Strange religious instinct

Some would argue that this strange religious instinct is a leftover from our more primitive stages of development, and that to be purely rational is to be more highly developed. But what if it were the other way around, and our religious instinct and spiritual capacity is the higher form of development?  Maybe dealing rationally with the physical world is the more primitive part of us, while the capacity to interact abstractly with an unseen realm is the highest point of our human development. After all, who is more highly developed–a person who understands and appreciates something as “irrational” as music or someone who is deaf and dull to the joy of music?
Perhaps the religious instinct unlocks the true mystery and glory of humanity.Maybe the ability to pray and worship is mankind’s highest accomplishment.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2012/11/eighth-graders-are-smarter-than-you-think.html

Are you a Zombie?

Level 0 - "Zombie"

This is the default level of total ignorance at which 90% of the population operates. They have no clue about anything that matters such as how fiat currency systems operate, natural cures for cancer, the true dangers of vaccines, how television manipulates their behavior and so on. (These people are often experts in sports and TV sitcoms, however.)

Level 1 - "Awakened"

This level is achieved when a person realizes something along the lines of "Hey, I'm living in a dream world. I'm being told lies at every turn. What is real? How can I know what is real?" This is where people start asking questions.

Level 2 - "Informed"

A level 2 person is someone who has taught themselves a significant amount of real history and the way the world really works. This person will have knowledge of politics, psychology, world history, economics, natural health, the natural world (water, ecosystems, soils, etc.), basic anatomy, basic science and so on. Not even 1% of the population today qualifies as level 2. Most people operate in a state of wild ignorance of the world around them.

Level 3 - "Mastery"

A level 3 person not only understands a great deal about the real world around them, they have also grasped ways to navigate through that world with great accomplishment and influence. They are innovators, creators and often communicators. Financial achievement is not the purpose here. Rather, it is achieving relevance in a world largely populated by utterly irrelevant people.

Level 4 - "Enlightenment"

This level is only achieved by those of the highest dedication to spiritual awakening. You would typically only find this level of understanding in people who pursue a lifetime practice of prayer, or meditation, or a similar spiritual practice. At this level of awareness, individuals become withdrawn from the material world and really have no interest in interacting with individuals of lower levels of awareness. Far less than one in a million human beings will ever achieve level 4 "Enlightenment."

Just to review these levels again, here are some of the keywords and concepts that typically relate to people of each level:

Level 0 - "Zombie" - Football, sports scores, TV sitcoms, processed junk food, vaccinations, playing the lotto, following doctors' orders, submitting to apparent authority, going along with the status quo.

Level 1 - "Awakened" - Asks questions. Reads ingredients on foods. Questions their doctor. Watches documentaries instead of sports. Attempts to assess information and think rationally. Questions false authority.

Level 2 - "Informed" - Reads books. Explores alternative information. Invests in self-education. Participates in activism. Seeks to make changes in the world around them. Speaks out with friends. Challenges people's beliefs. Reflects on their own beliefs and is capable of adaptation.

Level 3 - "Mastery" - Has great influence. Creates things. Innovates. Provides solutions. Invents new things. No television. No vaccines. No junk food. Has a very long-term perspective. Understands the "big picture." Seeks to help others. Has compassion for living things. Recognizes the web of life on our planet.

Level 4 - "Enlightenment" - Realizes the great illusion of life. Embraces immortality of consciousness and the human spirit. Expresses compassion for others but not intervention. Never seeks to "change" others, only to invite them to expand their awareness. Recognizes interconnectedness of all life systems. Sees the human life experience in a humorous light. Is able to tap into higher consciousness. Rarely seeks fame and not interested in financial success. Often abandons all material wealth.

 Ned Dougherty

USA listen and learn

Amen

TOP FIVE REGRETS OF THE DYING

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Posted by JacobSloan on February 2, 2012   

 

FAILURE TO PREPARE TODAY WILL INCREASE THE MAGNITUDE OF YOUR SUFFERING TOMORROW.

Benedict XVI

"we have lost our sense of sin! Today a slick campaign of propaganda is spreading an inane apologia of evil, a senseless cult of Satan, a mindless desire for transgression, a dishonest and frivolous freedom, exalting impulsiveness, immorality, and selfishness as if they were new heights of sophistication.”

our society has gone wildly excessive. We need to simplify

"Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without."

Death

[Pippin: I didn't think it would end this way.]
Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path... One that we all must take. The grey rain curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass. And then you see it.
[Pippin: What, Gandalf? See what?]
Gandalf: White shores... And beyond. A far green country, under a swift sunrise.
[Pippin: Well... That isn't so bad.]
Gandalf: No. No, it isn't.

Manufacturing versus Service Jobs from the 1960a; it was nowhere to be found online.

DEMYSTIFYING IRAN: Each star represents a U.S. military base.

http://www.charlesgoyette.com/

Thrive: The hierarchy of control

US Dollars…an excellent kindling substitute, recommended by a true survivor.

Additionally, if you ever find yourself out of Charmin, the use of dollars as toilet paper has been highly recommended by survivalists and economic analysts alike: So, if the worst happens, perhaps it’s not such a bad idea to stock some of those crisp $10 bills in a #10 can, because you just never know.

Author: Mac Slavo
Date: January 19th, 2012
Website: www.SHTFplan.com

What is it going to take to wake the sleeping sheep?

We are a bunch of dumb$#

President Barack Obama formally notified Congress today that that the government needs more borrowing authority.

The written certification to raise the debt ceiling to $16.394 trillion starts a 15-day clock for Congress to consider and vote on a joint resolution disapproving of the increase.

Under legislation passed Aug. 2 after months of wrangling between the
administration and Republican lawmakers, the president is given the
power to veto any disapproval resolution that clears both chambers of
Congress.

The law calls for Obama to notify Congress when the debt came within $100 billion of the current $15.194 trillion limit.

While the threshold was reached Dec. 30, when the president was in
Hawaii and Congress was on holiday break, Obama agreed to a request from
congressional leaders to delay the notification request, ensuring the
deadline for congressional action didn’t lapse before lawmakers returned
to Washington.

The Fight Club member

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off". Tyler Durden

Right to Revolution

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. ~ Abraham Lincoln, in his First Inaugural Address (4 March 1861)

Declaration of Independence 1776

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such Principles and organizing its Powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Welcome to the police state!

Military Men Are Just Dumb, Stupid, Animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.“ - Henry Kissinger, as quoted in “The Final Days” by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in chapter 14. Page 194 in the paperback version (1995)

Nice guy, right? Wish I could meet him. This man is an example of what the US government really thinks of us.

US Closes 2011 With Record $15.22 Trillion In Debt, Officially At 100.3% Debt/GDP, $14 Billion From Breaching Debt Ceiling

While not news to Zero Hedge readers who knew about the final debt settlement of US debt about 10 days ahead of schedule, it is now official: according to the US Treasury, America has closed the books on 2011 with debt at an all time record $15,222,940,045,451.09. And, as was observed here first in all of the press, US debt to GDP is now officially over 100%, or 100.3% to be specific, a fact which the US government decided to delay exposing until the very end of the calendar year. We wonder, rhetorically, just how prominent of a talking point this historic event will be in any upcoming GOP primary debates. And yes, technically this number is greater than the debt ceiling but it excludes various accounting gimmicks. When accounting for those, the US has a debt ceiling buffer of... $14 billion, or one third the size of a typical bond auction.

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/03/2012 16:49 -0500

In Congress, July 4, 1776,

THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That, to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such Principles and organizing its Powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the right of Representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the People.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of Peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens, taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions, We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free People.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in GENERAL CONGRESS assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, DO, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly PUBLISH and DECLARE, That these United Colonies are, and of Right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Bri tain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that, as FREE and INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do. AND for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Wake up America

Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness.
Thomas Paine

5 Stages of the Awakening/Change Model

1. Denial- In this stage you dismiss anything that goes counter to conventional wisdom as crazy talk or conspiracy theory.

2. Anger- When you start to see that you were fooled, you react violently for being taken for a fool and want to lash out.

3. Bargaining- After you calm down, you reach out to anyone who will listen to tell them what is really going on.

 4. Depression- Now that you have reached out to everyone and nothing seems to happen, depression sinks in.

 5. Acceptance- At the point where you now become comfortable with the oncoming reality and make active, positive steps to prepare for it. 

Voltaire

"God is a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere."