: and also, the wide acceptance and promotion of pornography, both on 'free-market' grounds and arguments based on a kind of inter-social liberty, is highly underrated as a kind of social acid that is eating away the old face of our culture.

By the way, did Judas get paid in cash for betraying Jesus?

Play_Dough wrote:

There is no difference in the world, aside from some 'cultual decorations', from the time of Christ and presently.

I just want to say this is a profound truth you speak of. But I believe that many have forgotten the past or have interpreted it only in light of their present greed. The truth about history is now all but lost but the truth is still there. We have more in common with ancient societies than is now politically appropriate to think about, let alone write or speak of.

Quote:

So, my dear brother Pythagorean... if I were God then this (following) is what I would say to you:
Pythagorean, my son, what it is that you call 'reality' is only one level of the many mansions that exist in my universe ("My father's house has many mansions").
As you embrace and practice virtue and cultivate, more fully, your love for me and release your silly attachments to material conditions then, and only then, will you be elevated, gradually and almost imperceptibly, to higher realms of 'reality'. On these higher realms of reality, 'stuff' has already been worked out and your dream has already been realized.
So, if Jesus 'saved you' from anything it is from having to be the Messiah! :-) Just release your attachments, cultivate virtue, trust in ME and I will lift you and your entire world into perfection.
There is a big difference, my son, between practicing, in silence, the teachings of Christ and between having your present culture distort the teachings and turn you into a lunatic Messiah.
You, my son, are presently a composite of Moses, the law giver, and Christ the mystic lover of God and humanity. My counsel is for you to simply just embrace and follow the teachings.... then I will lift you up!
The fact is, my son, that you are complaining about the conditions in one of the higher levels of the underworld, which I designed. From your present level, according to your inner virtue or lack thereof, you can either ascend or descend. It is entirely a matter of your free-will. As you, my son, are lifted then so too will be your entire world. Everything that you hold dear (except for your porno collection) will be lifted with you. :-) Just follow the teachings and eschew being a Messiah.

I find that message uplifting indeed. I would like to travel to the higher levels and believe it truth that sacrifice must be made to do so. Thank you Play_Dough!

--Pyth

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