Sometime about 8,000 years ago or earlier some humans ceased a hunter-gatherer way of life and promoted living in settled communities with designated worship sites apart from others not associated in their minds as “one of them”. Later these were replaced by larger and larger temples for worship of the god or gods of their imaginations which were thought to have the interest of the members of a group as its priority since these were the very people who “believed” in the particular god or gods they  prayed to and who performed the rituals to flatter, gratify and coerce them (and the angels and fairies and other imagined helpers to them) to take their side on matters. Probably, this odd and foolish practice was begun by someone’s brain asking the question: Can I have a better life? The “I” or “Self” asking it is at the center of such a thought. Self-centered thought was activated at fixed locations and envy was born into the world. Which immediately was followed by the question:  “How can I accomplish a better life?” Envy proliferates like a wildfire. Human brains changed. Had to. And with it was built a mentally drawn world of problems. 

Schools were thought up as a need in this new world to develop children into problem solvers instead of playful wild monkeys. Solving problems brought the political world into fashion. Had to. Leaders and planners of this “progressive” scheme had to be designated as had been the imagined gods for better living by the community. So, it was thought that it would be most advantageous to have the imagined gods and their helpers appoint the political leaders for the community. This practice is so widespread and entrenched in thought it has become what is called and understood to be “natural” when it is anything but natural. Political power and religious power on Earth are both products of self-centered thinking and, therefore, quite unnatural. The important thing to find out is that self center is not you, is not even existent. Do you understand that? 

The term “human nature” is bandied about in schools everywhere though it has no legitimate meaning at all.  Better it would be to call what is going on here the nature of chaotic thinking. All historical study is really the study of self-centered thinking. It is so chaotic it is even labeled to be “Freedom” by the intelligentsia. It has to be the history of false freedom and false progress. But, understandably, is the result of a prideful curiosity. Let us worship ourselves is a pleasurable idea. Even though that history turns out to be abundantly humiliating! History of every form of human suffering. 

One argument commonly advanced in defense of what has been labeled human nature is the one that goes “every combat soldier under fire on a battlefield will pray to the God we taught him to pray to!” That is supposed to prove everybody who hears the message is really a Christian. In actuality, that argument begs the question. Only consider the life of any such poor soldier under fire at the moment and the prayer amounts to “Can I have better way of life?” So our children are still asking the question thousands of years after problem solving on behalf of a designated portion of humanity, with its separate flag, arose because it has definitely not worked to provide a better way of life. In fact, each soldier is most likely to call out “Mama?” That cry is at the heart of the passion in the writer which writes this piece today. “Mama? Are you there?”

Nobody speaks for the whole of humanity. Every attempt at improving life for fewer than all has created more problems. In awhile, people in everyone of these fixed communities were flooded with problems. More and more effort to solve them eventually led to incursions upon neighboring peoples and brought warfare, the ultimate chaos. People invented more and more ways to try and force “other” people, viewed as “enemies”, to provide a better way of life to them. Conquest became a justified activity until, ultimately, it became settled in human thought as a duty owed to gods who instructed them in warfare in their imaginations and instructed them in the educating of their children to make of them killers and masters of “other” conquered humans. Politicians and church personnel preach that to suffer as we do is our fate as proof of our needing them to continue to lead us. Where? Belief got us into this mess and the belief we cannot do any better while living on Earth as humans is all that is keeping us there. Another term for that”belief” is fear.

Crucial to the development and growth of the mess we are in today was the asking initially of “How can I have a better world”. And the one, if not the only, answer being “We must call on a Greater Power” to show us the way to have a better life because we do not know how. In this manner what can be called the true Satan came to be leader of human activity on Earth. A true God or Creative force is the champion of all or none at all of its creation. That goes without saying. Nature, including its humans, is in balance. Cease praying for anything better and find the humility to say : ”Thank You for a balanced world!” What follows that will astound.

Satan is the name for the giver of better ways. People pray to Satan using names like “Heavenly Father”.  In his great song “With God On Our Side” a very young Bob Dylan pointed out this insanity worldwide. In his way, a child of the time simply pointed out to everyone the “Emperor” is naked in a brilliant song. Hans Christian Anderson had made a children’s story ages before to warn of the terrible spell the adults had fallen under. The story has been translated into over 100 languages worldwide. As a child I heard the story, liked it very much, but what can a kid do to change what is happening among grownups? God’s on our side is a complete contradiction. Bob Dylan also wrote words that caused an uproar of feeling in his beloved song, “Blowing In The Wind”. The answer, he sings, is unfolding for us all, together, as one, with no effort on our part. It is done. We gotta find the way inside ourselves, friends, where the true creation of each human has taken place already, or not at all. Satan, the giver of better ways, completely an illusion, is a very powerful fact now, and ain’t gonna change its stripes. Can I have a better life? is a confession of “confusion”. Confusion makes only more confusion.

Wouldn’t it be strange to hear a human voice ask, “How can I help somebody else have a better life”? Actually, a facet of the way humans live that is mostly ignored is how obvious it is that within every grouping of man that excludes anybody there almost immediately arises conflict. It grows, too. Americans, for example, do horrible things to each other. It is the same for all other groupings. Insiders in the development and operation of a hospital feud and deceive and play cutthroat with their co-workers. The way of self-centered gratification fails in all its attempts. Still it is done as if mandated by God or human nature. It can be ended. Seeing will end it.