- 21 Oct 2003 01:21
#35791
Question for you guys....do you see the coming of the Antichrist within your lifetimes? If so, are you happy or sad about the prospect?
The reason I ask is this. I think that there are some innate desires that human beings have that are unchanging from the dawn of time. One desire is for a certain mythos that will guide us ethically and cosmologically (Read Joseph Campbell, or watch The Power of Myth).
The second can be related to this or separate depending on the mythological structure of the individual in his society. The second is a desire for something unknown, something monumentous, to happen within a person's lifetime. I believe this desire is responsible for crazes such as the Inquisition, the Millenarianists (of 999AD and 1999) and our favorite, the UFO believers.
Each belief structure usually incorporates the believer into a historically significant set of events. Millenarianists were sure that the world was going to end in 999, and then sure again in 1999. Metaphysics aside, I'm sure we can all agree they were wrong. Similarly, UFO proponents are almost unanimous in a desire for some sort of historical deus ex machina, whether it be good or bad. Aliens must exist and be technologically, spiritually, and ethically superior to us, or aliens exist and are poised to invade the earth (I realize this is a huge generalization, but bear with me).
There are significant points to be made here. The 'innate desire' that I tried to pin down earlier is present throughout human history. A doctrinal religion can fulfill this. I believe this is probably the biggest source of religions' power. Ideology can also be a factor, thus the strange devotion to communism that many develop. As a professor of mine once said "In college, I traded the religion of Catholicism for the religion of Communism." Finally, look at physics' attempt to find a grand unification theory, and tell me that doesn't sound familiar.
So how does this fit in with the Antichrist? The majority of myth/ideological structures predict some sort of event that will see their structure winning out over all others. In Buddhism, this could be seen as the eventual creation of the Buddha-nature within everyone. In Communism...well..guess. In Christianity, the end comes when the Antichrist rises on earth and plays out the final battle between Heaven and Hell. The Revelations, written poetically and poetically written in a cave on the island of Patmos, are typical of many cultures' apocalyptic mythology.
So far in this post, I've written the kind of academic rhetoric that I really don't like. "OK, Ames thanks for the sermon," etc etc. That being said, let me temper the preaching a bit and tell you about how I fulfill my innate desire.
I think that the human being is the ultimate creative force in the universe. What we don't understand, we struggle to define through religion, politics, art and every other mode of human expression. The desire to bring order to our world, to our lives, creates within itself an order of creative beauty.
The universe exists in its own way, the stars move in their positions, because we have created rules and systems to define their movements. In an infinite universe, there are infinite possibilities. Therefor any belief system we create is possible, any technology we imagine is possible. God exists in our works, because we will it so. That in and of itself is the highest form of beauty, and immortality, that we can hope to achieve.
"Yamimbi!"
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- By wat0n
- By litwin