Earth's Heart in a Cage

[helen99]

The version of the new testament that I read long ago says that one and only one crime will never be forgiven: blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

What the heck IS "blasphemy of the holy spirit", I wondered when I read it. Surely it's not some pickled old bum cursing god, country, and destiny.

I think I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is now. Control and domination of the Life Force, control of the Love that binds matter together, control of the planet's magnetic poles, grids, and heart, attempting to place the Earth's heart in a cage. Here are some good candidates:

Patenting and owning of genetic code;
Nuclear detonation (reversing of the strong force, which amounts to scattering love and consciousness);
Genetic engineering - creating life forms without love - amounts to rape and the creation of orcs;
Ownership of life forms, land, water, or air with intent to exploit;
Changing the planet's ice caps and weather patterns with intent to exploit;
Desecrating the earth's polar and equator regions with intent to exploit;

Comments

[helen99.livejournal.com]

In keeping with a new years' resolution to focus more on what I want than on what I don't want:

I want the perpetrators of these actions to wake up and see that it is wrong, and let it all go.
If I am one of the perps, I want to be able to stop adding to the problem.
I want the poles to return back to their normal, impenetrable 80 below, miles thick, unvisited-by-humans ice precipices. There has to be something like that for the spiritual/mental/physical health of the planet.
I want all the rainforests to come back.
I want all existing GMOs to mutate into something real and harmless, and for more to stop being created.
I want the air, land, oceans, lakes, and rivers to be clear, clean, and free.
I want all patents for genetic material to be revoked.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Hah! I'm sure someone would ask me, "Well, isn't abortion like that"?

NO. pregnant girls are the embodiment of the Shekinah, the White Buffalo Calf Woman, the Holy Spirit. Abortion happens because they are running in terror from the dominators who would control the life force, and who would enslave, torture, punish mercilessly, and inflict physical and mental harm because they became pregnant outside of control boundaries. They neither want that treatment themselves, nor do they want that treatment for their child. Bringing billions of unwanted people into the world - now THAT qualifies.

Yes, I'm being most horribly, mercilessly horrible today.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Ahm, so yes, that new year's resolution... er...
I want all to have the freedom to choose when, where, and if they create Life.

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

Married women get abortions, too, but for a whole different set of reasons:

They can't afford to have a child.

They know they'd do terrible things to the child if they ever became parents and choose to release the child to God before it is born.

The child would be born dead or permanently and terribly disabled.

They'd pass on a horrid defect to the child.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Your infininte wisdome becomes more infinite every day!

Ramblings

[blueeyesblazing.livejournal.com]

I'm not to keen on naming a technology, in and of itself (genetic engineering), as good or bad. I think genetically modified foods are of poor quality and may wreek havock on mother nature down the road, so this constitutes a misuse. A technology is a tool, in my opinion. A tool can be used with or without love.

As for blasphiming the Holly Spirit, I agree with the main thrust of your post. In the Christian stage of my journey, I figured this ment stiffling the spiritual experience of other people, or stiffling other people's interpretations of those experiences. I have no trouble with having opinions, expressing them or debating, but so often organized groups of people will stiffle the experiences of individuals by coercisan or just plain manipulation (maniulative people can be extrodinarily "nice"). This, and her'es another opinion, stems from a false notion of the group and the individual being in cloflict. This is faulty logic because a group is nothing more or less than a collection if individuals. Further, every individual is a part of a group, connected to larger systems. This idea is very "American" (as in how Americans have been tought to procieve our ideals) in it's feel... Socialist (and Communist, if you want ot go to that extream) ecconomies fail to realise that humans are already interconnected (thus making our resources interconnected), so there is no need to inforce a collective style of distributing resources. On the other side of the coin, there is not need to inforce individuality (consumerism, which is what people mistakenly call capitalism) is a system that ardently defends the individual (his/ her desires, no matter how constructive or destructive, frivolous or meaningful) regardless of how it effects the society at large (or the planet, as your post speaks about). Both ecconomic systems (and there is much more involved in this than the distribution of wealth and resources) work with a false and unthealthy principle. The first subverts the needs and potential of individuals for the good of the whole, while the second subverts the needs of the whole for the good of individuals.

Have I created a system that works on the premis that a group bennifits by bennifitting the individual and the individual bennifits by bennifitting the group? Nope. I don't have a solution to society's ills yet. LOL Wish I did, I'd freely share... as it would likely bennifit everyone including me. LOL

Re: Ramblings

[helen99.livejournal.com]

I knew you'd respond. You love this stuff!

[["In the Christian stage of my journey, I figured this meant stifling the spiritual experience of other people, or stifling other people's interpretations of those experiences"]]

Interesting take. I expect it means entirely different things to each person. It's pretty much "The Most Horrible Thing you can Think Of" (TM) LOL!

[["I have no trouble with having opinions, expressing them or debating, but so often organized groups of people will stiffle the experiences of individuals by coercisan or just plain manipulation (maniulative people can be extrodinarily "nice"). This, and here's another opinion, stems from a false notion of the group and the individual being in conflict. This is faulty logic because a group is nothing more or less than a collection of individuals. Further, every individual is a part of a group, connected to larger systems. "]]]

Yeah, it gets way to complicated to make blanket statements like I did above. Ignore me. I'm in a "mood" today (cackle)...

[[["This idea is very "American" (as in how Americans have been taught to procieve our ideals) in it's feel... Socialist (and Communist, if you want to go to that extreme) ecconomies fail to realise that humans are already interconnected (thus making our resources interconnected), so there is no need to inforce a collective style of distributing resources."]]]

I agree - I never could stand the idea of being a slave to a collective. I am not a hive entity...

Re: Ramblings

[blueeyesblazing.livejournal.com]

Interesting take. I expect it means entirely different things to each person. It's pretty much "The Most Horrible Thing you can Think Of" (TM) LOL!

True. I remember hearing a Catholic priest talk about a prophacy... the Third Secret of Fatima (I think). He said, "Think of the morst horrible think you can think of, and it will be worse."

At that point, he lost any credibility with me, but this gets beyond the realm of evidence or even faith and plunges right into naked unsubstanciated fear.

This most grievous of sins comes accross and being more bassed on intention than action... The idea that, if your intentions are right, your actions will fallow suit. I don't believe this to be true, nessessarily. The converse of this is that, if your intentions are wring, your actions will fallow the cource. Seems to me that the Spirt is not about physical action but what is in a person's heart. If some one stiffles the goodness (assumeing God is good, and I have my doubts about YHWH, but that's another story), they are stiffling the source of right actions and turning them onto a path of evil... I don't like thw word "evil" because it's too culturally loaded and nonspacific, but by "evil" I mean manevolance and or an end justifed the means philosophy.

Yeah, it gets way to complicated to make blanket statements like I did above. Ignore me. I'm in a "mood" today (cackle)...

Far be it for me to judge some one for being moody.

I agree - I never could stand the idea of being a slave to a collective. I am not a hive entity...

Neither is any other human being (even the extreamly sheepish). That's why totalitarian systems donnot work.

Re: Ramblings

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I'm not to keen on naming a technology, in and of itself (genetic engineering), as good or bad. I think genetically modified foods are of poor quality and may wreek havock on mother nature down the road, so this constitutes a misuse. A technology is a tool, in my opinion. A tool can be used with or without love.

I completely agree. Humans change the world around them, they have been doing so when they picked up the first piece of stone and used it to chip another piece of stone. From my own moral perspective, carving a stone, building a brick wall, breeding animals, genetically engineering animals, humans, or plants, drawing on a wall, and reshaping a world are all morally neutral. I strongly consider terraforming a dead planet to be a moral good, just as I consider genetic engineering that cure a disease (in people, animals, or plants), or building a house for someone. However, it is also very possible to use all of these technologies for immoral purposes, it's all a question of what you do with various technologies. Then again, I also do not consider "natural" or "unnatural" to be categories with any moral value at all. For me, increasing diversity is good, while decreasing it (especially in any permanent sense, like extinction) is deeply immoral.

Re: Ramblings

[blueeyesblazing.livejournal.com]

Then again, I also do not consider "natural" or "unnatural" to be categories with any moral value at all.

I agree and take this further. Nature is as nature does. Humans are natural. It is natual for humans to invent, sort, figure things out... and apparently be to be at least somewhat self destructive, but this may be because of the overpopulation (in terms of counties like China, for example since the population growth of the U.S. is now at 0, and this is with immigration). I do not make any distinction between nature and technology. Ususally by "natural" people mean "earth friendly" which is morally good in my opinion. By "unnatural" people tend to me either just plain beyond cultural values (having sex with a dead dog for example) and may or may not be wrong (or is just plain disgusting) or destructive to other nature, which I believe to be immoral. Okay, nature destroys itself all the time, part of life cycles. I get that, but I mean extream exploitive damage, a disregard for how things work to the point where the dammage does long term damage to an evnironmental system.

Re: Ramblings

[helen99.livejournal.com]

agreed, totally. My problem with it is, at this point I don't think the ethics (or lack thereof) can be divorced from the technology. For the most part, the Biotechs and other related corporations own the technology (and the lawyers, and the Government, and the UN, and the world bank and the military, etc.). It's this ownership that bugs me. Genetic material and governments (among other things) cannot be private property. Of course, you take that one step further and say that all private property is morally reprehensible. I remember disagreeing with that at some point. Now I'm not so sure. I guess it's a matter of where one draws the line. Also, I'm all in favor of erring on the side of caution when doing biotech of any kind.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on everything but one... genetic engineering. I'm even with you that all patents on genetic material should be revoked. But I think you're wrong when you say that genetic engineering is creating life forms without love, or that it amounts to rape and the creation of orcs. Granted, genetic engineers are human too, and many of them are indeed motivated by profit and greed. However, there are almost surely as many motivated by nobler goals, doing their work with love and compassion, such as those striving to use genetic engineering to cure disease. Ultimately, the underlying attitudes and the way that genetic engineering is approached... the researcher's relationship with their work, and their work's relationship with the planet, if you will... is what will determine the outcome, positive or negative.

Borrowing from the personal mythology of various individuals we know, my thoughts are drawn immediately to two individuals (whom I will not name here, but I believe you know them well enough to know who I am speaking of) who believe that, in past lives, they were the products of genetic engineering in order to create some sort of super-soldier. One had his genetic material taken from different species to make him, and the other was simply tailor-made. Neither was raised in what one could call a loving environment. But today, both are excellent individuals we count as friends. Even in those lives, I don't think you could fairly call either of them orcs. Genetic engineering may determine form, but it doesn't determine spirit. And I think it is a twisted spirit, far more than twisted bodies, which makes something an orc. Sadly, we've known more than our share of those as well.

"They were elves, once..."

[helen99.livejournal.com]

I think that a Genetically engineered being has the capability to mutate into something wonderful, beautiful, and real, and should be allowed and encouraged to do so. I don't think for an instant that now that they're here they should be destroyed, discriminated against, or relegated to lesser beings. I just don't want the practice to continue, period. Why? Because we don't know enough of the Big Picture (TM) to even begin to know the repercussions, and we will change things we don't wanna.

[jarandhel.livejournal.com]

That's possible, but by the same token neither does random mutation or evolution brought about through population pressures. Antibiotic resistant diseases, the so-called superbugs, are an excellent example of this... they were not created through genetic engineering, but have evolved to counter our superior ability to wipe them out with antibiotics. I can't support progress being stopped purely because we can't always see the consequences of it. I would support limiting the global impact of GMOs... making it so they can't cross-pollinate by growing them in contained environments, taking more time to study them in isolation and slowly introducing them to a more natural environment, things like that. But not stopping the work of engineering them entirely.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

We also don't know what will happen with anything else we do. Large-scale farming changed the climate in the Middle East thousands of years ago, and we have been making similarly big changes ever since. Genetic engineering is no different. All I ask is that people consider the consequences of their actions, avoid those problems that they can, and act for reasons beyond short-term greed. Beyond that, I'm all for genetic engineering. Much of how it is now being used is reprehensible and stupid (for example, engineering crops to be able to survive levels of toxins that nothing else can live in is both doomed and vile), but some of the changes are fascinating and wonderful. If humanity waited to "know the Big Picture (TM) to even begin to know the repercussions" then we wouldn't even have started farming, much less created the wonders of the industrial revolution or modern medicine (I for one, greatly prefer central heating, electric lights, abundant food, and both antibiotics and vaccines to the horrid alternatives people were forced to live with in the past).

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

Interesting. The one I remember being the only unforgivable sin from Catholic teaching was "despair". That's why suicide is a sin if you're not insane; you've despaired of God's master plan/ability to make things better.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Wow, really? I never heard that one before. I think suicide is harsh, not a sin. Daggone it, I miss [insert name here], and if he was here I'd kick his sorry ass for what he put people through.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

I generally assume that most suicides and attempts result from mental illness and are therefore not true 'sin', not that I really use that system anyway.

But I am sort of fond of the idea that despair, and giving up hope of things getting better, is a sin against Deity and hope and all that.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

While being drastically non-Christian, that's a sentiment I can definitely agree with. Although my own version would be "despairing of your own ability to makes things better".

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

What the heck IS "blasphemy of the holy spirit"

From context, it looks like it's something to do with seeing someone fighting against evil and saying that that fight against evil is itself evil. Kind of like when someone who is fighting for civil liberties and the Constitution is called un-American and an ally of the terrorists, only on a cosmic scale. "Control and domination of the Life Force" may be near it, or maybe denial of the goodness of life. Or denial of the goodness of what you don't understand.

On those occasions when I've heard that verse preached about, the preachers have said that if anyone is concerned with spiritual things or is worried that they might have committed the unforgivable sin, they haven't committed it. It's not so much that a person who has committed it couldn't be forgiven if they wanted to be, but that the person doesn't want to be forgiven. They've denied the goodness of the only being that offers that forgiveness.

[helen99.livejournal.com]

Hah! That's a pretty cool take on it.

Or when someone fights the court systems who are saying to a farmer, "your grain belongs to monsanto because they own its genetic code", and they are called terrorists. Or when someone tries to preserve the forest their family has been living in for generations, and they're called "insurgents" and shot.

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Looks like we all commit it just by existing in a First World country (unless you're Amish).

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

Of course, I'm assuming that guilt by association exists and that we're all tainted with it.

Greatest crime

[iliandriel.livejournal.com]

Funny how those who are guilty of doing those nasty things don't see how bad they are. Instead they focus on stuff such as what sexual preference one has, one's love life(i.e. did Clinton have sex with Monica), abortion, who marries whom and so forth. Sometimes I wonder how many choke on a gnat and swallow a camel especially among fundamental Christians.

Re: Greatest crime

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

Nah, it's just people gossiping instead of focusing on the important issues. It's not hypocrisy in most cases.