by

John Wright

During this month of September 2006, the pope spoke about comments made ages ago about the militaristic component of the religion Islam. The response from Islamic militants in the Middle East verified the truth of the pope’s secondhand comments. Instant threats of death and jihad against the pope and the Catholic Church, indeed against all of Christianity, were made with no hesitation. I, for one, am tired of the bullshit. Still, my reasoning side requires me to consider historical causes, possible consequences and undesirable future scenarios if we don’t get this problem under control.

What is the problem? The problem is like the many-headed hydra. There is no obvious and straightforward single problem. There is a multiplicity of serious problems between Western cultures and the Middle East, now and in the past, … indeed even in the Far East regarding Islam and other cultural differences. Trying to make sense out of this mess is quite complicated, and then, one risks simply defining a stupid and complex set of realities without being able to identify or promote fair and workable solutions to aid our planet and our many cultures long term.

I will promote a thesis now that you will have read in my book Destiny. People simply repeat the mistakes of their ancestors because they insist on looking backward in time to define themselves in terms of their ancestors. It is and has always been a very stupid behavior, culturally, governmentally, religiously, and in business and other personal relationships. The amount of real and currently useful wisdom passed to us from our past is, I am certain, less than one thousandth of one percent of all that has been recorded and allowed to affect our lives now. In short, humans do not characteristically look forward, based on todays and earlier useful knowledge, to decide what we will be now and what we will become as a species.

So, cutting to the chase, the thesis defines a single problem that leads to the complex mess of problems I mentioned above. If you don’t start at the right place with the right questions you will never get useful, effective or correct long-term answers. That is where we are and where we have been in our past. Our most enlightened statesmen, church leaders and business people have struggled valiantly to cause our various cultures to live with respect for each other and to appreciate our differences. Our least enlightened statesmen, church leaders and business people have run roughshod all over any group that is different and conquerable. Our common people everywhere are so terminally ignorant, as in being incapable of learning anything beyond the mundane, that they have nothing useful to add at any time.

Thus, you can see that the issue has nothing to do with real Gods or faiths grounded in reality. When we strip the cloak of religion from the threats of the Islamics and the faith proclamations of our "Christian" leaders what we find is the old enemy of progress … lust for power. This means there is no solution until there is no lust for power at the expense of other people, even in one’s own country. As you will recall from Destiny, the only way that will happen is through genetic engineering to create a level mental playing field across all humanity, leading to shared and widely distributed power.

The obvious greed that accompanies the lust for power has created a disaster for us environmentally with global warming, and earlier as well as now with many forms of pollution. The continuous growth in global population accompanied with greater petroleum consumption is a guarantee that our cultures will perish and our environment decline to halt the cancer that humanity has become. Thus, we have one simple choice. We either stop and reverse our population growth and use alternative energy or we will perish. If we fail to harness genetic engineering to enhance us mentally we will later repeat the mistakes that have brought us to our current crisis, until we no longer have fuel to burn or until our planet is no longer habitable by mammals.

In the interim, is it not time to lower the boom on our leaders in business and government to stop our dependence on foreign oil? Is it now time to undermine the stupid cultures that survive primarily through petroleum dollars, and the religions, such as they are, that are found within those regions? Yes. We have beaten our heads against the concrete wall long enough. It really will feel good when we stop.

So, what about the Gordian Knot? Is it real? No. What is real is the fact that no one in power speaks to the reality of my thoughts, for such action would not serve their immediate selfish interests. Simply understand the near identity of behaviors of almost all the leaders in all the countries from our distant past to our present, and you will then understand why we are where we are, and why our Industrial Revolution signaled our likely demise from environmental abuse.

I hope I am wrong.