War

WAR


From my book, The Grace of Being.

“First there was the fist and the tooth,
Then there was the stick and the stone,
Then there was the club and the ax,
Then there was the arrow and the sword,
Then there was the bullet and the bomb,
Then there was the chemical agent and the biological agent,
Then there was the mystery and energy of the universe let loose.
All of these things that increasing knowledge has wrought only brings conflict and strife at increasingly greater levels, and portents ruin, not glory.”

You will be hearing a lot about December 21, 2012 in the coming days. That’s the precise day your world will end and is well past the day you got married. December 12th, 2012 is the day the Mayan Calendar ends its Long Count at 13.0.0.0.0 and coincides with the Earth’s winter solstice on that date. Also at that precise date and time, the sun will pass the center and galactic equator of our Milky Way Galaxy and this event is considered by many to signal the: End of Days. The End of Days, if it comes, will be brought about by a great war, cosmic cataclysm, planet earth ruin, or any other infinite number of catastrophes that might happen be it manmade or act of nature. There are many prophesies out there about the End of Days occurring approximately in the same 2012 time period, depending upon interpretation, but for my money, a great war will be the most likely cause of man’s demise and the Mayans never predicted or knew about weapons of mass destruction that can cause a final war (God, what a detached and dreadful phase, “Weapons of Mass Destruction”). For example, look at this remarkable prophecy by the Hopi Indian, White Feather of the Bear Clan:
“The fourth world shall end soon, and the Fifth World will begin. This the elders everywhere know. The signs over the many years have been fulfilled, and so few are left.
This is the first sign: We are told of the coming of the white-skinned men, like Pahana, but not living like Pahana men who took the land that was not theirs (note: Pahana means “Lost White Brother” and is the Hopi messiah) and men who struck their enemies with thunder.
This is the second sign: Our lands will see the coming of spinning wheels filled with voices. In his youth, my father saw this prophecy come true with his eyes---the white man bringing their families in wagons across the prairies.
This is the third sign: A strange beast like a buffalo but with great long horns, will overrun the land in large numbers. These White feather saw with his eyes—the coming of white men’s cattle.
This is the fourth sign: The land will be crossed by snakes of iron.
This is the fifth sign: The land will be criss-crossed by a giant spider’s web.
This is the sixth sign: The land will be crossed with rivers of stone that make pictures in the sun.
This is the seventh sign: You will hear of the sea turning black, and many living things dying because of it.
This is the eight sign: You will see many youth, who wear their hair long like my people, come and join the tribal nations, to learn their ways and wisdom.
This is the ninth and last sign: You will hear of a dwelling-place in the heavens, above the earth, that shall fall with a great crash. It will appear as a blue star (note: the Hopi Blue Star of Kachina is the star Sirius). Very soon after this, the ceremonies of my people will cease.
These are the Signs that a great destruction is coming. The world shall rock to and fro. The white man will battle against other people in other lands – with those who possessed the first light of wisdom. There will be many columns of smoke and fire such as White Feather has seen the white man make in the deserts not far from here. Only those which come will cause disease and a great dying.”
I really don’t know if there are such things as prophecies, however, I do believe war will be the likely cause of man’s demise, if that is our fate, because I am agreement with Carl Sagan’s hypothesis that the reason that there is not abundant life being observed throughout the universe is because life always develops to a point where it discovers technology and 99.99% of the time, technology is used to destroy the very life that discovered it due to great struggles and wars. So, at any point in time, there is little alien life to observe because what life had been before has already vanished because they destroyed themselves. This theory does not provide an optimistic outlook for the fate of mankind that already knows war and has the technology to make war ever more destructive. There is little doubt man’s technology has advanced to the point where we are capable of destroying ourselves many times over and man’s history shows a willingness to engage in war to either resolve problems or gain mastery over others. Perhaps war is inevitable because of how life is designed, i.e., for life to survive, it has a dominance and survival instinct that is hard wired into our beings and these instincts makes it impossible to resist our destructive inclinations, even while we destroy that which we all hold dear (life). We all engage in war on a personal level every day due to these driving instincts. We battle each other for a better job, for a better life, for more power, for sex, for money and on and on. So when we engage in bigger and bigger impersonal wars, it’s a road we all have traveled many times on a personal level and provides for a sense of propriety. There are those who have subscribed to the notion that war is glorious and is the engine that drives man’s advancement. Well, that might have been true when sticks, stones, arrows and swords were technology’s offerings, but with today’s and tomorrow’s weapons of mass destructions, no alien life will even be around to stop by and wonder at our ruin and demise (instead of glorious advancement).