Anyone who is familiar with my writing at The Automatic Earth will know that I am no stranger to uber-doom and uber-gloom. The crises we humans face as a species are unprecedented in history, and, no, that is not an over-statement. History is full of natural disasters, slavery, bloody conflict, mindless terrorism, civil wars, international wars, genocides and the general human depravity that accounts for many hours in many days of our lives.
Yet, now is a time unlike any other. We exist at a scale of global civilization in which the consequences of all depraved acts of human beings have the potential to metastasize like a cancer throughout all segments of humanity. Perhaps the most well-known example of this fact after 2007 is the global financial crisis – a handful of greedy and ruthless bankers exploited the system, issuing reckless loans, packaging them into mind-boggling products and deceiving others into investing with them, with the aid of corrupt public officials.
The exorbitant salaries and bonuses of these bankers and high-level corporate executives came at the expense of the entire global economy, and every saver, worker, taxpayer, retiree, etc. that was unfortunate enough to find themselves existing within it. We have yet to see the full extent of economic, political and social destruction that such depravity will heave on humanity. And that’s just one example of a systemic crisis that threatens to consume us all… there are many, many others.
So what if I told you that in this year of 2012 – typically associated with some sort of apocalyptic transformation in Western culture – was the year in which I realized just how GOOD we all have it? I ended 2011 worrying about just how badly people will end up suffering over the next year, but I started 2012 figuring out just how blessed the human species has been from the very beginning.
Before we get to the heart of this particular post, I want anyone who considers themselves entrenched in the “Doom & Gloom” crowd, yet very skeptical of evangelical Christianity, to simply keep an open mind for now and follow along with the spiritual logic. I ask those people to put just a little bit of trust in a blogger such as myself, because I promise that we will eventually talk about the trustworthiness of the Bible and Christianity in future posts, along with many other questions atheists or agnostics tend to have.
So now we return to the question of why I was blessed enough to discover victory over Doom this year. It is true that humans are quite capable of creating the conditions for Doom all by themselves, through their freely chosen decisions, but let’s also keep in mind the original author of Doom – the Devil (Satan). When humans were first created and placed in the Garden of Eden, it was Satan who tempted them into giving up innocence and righteousness for the experience of evil. It was Satan who started this whole ball of Doom & Gloom rolling for generations upon generations to come.
Yet, it was also Satan who was immediately judged for this evil transgression in direct conflict with God – he was perhaps even the first part of creation in the Universe who experienced the guaranteed wrath of his Creator. It was in the beautiful and peaceful Garden of Eden where humankind was created, and where humankind first witnessed its first magnificent picture of Christ our Savior. The following bolded verse is what many scholars call the “protoevangelium”, or the “first Gospel” in Latin:
14And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
15And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. (Genesis 3)
In other words, God promised to save humanity from the Devil and his Doom right from the start – and, if you are familiar with Biblical prophecy, you know that God always keeps His promises. The seed of Eve here is none other than Jesus Christ, born to the virgin Mary in the town of Bethlehem. He was sent to Earth in human form by the Father some 2000 years ago to bruise the head of Satan, and give us all the gracious opportunity to be free from a life of bondage to sin; a life filled with nothing but an unending sense of Doom.
If the seed of Eve was Christ, through whom all can be saved, then some may be wondering who the seed of Satan was. Did Satan actually have angelic children, and is there actually meant to be “enmity” between those children and ours? No, that’s not what was meant. The real answer to this question can be found easily enough in the New Testament, perhaps most starkly in Jesus’ admonition to the Pharisees who refused to heed His wisdom.
42Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. 43Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8)
Jean-Claude Juncker (left) and George W. Bush (right)
That is who is meant by the seed of Satan – those who abhor God’s truth and crave selfish, material desires over all else. It is those who would lie, cheat, steal and murder to hold on to their own fleeting notions of wealth and power. These are the politicians, bankers and corporate executives who have manufactured systemic crises for personal gain; the people who have taken all of humanity hostage and held it for ransom, while trying to tell us that it is all for our own good.
When I reflect on the passage above, I can’t help but remember the infamous remark of Jean-Claude Juncker, current Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the Euro Group (position of political responsibility over the currency union) – “when it gets serious, you have to lie”. If that’s what he is willing to say out in public, then you can probably guess what people like him are willing to say or do in private. It may sound harsh to call these people the children of the Devil, but I really can’t think of any better way to describe them.
Jesus knew exactly what he was referring to when he called them out as such. In fact, it is arguable that it was Christ Himself who orated the protoevangelium back in the Garden of Eden, sentencing Satan to his final judgment and promising the faithful among us that we would never again have to worry about all of the Doom & Gloom that is heaped on us by ministers of evil. There will no doubt continue to be Earthly pain and suffering, and there is no excuse to sit back and watch the evil progress with any smug sense of satisfaction.
While the Doom may have disappeared 2000 years ago with the fulfillment of Christ’s promise through Jesus, the work of grace is not finished. There still remains enmity between the children of Satan and the children of God, and it is our holy imperative to bring as many of the former as possible into the folds of our righteous family. When you start to feel like all hope has been lost for those around you, just remember that no one is immune from the infinite grace of God… not even Lloyd Blankfein or Jamie Dimon or the families of the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers.
Hi Ashvin, Congratulations and best wishes! GO
I You made the statement “Yet, now is a time unlike any other” and I wish to say I completely agree with you. I believe there is much happening now in our day that has been fortold in the bible, but more that what some of the traditional methods/creeds of reading the scripture might explain. So I wish to ask if any other Christians might be willing to just consider the possiblity that some of Revelation is now occuring.
Sometimes I wonder if because we are living in the events everyday it makes it harder for us to see them. So here is one example
Rev 16:8 Then the fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to burn people with its fiery heat.
How could someone write about climate change 2000 years ago? For them to see a vision of what we are doing to the earth now, what would it look like to them then? Seeing everything dying from all the pollution in the oceans, fresh water and air? When I read other vs’s in Rev 16 I can’t help but see that within the message.
Digging
Hello digging!
As I’m sure you know, the debates over interpretations of Biblical prophecy are endless, especially those in Revelations. However, I have heard quite a few evangelical commentators directly or indirectly suggest we may be in/around the End Times, due to all of the general factors that line up (reestablishment of Israel, global society, systemic crises of all sorts, increasing natural disasters, false religions and prophets, genetic manipulation, etc., etc.)
And many of these commentators are simply traditional conservative Christians who otherwise probably know nothing about NWO conspiracy theories and all of that. OTOH, I am very cautious to get overly speculative with the word of God, or to become a “prophet of the apocalypse”, because that can only lead to bad outcomes. People tend to lose sight of the Gospel when focusing solely on prophecy, and obviously that’s not what we want as Christians. That being said, i’m sure we will continue throwing around our ideas about prophecy on this blog in a responsible manner, seeing what makes sense and what doesn’t.
Hi Ashvin,
Interesting stuff. I particularly like the reference to grace. That’s the key! And well done for picking on the chief protagonists of the current GFC as prime recipients for it.
Excited to hear more, particularly about what happened over the new year!?
Grace and Peace.
twm
Ashvin,
I enjoy your posts on automaticearth and have learned a lot from them.
As regards religion,Here are some thoughts.No criticism/confrontation meant..
The basic problem is in externalizing God. Then there will be an external Devil.
Now , we will have 3. Me, God, Devil. Each will limit the other. So we will end up with a limited Me(a relatively powerless Being), a Limited God(a very powerful being), and a Limited Devil(another very powerful Being).
Perhaps you have already done so….Maybe it may be worth exploring the roots of the name you bear. Here is one perspective on it. (please dont take it as patronising..I am exploring the possibilities of the meaning of the sanskrit words here, an hobby of mine)
Ashvin=THe twin healers of the gods(symbolic representation).THey bring word of the unlimited.In a world that is fragmented by separated/individualized objects/beings , where is the unlimited?what can be ever present? the ones who bring this knowledge are the Ashvins..and this knowledge does not pertain to a limited human’s notions of good/bad , God devil etc.As long as you separate humans from one another as distinct persona,one’s good is the other’s bad.Not limited to names/appellations like this religion or that religion.In fact it transcends them.
Pandu=>colloquial meaning=> a fruit(a mature object,fully ripe)
Paandu=> A person/thing knowledge that is fully mature(ripe)=>transcends the trivial.
Ranga=> Colored by the knowledge .Every thing /person/knowledge we perceive is distinguished from something else, even as one color is distinct from the other.But when one transcends these distinctions, everything gets swallowed into one particular paradigm/knowledge.One who has this quality of relating everything to the infinite and is never separated from it, is called PaanduRanga..
THe little I have read of the bible(old/new test) seems to me to be loaded with symbolism. One can interpret it in the way of the majority with an external god/devil and me that is separate. One can also relate it back to the upanishads for an extremely different perspective. The difference, in my opinion, is almost as big as climbing the map vs climbing the mountain.
Hello Haridas,
I understand a lot of people in Eastern spiritual traditions like to interpret the Bible, and especially Jesus’ teachings, in a way that conforms to their pantheistic metaphysics. The problem is that one must do all kinds of circles around the original texts to derive such an interpretation, focusing on some parts while completely ignoring or manipulating other parts. Usually, they choose to leave out the entire Old Testament! (Jesus Himself endorses the OT numerous times during His ministry).
I recommend you give a listen to Ellis Potter to see why traditional Judeo-Christian metaphysics makes more sense than that of Buddhism. He is a former Zen Buddhist who became an evangelical Christian because he said “it took less faith” for him to accept its natural theology of a personal, transcendent God. Both the objective and the subjective experience of the objective are equally real, so there is no need to override one with the other.
http://www.apologetics315.com/2010/07/real-problem-with-buddhism-mp3-by-ellis.html
Anyway, this is just a brief response to your inquiry… I imagine I will be writing quite a few posts on this subject over time, and will also be adding a lot of content to the video/audio sections about Eastern religions and philosophy. Thanks for reading and for your comment!
Ashvin
Pantheism and the upanishads cannot be more far apart.
Satyam ekam eva na dvitiyam.
Lot of what I have read in the bible conforms to dharma and ethics.Loving one’s neighbour/ten commandments etc.
Monotheism and the upanishads are also far apart. The treatise is not that there is only one god. That is just the first level of religion.
THe final treatise is there is only God.
Anyway, it may be worth a look at the depths of hinduism itself before abandoning it. Vivekanada is a good beginning.and possibly end.
All holy books are hearsay, starting from puranas to old testament. Faith is belief in the non-verifiable.
There is only one verifiable truth…. that there is existence…there is “isness”. Everything else from the fact that god has a name (yahweh/allah/whatever) is just hearsay. The question of limitation itself is unanswered in the abrahamic religions.
Basic questions is if there is a world separate from God, then each limits the other. How can the omnipotence/omnipresence of such a god be explained?
Also, Like Gandhi said “I have no problems with Christ..only with christians”. The track record of christians is riddled with violence ….for example the protestant/catholic wars…the quest fo “saving” souls….the looting/slavery/slaughter of the natives/”indians” in the americas… All stemming from this mad rabid desire to proselitize.
The objective and subjective experience are equally real? what do you mean by real? Is reality assigned to the name and form, that are born and die in time? what is the matrix from which this reality springs, if all the names and forms that you see are limited by time/space? everything limited in time/space should be an effect of something else, hence the reality is to the matrix, the web and weft in which this effect appears and disappears.
My comment that the bible/commandments refer mostly to ethics and dharma was meant to say that dharma is mostly a natural process and deemed so basic as to not require too much highlighting/explanation / proscription in the upanishads.
Proscriptive books like dharmashastras are meant for such a purpose …to specify dharma, some aspects of which vary in time and space, and ethics.
WHereas the true “religious” books cannot be distinguished from metaphysics/philosophy ..and are given the highest place, in the upanishads.
I am also aware that there are tons of metaphysical works in the christian traditions…but as far as I know, christ is not the explicit author of any one of them…So my comment on dharma and ethics being predominant in the bible was referring to that. If I am wrong, then I apologize.
Just listened to the ellis porter speech you linked to…in my opinion, a lot of strawmen being setup to be demolished with glee.
Anyway, this requires a lot of conversation to even start coming to an understanding to what each of us are trying to say…..Why not listen to a few lectures on Gita from dayananda saraswati ? Or read “Introduction to Vedanta” by him.(on amazon)
need some patience though.Sample of one of his talks.
http://www.ted.com/talks/swami_dayananda_saraswati.html
Haridas,
Thank for the responses and the links. I am very interested in learning more about Hindu metaphysics and revelation, as my parents consider themselves Hindus. I will try to take a look at some of those talks you linked to.
Right now, I am working on creating a forum here on PC, so we can have a much more convenient and accessible method to discuss all of these issues, as well as the articles themselves. I hope to continue this discussion when that is established.
Right now, I will just say that we should not judge the metaphysics or historicity of any religion based on the evil actions of those who claim to practice them. Also, when I say the subjective and objective are equally “real”, I mean they are they both real qualities of God, who is the author of absolutely everything material and spiritual.