Author: R J Adams

Can a squirrel go to Heaven? And, if so, how long does it take to get there?

The traditional Christian concept of Heaven is very ‘people orientated’. Animals are not definitively mentioned by the Christian church as ticket holders to “God’s Kingdom”, however “good” they may have been on earth. In fact, the Bible is somewhat ambivalent on the issue.

Then there are the differing concepts of Heaven. Here, Christianity has its mind made up intractably. It’s definitely a place, not a condition. And it’s not just any place – it’s capital city is the “New Jerusalem”.

Sadly, Heaven will be rather barren for those of you who end up there. It will have no animals, or at least, no earthly animals.

If all this smacks of being a little far-fetched and reminiscent of the crap mother used to read to you in the cradle, then you may as well forget Heaven altogether, because there’s no way you’re ever going to get there. Personally, that fact brings enormous joy. If God wishes to fill His domain with all those who spout the sort of claptrap preached from most pulpits every Sunday, I’ll take my chances elsewhere.

Which brings us to the concept of Hell.

To many Americans, indoctrinated into the fundamentalist Christian church, Hell is everlasting damnation, cast out from God and spending eternity in a fiery pit, or lake, or whatever…… (depending on the pastor’s current taste in torments!).

Frankly, it all conjures the phrase ‘….between a rock and a hard place”. Heaven will be full of self-righteous Christians and George W Bush look-alikes; Hell is – well, you won’t need your snowshoes, that’s for sure.

Again, the apparent Christian concept of Hell rings immature – a childlike imagining; a pre-pubescent nightmare after spending too long on the Playstation.

Which brings us to evolution.

Leaving aside those whose bent is to believe everything spoon-fed to them by rich and paunchy pastors, evolution is fairly well accepted as the manner in which we arrived at our present, physical, state on earth. Whether its mechanisms have produced a pinnacle of life-form in Homo sapiens can be debated until the cows come home, but nevertheless it has likely brought us from pre-amoeba to our present situation.

If evolution is our physical motor, is it not possibly our spiritual motor also? Amazingly, evidence of this is seen within the Christian church, certain parts of which have now concluded that not only is Hell not a fiery pit, or lake, or whatever……but that it doesn’t actually exist at all.

The belief among many Christians in the world is that Jesus Christ came to save all men, and “Hell” (as in fiery pit, lake, or whatever…..) was never mentioned in the early writings that now make up the Bible.

Does this mean then that Heaven is going to be more overcrowded than Long Beach, California, when the surf’s up? Well, I’m rather afraid it does. And just imagine, all those George Bush lookalikes in swimming shorts!

Unless, of course, “Heaven” is not a place after all, but simply as similar a figment of someone’s imagination as “Hell” is turning out to be.

But, hang on – no Heaven or Hell? Then where do we all go when we die? And where does God live?

Is God just another made up human idea, like Heaven and Hell?

Hardly, we have proof “God” exists. It’s all around us; it is “us”. It’s everything. God is a power manifesting physical form through everything we know as “the Universe”, and probably lots else we don’t yet know. We, Homo sapiens, are a part of that manifestation.

An evolving part.

Just as physical evolution has turned us from amoebas to human beings, so spiritual evolution is turning us from tiny sparks of Divinity back towards the Whole. Evolution appears, to our limited senses, a slow process. I didn’t get from pre-amoeba to RJ Adams in one short lifetime. Neither is RJ Adams the pinnacle of that evolving. It’s one tiny step on the way to my Spirit returning “Home” to God. Not as a human form on a heavenly surfing beach somewhere outside New Jerusalem, but as an integral part of the God-power that my Spirit already is. Will I keep my RJ Adam’s identity? No. Does that bother me? No, it only bothers my ego, which becomes more accepting as it matures towards old age.

Can a squirrel go to Heaven, and if so how long does it take to get there?

First the squirrel Spirit has to evolve through various other physical forms, including the human, before moving on into the non-physical spheres we all pass through on our way Home. But it will get there. Time does not exist, it is simply a human invention, just like Heaven and Hell, so the question, “How long will it take?” is irrelevant. The squirrel’s path is no different from our own.

Our Spirit has been squirrel before.

Filed under: Alternatives to fairytales

It looks like the terrorists have been at Blogger again. All their servers are down. Has anyone informed Homeland Security?

Frankly, I daily bless my decision to move from Blogger. It’s grown so big that I believe it’s stopped caring for its customers. This is a noticeable problem as companies become more “corporate”. Perhaps a better word would be “corpulent”. Once they grow so fat they no longer need to worry about survival, that’s when the customer loses importance.

If you don’t believe me, just compare the service that used to be available from the little shop down the road, to the likes of….say, Wal-Mart. And don’t be fooled by all this “Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart. Have a nice day!” nonsense from the old biddy sat by the front doors. She’s paid to do that all day long. She couldn’t care less if you have a nice day or get run over by a number thirty-seven bus on your way home, just so long as she gets her paycheck every week.

It’s a carefully crafted veneer to fool you into thinking you’re important to them. Believe me, you’re not. Wal-Mart is so huge it no longer needs you – the customer. In truth, you need it.

Why?

Because there’s nowhere else for most of America to shop. Being huge means Wal-Mart can undercut any other retailer still scratching a living from the stale grain that fatchick Wal-Mart has discarded on the barnyard floor. Giving up Wal-Mart means spending more money; cash the average American doesn’t have spare these days.

And it’s not just Wal-Mart. Try obtaining any sort of reasonable service from AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, or any other of the giant telecommunication companies. Oh, sure, after hanging on the phone for three days you’ll get a friendly Asian from Bangladesh, or a Somaliland native who hasn’t a clue what you’re talking about – nor you, him – but get your problem fixed? No way!

Americans now serve the corporates. You are there for their convenience. Once upon a time it was the other way around, but not anymore.

Now let me just see if Blogger is allowing its customers access yet.

No. Still the “Error 500” message.

Perhaps they’ve just closed down for their coffee break.

Filed under: Customer disservice

So, its unofficially official. Numerous administration moles have leaked to the media that George W Bush will go on television Wednesday night to announce another 20,000 troops are to be sent to Iraq.

Surprise, surprise!

Against the wishes of many top military personnel, most of Congress, and the vast majority of the American people (not to mention the rest of the world, who matter even less to George W Bush) this president will have his way.

It seems that once again he has only listened to advisors who dance to his tune, ignoring the far greater number urging he do exactly the opposite and begin bringing troops home. Such single-minded tunnel vision is a true mark of the alcoholic personality.

His ears were open to advisors like retired General Jack Keane, and Frederick W. Kagan who, along with his brother Robert and their father Donald, are signatories to the neoconservative Project for the New American Century manifesto of 2000 entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”.

Keane and Kagan recently set out their strategy for Iraq in this Washington Post article before attending a meeting on January 6th of what has become known as the “real Iraq Study Group”, a conglomeration of neoconservative hawks with their own agenda for Iraq, that have found more favor with the presidential ears than any members of the official ISG.

Notable by their presence at this American Enterprise Institute meeting were Independent Senator Joe Lieberman, and presidential hopeful – the master of two-facedness – Republican Senator John McCain.

One example of the bombastic arrogance of which these peope are capable came today from retired General Jack Keane in an interview on the BBC World News. Introduced as a “Bush policy advisor” Keane said:

“We have the military capability and the prowess to secure Baghdad. Look, you telling me that there’s a capital city in the world that the foremost military in the world when it applies itself cannot secure the population in a given city? That’s just rubbish. Of course we can do this.”

Retired General Jack Keene is right militarily, if not grammatically. The American military can secure Baghdad. Germany had the “foremost military in the world” when it secured Paris in 1940. But it failed to win over the hearts and minds of the French people who fought a continuous and deadly resistance against Nazi occupation until the Allies eventually liberated Paris four years later.

This is the fate awaiting American soldiers if Keane and his colleagues get their way. No occupying force in history has ever won the hearts and minds of the nation it conquered. Do Kagan and Keane and George W Bush really think they’ll have a first?

Or……maybe they don’t really care.

Not noticeable in the American media as yet, but in yesterday’s Independent Newspaper was a report that stated:

“Iraq’s massive oil reserves, the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within days.”

This law, which the US government has been involved in drafting, will according to the Independent:

“…..give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.”

It would seem this law is selling ordinary Iraqis down the river. The contracts allow the oil companies to keep 75% of the revenue until they have recouped initial drilling costs, and after that they would retain 20% of all profits. That’s twice the industry standard for such deals. A colossal amount of money that will not be going where it rightly belongs – into the Iraqi treasury.

It’s what this war was all about from the start.

As the Independent notes:

“Several major oil companies are said to have sent teams into the country in recent months to lobby for deals ahead of the law, though the big names are considered unlikely to invest until the violence in Iraq abates.”

If George W Bush and his cronies are going to win the battle for oil in Iraq, Baghdad has to be tamed sufficiently for “the big names to invest”.

As Jack Keane says, the American military can secure Baghdad, but when news of this underhand deal between Maliki, Bush, and the western oil magnates reaches that city’s streets it will pour oil on the furnace of discontent already raging. Little wonder Nouri al-Maliki has no backbone for American withdrawal. He will need protection from the wrath of Iraqis when his involvement is known, or he will likely follow Saddam Hussein to the gallows, or perhaps just a knife in his back.

Arizona Senator John McCain, an ardent supporter of the neocon plan, has prophesied that things will get a lot worse in Iraq before they get better. He doesn’t often speak wisely, not even for the wrong reasons, but on this occasion he is right.

The heavy price of George W Bush’s oil will be paid in American lives.

Filed under: Price of oil