Rock Prophecy

EV 2001: Every man, as long as he obeys the laws of the land, should be free to pursue his own interests in his own way. Charge what he likes for bread or anything else for that matter. Laissez-faire, let individuals compete and struggle for their advantages.

RP 1999: "The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been individual material gain, in other words it's accepted as legitimate, and even praiseworthy, on the grounds that private license yields public benefits [the Republican 'trickle-down' economics, i.e. pissing on the so-called 'lower classes'], in the classic formulation. It has long been understood very well that a society that is based on this principle will destroy itself in time. It can only persist with whatever suffering and injustice it entails as long as it is possible to pretend that the destructive forces that humans create are limited." - Noam Chomsky

RP 1999: We can't "work hard" unless we are lucky enough to be able to endure "hard work." "Merit" is always just luck. People who insist that the lucky among us be entitled to more money must be enlightened about how unequal incomes cause aggravation and grief. Some people inherit wealth, but how do they merit that "unearned" money? To suggest that anyone deserves more money than the rest of us because of "birthright" is a violence provoking notion.

RP 1999: Elitism - the practice of privileges for a select few who are favored by authority under law - is the system that underlies our beliefs about deservedness. Who deserves what, and why? Ultimately, the system which all liberation movements seek to dismantle is contained within the concept of elitism. Elitism, the phenomenon of placing oneself at privilege - above another person on the pretext that one is "better" - is the umbrella concept under which capitalism, racism and sexism are subcategory derivatives . . . Racism, sexism and financial inequality are all sub-categories of elitism. Delusions about deservedness and privilege afflict elitists with symptoms of a mental illness that has inspired every inequity scheme throughout history. Societies that maintain laws designed to financially reward elitists are societies deservedly doomed to violence from the victims of elitist thievery…The natural order for society is for all members to share all resources equally among people so that everyone's efforts can be aimed at the Rock.

WHY WE EVOLVE

RP 1999: Perhaps from the small beginnings of the universe the greatest force has emerged just in the last 50,000 years. It is the force of the human mind and imagination.

EV 2001: The human brain is the most complex system in the known universe. It is wildly in excess of what it seems like we would need to survive on the plains of Africa. In fact, the human brain seems so excessive that a lot of people, who believe in evolution applied to plants and animals, have real trouble imagining how natural selection produced the human brain. All of the other species on the planet seem to get by with relatively small, simple nervous systems that seem tightly optimized just to do what species need to do to get by. I think people are perfectly sensible in being skeptical about the ability of selection for survival to account for the human brain.

RP 1999: From the perspective of the biosphere, the purpose for human intelligence having been evolved by Earth is to create a defense against asteroids. Humans are collectively a protective mutation evolved by Gaia to produce enough destructive capacity to shatter rocks. That's what all living planets (with water based life forms) do. This is why people are fascinated with flight and with explosives, and speed. We've been programmed to seek out and destroy globe-threatening asteroids. We are meant to function as the "teeth" of the planet.

EV 2001: The human soul is the crux of the matter, because if we are not different from animals, if we don't live forever in heaven or in hell, then why should we behave other than like animals in this life?...When we are trying to reconstruct the scenario about how humans evolved bi-pedally from its ancestors, we have to know what it is that we started from if we are going to come up with an explanation for, not only how we made that transition, but why.

RP 1999: It is through our dedication to asteroid defense that the biosphere stands a chance of survival, our only chance of existing Stone Free and without rings, like the rings of debris around Saturn's rainbow black eye. "Each stone they touch they shall learn more and more of the purpose of living and giving and receiving," wrote Jimi…We are in a battle for the planet. The Murderers of Earth will see our world destroyed before they allow fair sharing in the way that Jesus proclaimed, in the way that will save us.

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JESUS = EQUALITY

EV 2001: [Is life] the result of a natural process called evolution, or the work of a divine creator? This question is at the heart of a struggle that has threatened to tear our nation apart. For fundamentalist Christians, evolution is an evil that must be fought.

RP 1999: Calls for equality, in the teachings of Jesus, appealed to Gnostic sensibilities. But Constantine revised the story of Christ and added a Trinity scheme to justify privilege for an elite few rulers…the Council of Nicea may be said to have been about the redefinition of imperial power. Jesus died trying to oppose such power. He fought for economic and social equality, ideals that he demonstrated through communal sharing of food: commensality -…[is a] challenge launched . . . at civilization's eternal inclination to draw lines, invoke boundaries, establish hierarchies, and maintain discriminations…Most people seem to agree that distinctions between us in skill, luck, talent or ability should determine who deserves what. But Jesus preached that everyone deserves the same. Constantine's crime at Nicea was to revise these teachings and redefine Jesus as a figurehead of hierarchy. Constantine saw the Trinity as a way to whitewash the message of equality out of the story of Jesus and replace it with complex dogma that only Rome and its Church could interpret. Thus, the Vatican became middlemen who brokered communication between God and the people.

RP 1999: Equality is the centerpiece of Jesus' teachings. But in place of a table of open sharing, Constantine instead instates the Bible as a MANual for men to justify elitist ascent, higher up the hierarchy, on ladders of evermore exclusive privileges, with a pinnacle epitomized by Papal authority. Whereas Jesus demonstrated equality by distributing free food for all, Constantine celebrated elite privilege by inviting his bishops to feast at an imperial banquet in Nicea's exclusive lakeside resort. There was nothing equal about these elitist proceedings…[they] co-opted the Jesus story and reconstructed its principles to justify wealth, privilege and authority for heterosexual men. The table at Constantine's feast was closed to women and gays. The Emperor's ecuMENical ball had inverted the teachings of Jesus on its head. The Church's convoluted logic used Christ to justify inequality and institute monarchy over the peasants. For centuries to come, right up to the time of Jimi Hendrix, the masses of humanity were MANipulated with stories revised and labeled "sacred" by the Church.

RP 1999: Jimi compared himself to "Jesus Christ - 30 twice." He recognized the teachings of Jesus to be instructions with which to organize society. If equality and tolerance had shaped human culture for the past two thousand years, the knowledge and technology we now need to survive would have been with us long ago. Instead, sensitive introspection in men and women was routinely brutalized by dominators. Our struggle to save the planet today is a race against time lost to obstructions and delays caused by persecution of intuitive seers.

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