Becoming Human in the Cosmos
The Purpose and Ultimate Destiny of Human Life
By Eric (Lee) Hazelle
Copyright 2011 Eric (Lee) Hazelle
Smashwords Edition
Table of Contents: 1
Introduction 2-12
Chapter #1: The Eschatological Outlook: Think Like God 13-26
Chapter #2: The Meaning of Life and Religion 27-44
Chapter #3: The Plan, and Agency 45-69
Chapter #4: God and Heaven 70-102
Chapter #5: Hell and Evil 103-127
Chapter 6: Human Life 128-156
Chapter #7: Becoming Female in the Cosmos 157-172
Chapter #8: The Cosmos 173-202
Chapter #9: Our Best Friends and Teachers 203-218
Chapter #10: Becoming Human in the Cosmos 219-249
Bibliography 250-253
Dedications
I dedicate this book first to my mother, who, when I was a kid gave me pencils and paper for birthdays and Christmas and told me, “Write!” I would rather have had a baseball glove, but, here it is, mom: I wrote. And thanks for all you did for me.
Second, I dedicate it to Alexander Solzhenitsyn whose passing has left Russia, and the world, without a conscience. His wisdom begins and finishes this work, and graces it throughout.
“Becoming Human in the Cosmos:
the Purpose and Ultimate Destiny of Human Life”
Introduction
In writing a book of this sort, it behooves the author to let the reader know, in the leftover vernacular of the 20th century, “where he’s coming from”, and “where his head is at.” “Right behind the ‘at’”, as my mother always used to say to me when I ended a question with that preposition.
First: where I’m “coming from”. I was born and raised in the Mormon Church, properly known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. This is the one headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. I write this book however not as a Mormon, but just as a dreamer who coincidentally is a Mormon. My L.D.S. background will surface both intentionally and unintentionally; the only thing I can promise is that when it is intentional, I’ll let you know; when unintentional, well, at least I’ve been up-front with you. Bottom line: I’m not doing this to promote any specific religion.
Anyone using this book to say this is what the L.D.S. church teaches is doing so against my wishes. I have no authority to speak officially for this religion. As French essayist Michelle Du Montaigne wrote, “I put forward formless and unresolved notions . . . not to establish the truth but to seek it . . . I meddle rashly with every sort of subject . . .” (“The Complete Essays of Montaigne” translated by Donald M. Frame, page 229.)
L.D.S. educator and (late) Brigham Young University professor Hugh Nibley claimed the L.D.S. church combined the physical universe with religion, and was condemned for it: “As Christianity has been deeschatologized and demythologized in our own day, so in the fourth century it was thoroughly dematerialized, and ever since then anything smacking of ‘cosmism’, that is, tending to associate religion with the physical universe in any way, has been instantly condemned by Christian and Jewish clergy alike as paganism and blasphemy. Joseph Smith was taken to task for the crude literalism of his religion . . . unhesitatingly bringing other worlds and universes into the picture.” (“Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless”, page 49.) This is the atmosphere in which I was raised, and which will permeate this book.
And why "Cosmos" instead of "Universe"? The dictionary definition of “Cosmos” is the universe as a manifestation of law and order. I’m sure they mean largely mechanical order as in Newton’s mechanics, but I’d broaden that to mean the law and order of God. "Universe" is the gas, rocks, dust, radiation, and all the stuff that goes "bonk" as it bounces off your space helmet that makes up the material universe we see on a starry night. "Cosmos", to me, is all that plus the life that is made from that stuff, plus, the order and system behind it all. When we graduate from school and get a job, we don't just fit into a building and a Dilbert-style cubicle; we also fit into a social group, a set of norms and procedures, standards of excellence and expectation, and relationships with customers, competitors and co-workers. Same with the Cosmos to which we mortals will shortly be graduating and placing ourselves for our eternal occupations. We need to know what's going on out there so we can conform to it and be ready. That is the "eschatological" outlook, a subject in the first chapter, and the theme of this work. As Jeffrey Bennett puts it in his book, “Beyond UFOS; The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Its Astonishing Implications for Our Future” “ . . . knowledge of the cosmos is not just idle knowledge but rather is at the core of everything that makes us human.” (Preface, page XII.) I’ll probably take it a bit more broadly than Bennett, who is an astronomer.
Well, fair warning, then. That’s what I hope to do with this book. I will say in many places that I believe the Cosmos is a nuts and bolts proposition, that it behooves us to find out how it works and who and what we really are, so we can best figure out where we fit in. It’s a “hands-on” proposition, tangible, real, rational. It will all make sense and be fair and just, no matter how things are in this temporal and temporary existence. It makes as much sense to me to prepare for our Cosmos occupations as it does for the young here to go to school and prepare for their adult lives.
I hope this book will be a dialog with a friend for you; some places you will love and they will bring you to tears. You'll underline them, quote them to friends and sweethearts, and treasure them. Other places will make you roll your eyes, swear out loud, and maybe even throw this book against a wall. Good friends do both to us. It was said in a great books reading course I took that we should do more than passively read; we should carry on a dialog with the authors as if they were in our reading rooms with us. The books in the library of John Adams, probably our least-appreciated founding father, were terribly abused; the bindings were worn and frayed, and he had written numerous comments in the margins, such as "dolt!", "dunderhead!", and "scalawag!" If that is what this book looks like when you're finished, I'll have a big smile on my face.
Imagine an informal dinner party with the likes of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, historian Will Durant, philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and Eric Hoeffer, physicist Michio Kaku, biologist Stephen J. Gould, near-death author Bettie Eadie, Old and New Testament writers and prophets, and many others of like stature all adding to the conversation of the nature of the Cosmos, and the purpose of human life. What a gathering and what a conversation that would be! That’s what I’m setting out to do with this book. (Well, you’ll have to provide your own food.)
Now, as to this book in specific: there are two ways of defining something; to say what it is, and to say what it is not. I’ll start with the latter.
This book is not to start a new religion or philosophy. The ones we have are doing just fine, thank you. There will be observations on religion as we go, but this isn’t the place for them. And, no, I won’t be proselytizing for the L.D.S. religion. To me, true religion is being where God wants you to be, doing what God wants you to do, and being open minded to change should God bring it your way. If you’re happy with your current religious / spiritual status, that is enough for me. In the near death experience of Howard Storm (“My Descent into Death”, page 72-73), Storm asked, "Which is the best religion?" He expected God to name one of the popular denominations such as Methodist, or Baptist. Instead, His answer was, "The religion that brings you closest to God.” This book then is not for religious brokering, but for fun, for fanciful speculation, with the hope of getting a finite handle on the infinite.
As to fanciful speculation: OK, here are some teasers; the number of earth-type, inhabited planets in the Cosmos, the source of God’s power, or, why people in Heaven don’t have to go to the bathroom, sex in Heaven, why God, even though He’s omniscient, never gets bored, two (!) solutions to the old “if-God-is-all-powerful-then-He-can-make-a-rock-so-big-that-he-can’t-lift-it” problem, the very beginnings of evolved life on this planet, and how we’re involved; a recipe for stew, (you think I’m kidding, don’t you?), outer space pirates, how evolution, creation and re-incarnation all come together, a solution to the abortion issue that will satisfy neither side on it, but is based on near-death and past-life hypnosis regression; mosquitoes and flies in (yes!) Heaven, and many other journeys wherever my imagination and fancy take me. When traveling, I always take scenic routes; same when I contemplate the Cosmos. Once again, Montaigne, (op cit): “I speak my mind freely on all things, even on those which perhaps exceed my capacity and which I by no means hold to be within my jurisdiction. And so the opinion I give of them is to declare the measure of my sight, not the measure of things.” (Page 298.)
Being as this is a rather large subject for a finite mortal to take on, the reader will have to allow me changes of mind and direction as my life and store of knowledge progress. I am a finite man looking at infinity, a mortal contemplating immortality. But, still: the great British scholar Alfred North Whitehead said, "Here we are with our finite beings and physical senses in the presence of a universe whose possibilities are infinite, and even though we may not apprehend them, those infinite possibilities are actualities." ("Atlantic Monthly", 193, March 1954, 58-59.)
As Paul said of prophecy, (1 Cor. 13: 11-12) “We see through a glass darkly.” My glass is as dark as anyone’s, and I’m sure there are errors in this book. I guarantee it. Tell you what: if you don’t take this book any more seriously than I do, we’ll get along just fine. I like Montaigne’s approach (as quoted in Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer”, page XIII): “All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.” Montaigne also observed, “No one is exempt from saying silly things. The misfortune is to say them with earnest effort.” (Op cit, page 599.) There are silly things here. My earnestness is not to establish them as gospel, but to generate thought and discussion.
This book is not the product of deep research in any one specific area, but rather an amalgam of readings in several areas. I have only a bachelor’s degree, and that in general studies. I’m not an expert in any of the fields I shall use in developing my thesis. It was said by the pioneers crossing the Platte River that it was an inch wide at the source, and a mile wide at the mouth. That may also be said of my intellectual capacities. I make no bones about it. I am a mud puddle in a parking lot; shallow, but I cover a lot of ground. There is enough “half-baked” in my theories to provide North America with soft cookies for six months. Remember the old saying, "Jack of all trades, but master of none"? I'm a "Jack of all knowledge, master of none." I am not a guru. (I am a gluru. What I say sticks together. Ha! Sorry.)
Historian Will Durant, whose lifetime work was the 11 volume "The Story of Civilization", from pre-historic Egypt to Napoleonic Europe, spoke to the dilemma of a skyrocketing human knowledge bank pushing the philosophers into the background. "Philosophy itself, which had once summoned all sciences to its aid in making a coherent image of the world and an alluring picture of the good, found its task of coordination too stupendous for its courage, ran away from all these battlefronts of truth, and hid itself in narrow and recondite lanes . . . human knowledge became too great for the human mind." (Will Durant, "The Story of Philosophy", second edition, vii-viii.) Perhaps it takes someone like me, who doesn't have the awe and respect needed for any one or all of the fields of human knowledge, to cobble together a picture of the Cosmos and blithely and naively jump into these infinite and shark-infested waters.
And, as professor Hugh Nibley noted, ("Temple and Cosmos", page 442) "This is the historian's dilemma; if his view is sweeping enough to be significant, it is bound to be inadequately documented; if it is adequately documented, it is bound to be trivial in scope." If that for the historian, how much more so for me dealing with the entire Cosmos?
Nibley comments further, (“Old Testament and Related Studies”, page 41), “But the books are still sedulously segregated and widely distributed among the floors and alcoves of the library, and to bring them all together into the one organic whole from which they were taken is a task that will yet tax the capacity of the computer . . . to date, no one has taken the trouble to integrate the materials in even one of these hundred – odd piles; and as to taking up the whole lot and relating every pile to every other, so far only a few bold suggestions have come from men of genius . . . whose proposals get chilly reception from specialized scholars who can only be alarmed by such boldness and appalled by the work entailed in painting the whole picture.” As to . . . “taking up the whole and relating every pile to every other . . . “ I don’t claim to come anywhere near that in this effort. In the bibliography at the end of this work, I note I used 111 sources and 570 quotes. That is hardly enough to represent even one area of research for an effort such as this, let alone an integration of them all, which as Nibley notes, would tax even a computer. But still, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step; here is that step.
I feel I have a defender, though he may be surprised to find me drafting him as such, in Edwin Dobb, former editor of "The Sciences", in an essay of his from "Harper's Magazine", February 1995. He advocates a wider field of viewers of the Cosmos, with the idea that a more heterogeneous view will bring us a greater chance of understanding the truth than a restricted, however professional view that only scientists would bring: " . . . the only credential that should be needed to enter any conversation about the nature of the world is one's humanity . . . we best serve the cause of truth by expanding and defending the domain in which thought is free to roam . . . we transform the cosmic quest from the elitist, solitary contemplation of the stars into a free-for-all conversation about the stars with other human beings, scientist and non-scientist alike." Thanks, Ed! Here I go!
Further, it is my basic shallowness, this lack of expertise, that, I feel, makes me most fit to write this book. Because I have no loyalty to any one field of study, I’ve been able to superficially peruse all fields of study and find parallels and similarities in all of them to bring to this effort. You may be familiar with the Indian proverb of five blind men examining an elephant. The first feels the trunk and reports that the elephant is very much like a vine. The second feels the leg and responds that, no, the elephant is much like a tree. The third feels the ear and claims that an elephant is like a fan. Number four feel’s the beast’s side and asserts that the elephant is like a wall, and the last checks out the tail, reporting that an elephant is a ropey animal. Away they go, all arguing their various viewpoints of the creature. They’re all right insofar as their narrow fields of study allow; they’re wrong in that they’re arguing rather than synthesizing.
Professor Nibley observes, “An Approach to the Book of Abraham”, page 581, “Blindness to larger contexts is a constitutional defect of human thinking . . . we forget as we virtuously concentrate on that one thing that hundreds of other things are going on at the same time and on every side of us . . . that are all interconnected in ways that we cannot even guess.” I think Stephen Gould, “America's Evolutionist”, in commenting on biologists and their studies, has a similar take: “We are tied to historical habits of thought (doctrines of progress, gradual change, and linear causality, for example) and methods of procedure (reduction to component parts as a mode of explanation, rather than direct study of interaction). When we fail to recognize that these are habits of inertia rather than nature’s truths, new paths are closed off. Scientists ignorant of history are not so much condemned to repeat it, as to be confused and unenterprising.” “An Urchin in the Storm”, page 187. I can see where scientists and specialists get locked into their own worlds; being neither, I am outside of those boxes.
What I will do with this book is play the part of the person who can bring all these “blind” men together in one, and get a picture of the whole animal. The “blind” men I’ll be dealing with are the fields of philosophy, science, in particular biology and theoretical physics, near-death experiences, “new age”, such as re-incarnation and past life regression hypnosis, general wisdom literature that I feel illustrates the points made by these sources, and theology, in the form both of scripture and apocrypha; books contemporary with scripture, but not included in the canon. (For an idea of my sources, and the “weight” given to each, see the bibliography at the end of this book.)
As to interpreting scripture, which is always debatable among experts, let alone one such as I, I prefer to use “Occam’s Razor”, or the law of parsimony, which, according to Professor Nibley, “Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass”, page 4, goes “ . . . for everything in the universe there are as many explanations at hand as the mind is willing to devise. Only one rule must be observed; it is the old “law of parsimony” – of all explanations of a thing, the one which is simplest, i.e., the freest from contradiction, requiring the fewest qualifications and the least elaboration of explanation, must be given preference to the exclusion of all others.” This isn’t a 100% guarantee of a truthful and accurate interpretation, but it is a very good starting point. Example: in Ephesians 3: 15, Paul uses the phrase “ . . . family in heaven . . . “ A family is defined as “a group of people consisting of parents and their children.” I therefore assume that the heavenly family consists of a Father, Mother and their children, (us), and I don’t try for more complicated or allegorical interpretations. More on this later.
I’ll use metaphor extensively. It is the only real way we have to get our finite minds around the infinite. Consider this metaphor: A person in New Orleans in August of ’05 is given a one-million-piece jigsaw puzzle. He’s promised that when it’s all put together, he’ll have a complete picture of the Cosmos and the purpose of life. “Great!” he thinks, and starts out. He sorts a few colors, finds a corner or two, then Hurricane Katrina comes along and blows it all away. The pieces are scattered in the wind and filthy water. When all is settled down and he’s allowed to come back to his home, he’s given 20 minutes to find all the pieces he can, and put together the picture as best as possible. That’s the task I face here; I don’t have all the pieces or the time to complete the picture; I can only do as best I can.
As I write, I wonder exactly where this book will be positioned on the bookshelves, should it ever see publication. Philosophy? Maybe, but that’s a rather dry discipline visited by few browsers, and for pure pecuniary interest, I’d prefer some other area for it, but where? Fiction? Ha-ha; very funny. Non-fiction? Well, not that, either. (Point of purchase? In my dreams.) New Age? Maybe. Right in with the Near-Death-Experience books; there’s a lot of that in this, they’d be comfortable together. Self-help? Possibly. Religion? No. Scholarship? No. I mount neither pulpit, podium nor pedestal.
No, even though it’s about God, us as His children, Heaven, Hell, good, evil and our creation in His image, it is not a religious book. It is a book that takes the God-created and directed Cosmos as a fact, and accepts without stopping for praise or proof, our place and potential in it, and seeks to be a workaday approach to making our way in the Cosmos and preparing for our futures therein. It’s about as religious as, say, a guide for a new ambassador to a foreign country that tells him of the customs and practices of the natives, and how to fit in.
As to God: This book takes it for granted that God exists, that He’s tangible, purposeful and the creator of the Cosmos and all that’s in it. Further, that our relationship to Him is child to father. I’m going to go from there and leapfrog the hallelujah and hand-waving, the hymn singing and swooning, the glorifying and praising. For me, the Cosmos and God are nuts and bolts propositions. What is the working order here, what’s going on, and where do we fit in? Faith, mystery, worship and wonder are fine things, and have a well-deserved place in religion, but I believe in the long run, God will just be science that we don’t currently know, coupled with an overwhelming fatherly love for His children; His children, who are now in the Harvard / Oxford / Sorbonne equivalent of eternal education, this school known as mortality on planet earth.
Schooling, classrooms, education; they are a big part of the Cosmos as we shall see in later chapters of this book, and if we don’t see ourselves as students being led and taught by a concerned Parent, then we’ll miss a great portion of what our lives are all about. God has His school: we’re in it. This school has graduations from grade to grade, tests aplenty, homework, and when we think we’re through and can enjoy summer vacation, surprise! We find ourselves enrolled in graduate school, post-graduate school, remedial training and maybe even vocational / technological “Community College” to pick up a few necessary trades so we can make ourselves profitably employed while the rest of our schooling continues. And, don’t even think about dropping out. That is one of the worst offenses in the eternities, which will also be discussed in a later chapter.
Many kids go to college to drink, party and have sex. They take easy courses, cheat to get grades, or have someone research and type up their papers for them. Some treat this mortal "college" in the same manner. Two differences between here and college: here we all "graduate" . . . that is, die, and our employers, God and His angels, know exactly how well prepared we are, whether we cheated, or worked honestly and diligently. The "job" we get in the Cosmos will be a consequence of our student behavior here. And since our "employment" is forever without termination, downsizing, or layoff, we want to be sure it won't be some menial job such as sweeping up the gold-paved streets of the Heavenly Kingdom. Nothing wrong with cleaning streets . . . if that's what you want to do . . . but do you want to do it forever? Great if you do, but for those of us who would prefer more challenging work for the eternities, it is my hope this book will at least set us to thinking along paths that will lead us to maximum happiness and fulfillment of our natures and potential in an eternal future.
This shouldn’t be taken as a denigrating shot at street sweepers, and those who do blue collar labor. I drove a truck for 21 years. Can't get more blue-collar than that. There is this tale of a near-death experience visit in “The Eternal Journey: How Near-Death Experiences Illuminate Our Earthly Lives” by Craig Lundahl and Harold Widdison, page 188: “We appeared to be alone there, except for the street-sweeper . . . I felt prompted to talk to the street-sweeper and congratulated him on his efforts. He said work was a joy to him, and he derived his pleasure from doing the best job he could at all times.” Every activity there contributes to the glory of the whole, and the bottom line is to take pride and care in one’s talents and abilities, and the contribution you can make. And, at the end of his day, the street cleaner went to just as nice a home and neighborhood as did the physicist who had just pushed the button for the next “Big Bang” creation of a new universe, there being no material inequalities in that realm.
If this book could be put in terms of college studies for majors in “Cosmos”, 101 would be to establish the existence of God. 201, the “sophomore” course, would be the praising and love of God; 301, the “junior” course would be the practical application of the previous two years of study. This book is “Cosmos 301.“ Atheists and agnostics would, if interested, enroll in 101. Those of a religious bent, already converted would enter 201. Those wanting to “go on unto perfection” as Paul phrases it (Heb. 6: 1-3) might enter this classroom. I won’t push the prerequisites; all are welcome. I only say the above to metaphorically position this work in the reader‘s mind, and further describe this book.
But children grow up and become adults. As we ask kids, so must we ask ourselves: "What do you want to do when you grow up in the Cosmos?" The old vision of sitting on a cloud playing a harp, or eternally singing praises in a Celestial choir just doesn’t cut it. Harp playing forever? Singing forever? That’s just damn boring. We, as offspring of God, are creatures of infinite growth, development and possibility; there’s a whole Cosmos out there we need to grow up to: we need to prepare our souls for eternal occupations. I believe that concept is as real as going to college here to prepare for an adult career life. That, in a nutshell, is the over-riding theme of this book.
Look at the space beyond the confines of our planet; the pictures the Hubble Telescope sends us give a glimpse of a growing, expanding Cosmos. For just one example, there’s the Horsehead Nebula, an enormous cloud of gas several light years across that has numerous bright points in it. Those bright points, about 16 if I recall, are galaxies . . . not planets, suns or solar systems, but galaxies . . . taking shape. Give it another few billion years and who knows how many habitable earth-type planets will be ready to receive the spirit offspring of God for the mortal phase of their eternal education and preparation. We will have already “been there and done that”, and, if prepared and worthy, will probably be put into positions to help them on their eternal journey. And, that’s just one nebula; how many more are there in the universe in various stages of formation?
The Cosmos is expanding; therefore, so are our possibilities. John Hodgman, in an article in February 2007 “Wired” magazine reports: “Because of gravity’s relentless pull, most everyone expected that the expansion (of the universe) would be slowing. But the data from both groups showed the opposite. The expansion of the universe is speeding up. Something must be pushing outward.” (Page 113.)
Professor Nibley (“Old Testament and Related Studies”, page 137), quotes apocryphal records as they deal with an expanding Cosmos: “The Pistis Sophia says that it is the nature of every creation to seek a more roomy space. It’s an expanding universe that these people described . . . By the law of plenitude or perfect economy, no space should be wasted and none should be crowded . . . In the Ginza, a very important and very old work of the Mandaeans, Jesus is told . . .Go down to that place where there are no (homes) and no worlds. Create there for us another world after the fashion of the sons of salvation.’ The same writing explains that when the mass and number of the worlds are filled, a squeeze begins, and it’s time for expansion . . . But the idea of pure space, of absolute emptiness, is abhorrent to these people. There is no point to it. A total void without even chaotic matter is utterly abhorrent.” Note the reference to the “Sons of Salvation”; this is why I call the work of God, “Salvation, Inc.” It apparently is a family business, and has been expanding throughout the Cosmos for, literally, God knows how long.
Many think Jesus or God is doing this all alone. I’m not saying He can’t; but consider another metaphor. North of Phoenix, we have a new city of some 50,000 called Anthem. 10 years ago, it was just desert. Del Webb, a developer, built it. But, did he really? Just him alone? Or did he have thousands of laborers digging foundations, laying wires and pipes, doing grading, framing walls, etc? I think it’s the same with the Cosmos, and, as Del Webb’s projects provide meaningful work for those with construction talents and the like, so the expansion of the Cosmos holds out the promise of meaningful work for all of God’s children who want to participate.
What will be your part in this burgeoning industry, this family business, “Salvation, Inc.”? That is what this book will focus on; our destiny and place in the Cosmos, or indeed, assuming theoretical physics is correct, in new bubble universes coming on line all the time. Imagine! Infinity squared! We need not look for higher life forms in space: we are it. The highest life form in space is a matured, fully developed and perfected human being, God. We are His children, created in His image and likeness. (Genesis 1: 26.) His present is our future if we so choose. That is the ultimate consummation of our humanity.
Russian philosopher, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, 1856-1935 believed . . . “God was indistinguishable from that of advanced extraterrestrial intelligence of the kind toward which humankind and its space-faring descendants would inevitably evolve . . . “ (Tsiolkovsky) . . . “advocated an end to nationalistic thinking and urged people to think of themselves as citizens of the cosmos. He saw this change in perspective as necessary preparation for humanity’s joining a cosmic community of intelligent beings.” David Grinspoon, “Lonely Planets”, page 224.
Earth is not our home; it is just our bedroom in our home, the Cosmos. We are temporarily confined to our bedroom for the misbehavior that is normal with immaturity. There’s a party going on downstairs, and we can hear the laughter, the sparkling wit and conversation, and smell the delicious foods prepared for the festivities. We long to break out of our “bedroom” and join the celebrations, but until we mature and behave, those throwing the party, our Heavenly parents, know we’d only be a disruption. However, when we do grow up, there are jobs aplenty, things to do, and an exciting company with which to mingle, share thoughts and stories, learn, and enjoy the eternal expansion of our minds and souls.
Howard Storm (“My Descent Into Death”) paints a tantalizing picture of our future as we mature. “The great gifts that God wants to give us will not be given until we are loving enough to handle them. God wants to give us the power to control matter and energy with our minds, the ability to communicate directly with our thoughts, to travel through time and space by will, to have knowledge by contemplation. The power of these gifts is beyond our wildest imagination, but they will not be ours until we mature spiritually and can use these powers wisely and lovingly.” (Pages 43-44.) Imagine what these powers would do in the hands of terrorists or demagogues. One can see where we as a human race need much changing, growth and maturing.
Being neither scholar, philosopher, theologian, scientist nor expert in anything, except driving a truck, what am I? I am a man lying on my back in the grass on a balmy, cool summer’s evening. There are no city lights or moon to wash out the stars, and above me, from west to east, I can see the Milky Way, my home galaxy spread across the sky. Perhaps the lawn was cut earlier in the day, and the rich scent of fresh-mown grass adds to the overall sensory experience. As I gaze in rapture into the night sky, I can almost feel myself lifting off the lawn and floating among the stars. I ask, “What is this all about? What is the purpose of life . . . Indeed, what is life, and where is it from? Why do I have it, and what should I do with it? What is the ultimate destiny of human existence, and what should I do to prepare for it? Is there a God at the beginning of all this, and what should be my relationship, my duties and obligations to that God?”
Join me, please, my lawn or yours. You don’t agree with my temporary conclusions? Fine! Share yours with me. Life is a wonderful journey, and I’ll be the better for your thoughts and insights. I hope you’ll be the better for mine.
Chapter #1: "The Eschatological Outlook: Think Like God"
“The meaning of earthly existence lies not as we have grown used to thinking, in prospering, but . . . in the development of the soul.” (Alexander Solzhenitsyn, “Gulag Archipelago” volume 2, page 613.) That's the theme of this book in the words of a man I consider to be the greatest thinker and writer of the 20th century.
As to what the soul is, what constitutes its development, the cosmic milieu in which it exists, and for what purposes it is to be developed will be other themes dealt with as we go.
Solzhenitsyn, in pointing us to the meaning of earthly existence that lies beyond pecuniary interest, is expressing an "eschatological" outlook. To define it: "Last, uttermost. A body of teachings about last or final things, as death, resurrection, judgment, the millennium, etc." The Winston Dictionary, College Edition, 1944. (Yes, it's an old dictionary, but my grandmother, who had a big hand in teaching me to read, gave it to me, and I wanted to honor her here, and all the adults who take time to teach children to read. You never can tell where your efforts will go.)
To go along with Solzhenitsyn’s outlook, we also have the meaning given by Professor Hugh Nibley, op cit, in his book, "Old Testament and Related Studies", pages 1-2: "The eschatological viewpoint is that which sees and judges everything in terms of a great eternal plan. Whether we like it or not, we belong to the eternities; we cannot escape the universe. All our thoughts and deeds must be viewed against an infinite background and against no other."
Brigham Young, the Mormon pioneer and leader said, "No one supposes for one moment that in heaven the angels are speculating, that they are building railroads and factories, taking advantage one of another, gathering up the substance there is in heaven to aggrandize themselves, and that they live on the same principles that we are in the habit of doing. No Christian, no sectarian Christian in the world believes this; they believe that the inhabitants of heaven live as a family, that their faith, interests and pursuits have one end in view - the glory of God and their own salvation, that they may receive more and more . . . We all believe this, and suppose we go to work and imitate them as far as we can."
(Journal of Discourses, 17: 117-18.)
The Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev had much the same outlook, condemning both socialism and capitalism. “Socialism is flesh of the flesh and blood of the blood of Capitalism. They both belong to the same world; they are animated by a common spirit – or rather, by a common negation of spirit . . . The worship of Mammon instead of God is a characteristic of Socialism as well as of Capitalism. Socialism is no longer an utopia or a dream: it is an objective threat, and a warning to Christians to show them unmistakably that they have not fulfilled the word of Christ, that they have in effect apostatized . . . Capitalism, considered spiritually and morally, arose because human nature is prone to evil. But socialism has arisen for exactly the same reason. Apostasy from the Christian faith, abandonment of spiritual principles and disregard of the spiritual ends of life, must of necessity lead first to the stage called Capitalism and then to the stage called Socialism.” (Runes, “Treasury of Philosophy”, 136-7.)
I see the tendencies of American Capitalism towards conglomeration and central control until the running of a corporation with its headquarters and franchises is hardly different from the central bureaus and remote controls of the former Soviet Union. Berdyaev continues: “It follows clearly enough that we must begin to make our Christianity effectively real by a return to the life of the spirit, that a normal hierarchical harmony of life must be recovered, that that which is economic must be subordinated to that which is spiritual, that politics must be again confined within their proper limits.” (Runes, ibid.)
Let me just make one observation to put this into the concrete from the abstract: We call ourselves a “Christian nation.” Compare the health care plan of Jesus Christ with our current health care plan. All who asked of Him were healed, free of charge. In the U.S. in contrast, we pay vast amounts for health insurance, then, when we need it, we’re shunted off to a phone answering service in India where they find all sorts of loopholes and red tape in the contracts to deny us the health care we thought we were paying for. Could any two systems be any more opposite? How long can we call ourselves a “Christian” nation and let this totally alien-to-Christ form of health care prevail before God gets really upset with us for taking His name in vain?
But, I digress. The purpose of this book is not to change our political systems; I’m way too insignificant for that. I’ll just stick with insights into the development of the individual soul, the meaning of life, and let it go at that. I do like what Winston Churchill is reported to have said regarding Democracy: “It’s the worst system imaginable . . . except for all the others.” I’d say the same for capitalism, too.
An extreme example of a non-eschatological outlook is this from Solzhenitsyn’s description of a veteran of the concentration camp who gave him an "introductory" bit of advice upon his arrival. "A cruel and determined expression was the principal trait of this camp veteran's face. . . (and) is the national hallmark of the Gulag islanders . . . From your very first step in camp everyone will try to deceive and plunder you. Trust no one but yourself. Look around quickly: someone may be sneaking up on you to bite you." The Gulag functioned by the law of the jungle, and no justice was to be expected. " . . . no one ever does anything for nothing, no one ever does anything out of the generosity of his heart. You have to pay for everything." (op cit, 563-4.)
And that's not to say that his advice is wrong; it probably contributes greatly to one's survival in such a situation, but . . . is it a price one wants to pay? What of your soul, which shrivels and contracts under such a world outlook? And if you survive to be released from the camp, you don't leave this outlook at the gates; you take it with you into civilian and family life, and are burdened with it for the rest of your mortal life unless you take strong and active steps to rid yourself of it. Well, easy for me to say. I've never been in that situation. This serves, of course, as a metaphor for the outlook we take into the eternities when we answer that call to go through the lighted tunnel and back to the God.
In contrast to this approach, Viktor Frankl’s classic camp recollection remembers " . . . men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread." And this in Auschwitz. ("Man's Search for Meaning", page 86.)
Christian martyrs, or the martyrs of most any religion demonstrate an eschatological outlook when they refuse to deny their principles in the face of torture, pain and death, claiming that whatever the inquisitor does to them is only temporary compared to the eternal glory they expect for staying true to their faith. Clement's second letter to the Corinthians, "Lost Books of the Bible" page 142 is an example of the early Christian eschatological viewpoint: Chapter 3, vs. 7: "We cannot, therefore, be the friends of both (this world, and the world to come); but we must resolve by forsaking the one, to enjoy the other. And we think it is better to hate the present things, as little, short-lived, and corruptible, and to love those which are to come, which are truly good and incorruptible.”
Howard Storm’s near death experience shows the eschatological outlook as taught him by his spirit guides. “How you judge the outcome is not how things really are. You judge by appearances. That is not the reality of how things really are. You think wealth, possessions, physical attractiveness, and long life are success in life. They don’t necessarily mean anything. Some of the people God has favored with the gifts of love, wisdom, joy, and hope never had wealth, power and material things, physical beauty, or long lives. When God came into the world through Jesus, he had none of these things. They are insignificant compared to the spiritual growth of the soul. Life in the world is not about acquisitions, power or pleasure. You are given a life in the world for only one purpose, which is to love God. You love God by learning God’s will and doing God’s will by loving one another. Anything else is immaterial to the purpose of your brief life experience in the world.” (“My Descent into Death”, page 78.)
My favorite wordings of the eschatological outlook come in couplets: "It's not that we are mortal beings having spiritual experiences; but rather spiritual beings having the mortal experience."
And, “We do not see things as they really are, we see things as we really are.”
Many near-death experiencers come to the eschatological outlook. It is said of one who had the encounter that he became a changed person; "The type-A behavior that made him an edgy, angry workaholic is now gone. Replacing these traits is a thirst for knowledge, feelings and expressions of love that astonish those who know him." ("Closer to the Light", Melvin Morse, page 11.) Doctor Morse describes another near-death experiencer who " . . . is not overly interested in material things as so many of his friends are. He is more interested in acquiring knowledge than money." (Ibid. 29)
We need an eschatological outlook to keep insanity from our doors. As Will Durant phrases it: "' . . . life has meaning' we feel with Browning – ‘to find its meaning is my meat and drink.' So much of our lives is meaningless, a self-canceling vacillation and futility; we strive with the chaos about us and within; but we would believe all the while that there is something vital and significant in us, could we but decipher our own souls . . . We want to know that the little things are little, and the big things big, before it is too late; we want to see things now as they will seem forever - 'in the light of eternity.' We want to learn to laugh in the face of the inevitable, to smile even at the looming of death." (“The Story of Philosophy”, page XXV).
In an analysis of near death experiences, and the effects they had on those receiving them, authors Craig Lundahl and Harold Widdison summarized near death researcher Raymond Moody's findings thus: "(NDE’rs became) more reflective and more concerned with philosophical issues . . . (they) had a heightened sense of appreciation for life and a determination to live life to the fullest, with a renewed sense of purpose in living, and as a stronger person who values love and service to others and no longer feels that material comforts in life are so important." ( op cit, pages 18-19)
Eschatology is learning to think like God. And, that isn't easy. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways saith the Lord. For as the Heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55: 8-9. Until we see things through His eyes, much of what He does can seem contradictory, or even downright evil. How many people are thrown off religion because of the vengeful god of the Old Testament killing or having killed millions of people? The flood of Noah is a major example; how many innocent children perished? Thousands at least. To get a handle on this, I must resort to metaphor. Let’s see if we can get ourselves to think like God.
Imagine yourself as a parent of a rather promising child. He’s gotten good grades in high school, good enough that he’s granted admission to Harvard, though not a scholarship. Just think! 4-6 more years of study, and this kid will pretty much have it made in the adult world. 18+ years of parenting will have really paid off. You mortgage your home to pay for the first semester, $30,000, please, and send him off to Boston. A few weeks go by, and you don’t hear from him. You begin to be anxious. Then, a letter comes from Harvard informing you that your son hasn’t attended any of his classes, is flunking them all, and is on academic probation.
Finally you get hold of him, and he says, yes, he’s been fooling around, but he can make it up; he promises to study, go to school, and get back on track. Then you begin to hear from his friends; he’s drinking, taking drugs, partying night and day, and still not attending to his school work. At the end of the semester, he’s flunked every class, and is about to be thrown out of rehab. He asks for more money to continue his education.
Do you as a parent continue to subsidize this behavior, or do you go back to Harvard, grab him by the shirt collar, drag him home, install him in a Mac Donald’s flipping burgers until he can pay off the $30,000 he squandered, and enroll him in the local community college so he can at least get a couple years on his education? If choice #2, then, congratulations; you’re thinking like God. How so? Just expand this to an eternal scale. This earth life is a school, and God expects us to learn and progress. If we fool our time away and refuse to come around, God, as our parent, has every right to bring us back home and straighten us out, just as you would do with your ne’er-do-well kid at Harvard.
“But”, you say, “My kid is still alive; the people God killed are dead.” No, they’re not. We have to have our heads screwed on straight about this. No one has ever died; God has never killed anyone, in the sense that they no longer exist as sentient entities in any form whatsoever. We are eternal, immortal spirits and cannot be brought to non-existence. (There may be an exception to that which I'll discuss later, but in any event, it is not an act of God, but rather an act of our own volition. No context in which to discuss it here.) We may be removed from one sphere of existence to another, such as this mortal world to the spirit world, but that is not death any more than moving from New York to Los Angeles is. Though some New Yorkers may think otherwise.
True, the bodies of those drowned in Noah's flood are part of a fossil layer somewhere, but their spirit, the true life of the body is very much alive and very much trying, in Spirit Prison, to get back on track. (For references to “Spirit Prison”, see 1 Peter 3: 18-20 and 4: 6. These verses tell us that those who perished at the time of Noah’s flood were given a second chance; taught by Jesus Christ after His death, so they could, ultimately, “ . . . live according to God in the Spirit.”) If this is true for those drowned at Noah’s time, then it must be true, to be fair, for the whole human race.
God has a backup plan for plan #1, which is to make wise and productive use of this mortal experience. Plan #2 is to pull us out of this school if we’ve shown we just can’t put it to good use, and set us in Spirit Prison, or reform school if you will, to learn in that milieu, the parallel of which, above, is you bringing your child home from Harvard to go to Community College. (This is not to say that all people who die young were goofing off in this life; not by any means. God has His plans and purposes for each one of His children, and, tragically to us, sometimes, it involves an early death.) God does not just arbitrarily, vengefully, kill people on a whim when He’s having a bad day. He acts as any good mortal parent would, only on a cosmic scale.
In many cases in the Old Testament, God acted to end a cycle of corruption and perversion which had devolved to child sacrifice. These highly offensive and immoral practices had to be brought to a halt, or every child God sent to this earth would have been in danger of having his life cut short by being thrown into a blazing hot furnace so mom and dad could have a good spring wheat crop. Those innocent children who perished in Noah’s flood were brought back to loving arms in Paradise; arms that would never throw them into a fire. A few moments of terror and pain; an eternity of being safe and free from the harms and dangers of an idolatrous society. If you still can’t buy the reasoning here, a later chapter deals with a similar scenario: the Holocaust.
We're seeing if we can come around to God's way of thinking, or the ultimate example of the eschatological outlook. I find it helpful to put these things in parent / child relationships, and if we can learn to contemplate God in those terms, many of the mysteries and questions about Him will be solved. Consider this ratio: we are to our children as God is to us. What is good parenting for us, is, on a much larger scale, and with an eschatological understanding, good parenting from God. Quick example: would you, as a parent, have a stranger stick needles into your child, and put poison and deadly germs into them? Sure you would. It's known as vaccination. Now, blow that up to Cosmic scale: would God, as a loving parent, allow us to have pain, difficulty and challenges? Sure. That's part of our education here.
My oldest boy, Cory, played Little League baseball. He was pretty good at it, and when 10, was accepted on a “Major” league team comprised mainly of 11-12 year-olds. He was the youngest kid on the team, and was warned that, at that level, he'd probably be riding the bench a bit. Still, he was game, and wanted to challenge himself, for which I was the proud and happy father. It so happened that year I wasn't coaching his team, but I went to his games and practices, observing from the bleachers and trying to keep my mouth shut. Hard for me to do. Anyway. In one batting practice, Cory was taking his turn against a kid that had a wicked fastball. No control. I know; once I was standing 12 feet away from home plate, and he nailed me in the shin. I had a sore lump for two weeks. On a pitch, he hit my boy squarely in the back. I could hear the “Thump!” from clear up in the bleachers. Cory went down, writhing on the ground, and fighting back tears. His coach came out and offered to let Cory sit down for a bit and work off the pain. Cory waved him off, and went back in the batter's box to finish his turn, and face that same pitcher. I was never more proud of my son.
Now, blow that up to Cosmos size again. We ask, “Why doesn't God do something? Why doesn't He help me, or make us have world peace, etc., etc.?” What would have been the consequences if I'd come down off those bleachers and taken Cory home to never have to face pain and trouble like that again? I would have humiliated him in the eyes of his peers, I would have made of him an emotionally crippled adult who would never face up to his trials and would always come running to daddy to fix his problems. (Not that he would have; I know Cory, and I'm sure he would have found ways to circumvent any over-weening parenting on my part.)
Now, let's go to an example from the Old Testament. If we're going to learn to think like God, let's take the bull by the horns and find the most egregious examples we can. Imagine having 12 children. They're grown and live away from home, but you know of their activities, and further, you have a good rapport with local law enforcement. You have just been tipped off that an out-of-town drug gang has been ripped off by your kids, and they're coming for revenge. The upshot will be that 1/3rd of your children will be murdered, 1/3rd will be taken away into slavery and bondage, and 1/3rd will be left in town, but still in slavery to earn money for the drug gang.
How bad would your children have to be for you to hold back and let all these things happen to them without your interference?
Let's go down the list of offenses as chronicled in Ezekiel 16, in the Old Testament, and see if there isn't a “tipping point” where you stand back and say, “OK, these kids have it coming. I'm sorry; there's nothing I will do to help them.” That is essentially what God said to Israel just before the sack of Jerusalem by the Babylonians around 590 B.C. It was an hellacious siege; the Israelites got so hungry, they wound up eating their own children before Jerusalem finally fell, and 1/3rd died, 1/3rd went to Babylon in slavery, and 1/3rd stayed back to work the land and pay tribute to the Babylonians.
God lists His reasons for being upset with His children: Vs. 6; He basically picked them up as babies cast into a dumpster. (For a modern day terminology.) From there, He fed, cared for and nursed them until they grew up. (7-14). However, like a beautiful but brainless nymphomaniac girl child, they gave their beauty out as sexual favors to anyone who asked for them, and took the wealth of clothing, food, jewels and precious metals He had given them, made images of false gods, (idols), and committed sexual perversions with them. (15-20). In fact, in playing the whore to every neighbor, they didn't even have sense enough to at least make a profit from their activities, but they paid their customers instead. This isn't to sanction prostitution, but to point out how dumb they were. Even the sorriest of hookers on our city streets isn't about to hand out sex to her customers, then pay them as well. (26 & 34.) Yeah, we're probably not ready to give our kids over to the drug lords yet, however as the TV ad says, “But wait! There's more!”