Understanding the Appeal of Apocalyptic and other Doom’s Day Styled Predictions and Prophecies

Invariably hardly a month goes by here on ATS without some prediction for a false flag, or human race extinction level event, or other major calamity being visited on earth and human kind.

Many critical minded members and skeptics often scratch their heads and fail to quite understand and or consistently question why these dire and typically baseless predictions make the ATS Home Page, garner hundreds of flags and generate dozens and dozens of pages of content.

Often based on the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence and unsubstantiated suppositions, a clever YouTube Video, alternative media blog or article, or new member claiming inside information, or some prophetic dream prompt these discussions, and debates that 99.9% of the time have no real merit to them and never transpire.

Tempers sometimes flare between the skeptics and believers, often as a result of skeptics just not being able to understand why the believers do believe based on such flimsy evidence and far fetched outcomes being forecast.

The big question in most skeptics minds is how could anyone believe or even want to believe such far fetched outcomes based off of such limited and unsubstantiated often entirely uninvestigated information.

It’s to why so many people want to believe and why they often develop the near impenetrable wall that they cocoon their beliefs in I want to address.

The reasons are simpler than you might think.

Religion the Carrot and the Stick

Most of the world’s most popular religions have as and there base an apocalyptical construct.

Though it varies from religion to religion, it’s all designed to work on the predominant Carrot and Stick approach that those who seek or wield power tend to always employ.

A carrot of heavenly rewards is offered for those so inclined to jump for it, but a stick of an apocalyptic end of unimaginable horrors is used to keep people jumping for that carrot.

Of course any leader who understands psychology and the basic principles of the Carrot and the Stick knows that the typically the Carrot is something you want to keep just beyond the grasp of those jumping for it.

Since the Carrot is an elusive reward, that the wise or independent might get tired of jumping for, the stick becomes a critical part of the process.

Fail to keep jumping and meet your doom.

It’s a simple premise; fail to follow the edicts and decrees, and live by the base constructs put forward and humanity will suffer a horrible retribution and punishment as a result.

However because both Religion and the States that often employ the religion to political ends set standards so high so they never have to deliver the actual carrot, so the fear of the stick remains constant and palpable.

So understanding that apocalyptic doom and gloom ends are a central part to the world’s main religions and are indoctrinated into people from early childhood on with powerful psychological manipulations plays a pivotal role in many people’s propensity to subscribe to, doom and gloom prophecies and predictions.

The Militant Authoritarian State and Tyrannies

Historians and scholars have found that the more militarized and authoritarian the State becomes the more dooms day and apocalyptical prophecies and predictions become prevalent.

The reasons are sound and numerous, beginning with the fact that the militarized state often uses fear as a pretext to justify war.

Some other nation or religion wants to remove yours from the face of the earth. A doomsday of a kind in it's own rite.

So things like preemptive war, and our present war on terror all feed into the fear that is being induced by the state.

In reverse order the State seeks to always maintain a high level of fear, in order to then justify employing the best defense is a good offence mindset and strategies, giving the pretext for the rise of the militant state that aggressively seeks out and attempts to destroy or subdue any and all states or religions that the State covets its resources and lands.

Often fear of the enemy state or religion is manufactured on deliberately false constructs and manipulations and machinations to sell the people on the need for such hostile and violent policies.

However very often what the State then tasks its citizens and soldiers to do, is actually contrary to both the edicts of the religion of the masses, and the actual premises the state was built upon itself.

The ending result is people now actively living in conflict with the edicts of their religion and the founding principles of the state, then fear that their God will punish them for not adhering to the principles of their religion and an apocalyptical punishment is inevitable.

While some will make endless excuses for the militant action of the state hoping that by convincing others that God actually approves of his edicts and rules being broken in this individual case, deep down even many of those people fear that God will still punish them with an apocalyptical fate, even if it’s just the States enemies conquering their State.

Meanwhile while the State employs more and more laws to enforce and compel people to support the militant state, people submitting out of fear to the power of the state, also fear they are making the wrong moral choice, and will likewise be punished with an apocalyptical end as a result.

An apocalyptical end that becomes much more realistic in part because militant states who expand relentlessly through war, always tend to over extend, bankrupt themselves and suffer collapse leaving their citizens and the mercies of their enemies and without competent leadership and means for the now shrinking and collapsing empire and nation to defend and sustain itself.

Fears Death and Taxation

Let’s face it, we all know we are going to die one day, our mortality in a temporal world in the constant process of decay and rebirth is a given.

We all naturally would like to live to become old and gray and die peacefully surrounded by loved ones and the rewards of having lived a long and productive good life.

That’s a prospect that at times seems all to wishful when it comes to our war torn world of scarcity, war and indifference, cruelty and States that literally pursue those horrors as an outcome of their policies and systems they instill and the heavy taxation of people’s fruits and labor to that end.

While religion offers the illusion of some rewards primarily after death, based on accepting some very simple, many would say primitive and superstitious notions about the nature of our life and the universe, even most believers in their quiet and uncertain moments don’t know what to believe when it comes to the temporal nature of our existence and the vastness of the seemingly precarious universe we dwell in.

A universe so unknown and so uncharted it literally then becomes full of infinite and random possibilities that once you step outside of the faith based box of simple religious explanations and constructs for it, then open the door to unlimited imagination.

Fears are often imagined and rarely turn out as people envision, but become much harder to control on a world living in a state, where the Government, Media, and Religion are all using fear as a stick in the Carrot and Stick based performance system that they govern, manipulate and some would say enslave the masses through.

The Stick always seems more real than the Carrot as a result. The possibility of an untimely death or horrible end always seems just a heartbeat away as a result.

Drama and Poverty, Bread and Circuses

Since Roman Times we all know people love their bread and circuses, their day time soaps, their gladiatorial sports, their idols and heroes, pageantry and pomp and circumstance and viewing the lives of others that seem so much richer, exciting, meaningful and fuller.

Often poverty or a lack of means, the responsibility of a inadequate paying job, and the duties to spouse, children, home, family and friends, prevent most of us from coming anywhere close to living out our dreams.

So we take exceptional interest in those Fairy Tale weddings between royals, the vagaries and brutality of war, the duplicity and intrigue of politics and the mystical and fantastical notions of religion, to in essence make a dull life more exciting.

Life that in many ways passes us by as we live out staid, conservative existences, based on limited means and opportunities where our dreams are very much alive but our fears of never realizing them remain ever palpable and present.

So we embrace the free things that the state provides or we can provide ourselves to create dramas where we too are now on the stage, we too are living in that glorified or frightful moment, we too have finally become relevant, even if that relevance is the notion that someone or something would like to take what little bit we do have and enjoy away from us in one awful moment or act.

In that last construct, suddenly our lives become something precious again, something to celebrate, something of real value, as nothing makes a person feel more alive than when they are on that precipice of death.

In Conclusion

While a host of things above not often considered or discussed make up the basis for the belief in doomsday and Apocalyptic predictions and prophecies the one thing not likely to deter people from believing in them is skepticism or scorn.

The reasons and the temptation are ingrained and powerful and the circular logic often employed by the religious minded as part of faith based systems can’t easily, often or ever be defeated, with history and logic and socio economic and political reasons.

People who subscribe to these predictions and prophecies likely can’t ever be deterred from entertaining them for those reasons.

Yet those of us who don’t subscribe to them, would be well served, to at least ourselves understand the powerful appeal they have to so many people, so we can understand what many won’t, can’t and don’t want to.

After all knowledge is power.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

Many critical minded members and skeptics often scratch their heads and fail to quite understand and or consistently question why these dire and typically baseless predictions make the ATS Home Page, garner hundreds of flags and generate dozens and dozens of pages of content.

This is an area I often wondered about myself Proto, I am one those highly skeptical people who often scratch my head and roll my eyes.

Not a good idea to live your life on the edge of gloom and doom, makes it very hard to get on with your daily life I would imagine. I choose not to live in fear.

You ask the question why these type of threads are posted over and over, well I have come to the conclusion it's because they simply can.

There are so many important real things going on in the world today and it seems we are being blitzed with this type of nonsense, it could well be a way not to deal with reality.

Great thread Proto.

S&F

reply to post by Aquarius1


Thanks my friend, the funny thing is in a world where many believe that the power of positive visualization is real and strong, the opposite some would say holds equally true.

Are people well served by dwelling on the negatives and bad outcomes and gravitating towards them.

Are they in essence helping bad outcomes come about, not in relation to such predictions, but the world in general, by having so little hope and faith in a positive future and events, and to that end putting presumable less effort towards them.

Thanks for sharing those great thoughts.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


I have only skimmed your opening post.
Proto,people love to gossip about anything,
any topic and everybody.Some of the "doom
and gloom","police state" and other E.L.E.s
will eventually happen,we just don't know when.

Starred and flagged...

reply to post by mamabeth


Thanks for sharing that Mamabeth, and Happy Mothers Day too by the way.

In a world of infinite possibilities everything and anything is bound to happen sooner or later.

You are right that people do love to gossip.

Thanks for posting.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

Thanks Proto. Once again a Great Post. l mean no disrespect to anybody but sometimes l look on the boards here and can't believe some of the things l read.The manipulation "carrot and stick" by religion, education and governments is so obvious l find myself slapping my head so many times l feel l should change my avatar to slaphead. Fear is the invisible weapon that is being used on us and has been for centuries, plus divide and rule, be it countries, cultures, religions, right down to neighbours and divisions in families. What we need to do is start thinking for ourselves instead of letting others do our thinking for us. Knowledge is power but a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. l can't stress enough "always do research" A good place to start on ATS is "All roads lead to Rome". Peace and love starchild.

reply to post by star child


I couldn't agree more, it's the fear that drives society that so robs of us true happiness and a real shot at a quality of life.

I think most of us suspect we are mere play things dancing on the invisible strings of unseen and unnamed puppet masters that guide and control society, and maybe it's that supreme fear of the unknown and not knowing precisely who they are, or what their long term agendas and goals are that make us so frightened and feel so powerless and want to speculate on their every future move as it might pertain to us and effect us.

Yet it really does put us on tailspin of fear and hopelessness that keeps most of us from ever contemplating having the ability to master our own destinies let alone have an impact in changing the course of our world and effecting it to that end.

In a lot of ways it really is a form of psychological warfare that the Government, Religion, and the Elite visit on us, and sadly we do so often to one another, simply to create drama, garner attention, or to be seen as right.

I hope one day as a species gifted with the intelligence of reason, language and opposable thumbs will learn to master our individual emotions, and fears and focus on the positive and individually and proactively rising to the challenges of life and our world.

Remaining the optimist in such an atmosphere of pessimism isn't easy, but I suspect that above all things holds the key to working towards a better and brighter tomorrow.

Thanks for joining in my friend.

reply to post by Protoplasmic Traveler

I couldn't agree more, it's the fear that drives society that so robs of us true happiness and a real shot at a quality of life.

As long as that is the case there will be no real happiness or quality of life for some.

"There is nothing to fear except fear itself"

These scenarios do not need to play out in our reality, assuming that they will insures their occurrence.

It is said that prayer and positive thought can heal, why not positive thought for humanity, it is amazing what would happen if we were all on the same page.

reply to post by Aquarius1


Interestingly enough the media, government and religion often do manage to keep far too many of us on the same page, a fearful and often angry page where we are often extolled to be prepared for a vigilant for the worst, and cautioned that while the Government knows that things are far from ideal, that they are working on it, but it will likely take a good long time before positive effects are realized.

Then they turn around and hand out some cash to corporations, who seldom if ever invest it into the American economy and jobs as a means to convince of their good intent, while most of us know this isn't going to help at all.

So in a lot of ways they operate on the out of the frying pan and into the fire principle, sure things might not be great but Al Queda hasn't blown up your shopping mall, things could be a lot worse you know.

They have a funny way of making us want to feel lucky for what we do have, by promoting the idea that things could be so much worse.

So rather than the government and people focusing on making things so much better, they simply focus on marginally making sure things don't get so much worse.

Yet they typically gradually do get worse through this disengenous process, that at the end of the day leads to most of us thinking negatively and fearing the future getting worse.

Robbed of confidence and any clear sane direction from our leaders, most of us sit around like bumps on a log waiting for and speculating when the end will arrive, rather than taking matters into our own hands to make a better tomorrow a reality.

In this fashion most of the entrepanurial spirit that once made America the envy of the world has all but dissapeared, as people fear their efforts will add up to not, in a government and corporate dominated landscape that stacks the playing field and plays on and to our fears.

Hope and positive thinking that leads to positive action is in short supply, and more than anything that is what's desperately needed right now.

Thanks my friend.

Star and Flag as usual, fear is one of the greatest tools used for control.

Religion is the opiate of the masses that they can pray for a better future.

The bread and circuses are the "escape" that is now the vast restaurant chains
all over america, and the trillions of dollars spent globally on sports.

Bernays explains how the media would be tied into all of this.

Bernays - Propaganda [book]

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.

Strings attached to all the points of control, fear, religion, food, entertainments,
and the MSM plays these strings like a symphony by design.

reply to post by Ex_MislTech


Great link from Bernay's Propaganda book, and it's so true how we really are molded through limited choices that others who control the resources, industry, media, infrastructure and religion provide to us.

Just enough choices to provide the illusion of freedom but typically only choices that serve the elite and the world as they would like it to be.

Great post.

Thanks for joining in.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

Since the Carrot is an elusive reward, that the wise or independent might get tired of jumping for, the stick becomes a critical part of the process.

IMHO there is one truth that can solve this problem. think about this. it depends how you look.

1. first way : you are tired of jumping , then you decide not to jump then ( as you say ) the stick comes into the play. then you get more angry because you don't like it. as you are getting more sticks more uncomfortable you get.you decide to hate the one (god) who is using the stick. ( by religious expressions you get mislead )

2. second way : you believe that this world has one basis of creation . you like to be treat as the creator wants . you know that he is the one who has the power to create and rule. you try to be in the way he shows you. you know that you have been created from nothing . you know that you can not be him . you are just created. then you decide to get near him as much as you can.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

However because both Religion and the States that often employ the religion to political ends set standards so high so they never have to deliver the actual carrot, so the fear of the stick remains constant and palpable.

should states provide m the carrot ? or it is me who should jump ?
how do you say that religion fails to provide the carrot ?

The ending result is people now actively living in conflict with the edicts of their religion and the founding principles of the state, then fear that their God will punish them for not adhering to the principles of their religion and an apocalyptical punishment is inevitable.

this is a result of secularism . as they say there is no way for religion into the state Judaical and Executive systems.

God will still punish them with an apocalyptical fate, even if it’s just the States enemies conquering their State.

god lets us defend ourselves when we are being conquered. it is not logical to sit down and do nothing.

Meanwhile while the State employs more and more laws to enforce and compel people to support the militant state, people submitting out of fear to the power of the state, also fear they are making the wrong moral choice, and will likewise be punished with an apocalyptical end as a result.

god created us to test us and see what we do and he will give us as much as we deserve. I think that this is one of the tests he is taking of the American people. it is a dilemma : do you believe in your religion or in your govt ?

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


Very astute post.

Buddhism, while it has its positives, is nothing more than finding a way out of this "carrot and stick" cycle. By removing human desires from your mindset you alleviate suffering. Suffering is, in essence, the pain of either never actually getting that carrot, ore repeatedly receiving the stick. You can choose to do neither, and move completely away from it. If the stick is taken to you, you can choose to absorb the blows and withdraw.

While it does have its strong points, it ignores that which makes me human. Another tenet of Buddhism is that we are here to live an experience. However, you cannot live the experience meant for you if you choose to withdraw. In order to live our your destiny you must embrace the carrot and the stick, to at least some degree. The purpose of life is experiential. To avoid it is to make it meaningless.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler


I think you are over analyzing it. And I rarely say that as I love to analyze.

Doom is always just a heart beat away for any animal on the planet. The lion waiting in the bush on the trail ahead, the car speeding down the street towards you, viruses, bacteria, brutal leaders, etc. Clearly animals who learn to be vigilant have a better chance of surviving, and thus passing on their genes.

All living things have their form of vigilance. Human beings just have the added feature of being able to be highly creative with it and imagine events that have never happened. Which also is an advantage. We dont HAVE to rely only on past experience, we can project too.

I think its foolish to blame other people for what nature (or God if you dont believe in evolution) has clearly instilled in us.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


I think that being human has lots of limits with itself. we should accept that we are not god - we can not act as we will , some times we don't have much choices to make , we are poisoned in time and place , we live very shortly , we will die ....

whether we accept these facts or not it is what it is. we were created and god told us where we should go.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Great post my friend. You are quite correct Masters in the Eastern sense of the word tend to strongly believe the path to self Master is through mastering your own desires and to stop coveting earthly rewards.

While many do take that to the extreme, of piety, celibacy, giving up all worldy goods, even speech in the extremes, and even self mumification in the most extreme, not being a slave to your desires, doesn't mean you still can't enjoy those things that you enjoy.

Rather it becomes more about to what extent you will go to obtain the things you enjoy. Will you lie, will you cheat, will you steal, harm or murder, maybe stay in a bad relationship where those things are provided for you in exchange?

Or will you recognize that moderation in your wants and desires to accepting them only in ways and terms that meet your own code should be the governing force.

I think that's half the battle right there. The moderation that comes from self discipline.

The stick is always present and you can only withdraw so far, and rarely completely out of it's range. Someone always has one to yield and I agree it's all about absorbing the blows.

Oddly enough I had a very disturbing dream recently that would have put Hollywood to shame when a massive alien invasion of dozens of different races were sent to eradicate humanity and repopulate the earth with their own societies and religions.

Every human being in the dream was killed except one, guess who? Me!

I have to tell you it was against all odds, but at one point in the dream when I couldn't quite believe my dumb luck in escaping moment after moment and situation after situation where my fellow humans were all slaughtered, I reminded myself, that as frightened as I was, that it was foolish, that I would always find a way to survive.

So learning to absorb those blows but still have faith in yourself is in many ways what it is all about, and that primarily to me anyway seems to be all about mastering not just my desires but my fears.

Thanks for joining in my friend, great post.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

....Are people well served by dwelling on the negatives and bad outcomes and gravitating towards them.

Are they in essence helping bad outcomes come about, not in relation to such predictions, but the world in general, by having so little hope and faith in a positive future and events, and to that end putting presumable less effort towards them.....

An interesting and thought provoking thread as usual Proto. I was just getting bored and looking for another thread when I saw your message. - - great timing!

This particular paragraph brings to mind something my spouse and I noticed just after the election when Bush Jr beat Al Gore.

Within a week of taking office the media was blaming Bush for a recession. It was like the media WANTED to induce a recession and guess what - they did!

We know doom and gloom especially from respected media outlets can influence "consumer confidence" This is completely different than the real economic factors, Reagan era Leveraged buyouts, Clinton era changes in banking laws, WTO, NAFTA and CAFTA but it can certainly adjust the "timing" of the economic events at least in the eyes of the general population.

We all know the government is expert at lying with statistics. for example:

The Real Unemployment Statistics
Posted by ADmin on September 6th, 2009

On Friday, the Labor Department released it’s monthly unemployment report, which stated that the unemployment rate rose to 9.7% in August. If you consider marginally attached workers, the percentage is much higher at 16.8%. You can find all of the statistics here. Those are depression era numbers, which the mainstream media refuses to publish or even acknowledge.

9.7% is the U3 percentage, 16.8% is the U6 percentage, and according to Shadow Stats, the percentage of the population that is unemployed is over 21%... www.unelected.org...

And from ShadowStats:

Indications of Serious Error in Current Government Economic Reporting

This Reporting/Market Focus looks at headline numbers from two key economic reports — monthly statistics that excite or roil the financial markets — and subsequent revisions to those series that suggest, at best, serious flaws in the government’s initial reporting of retail sales and nonfarm payroll employment.

Simply put, recent monthly headline numbers have tended to be overstated, as indicated by subsequent, massive downside revisions to the prior months’ reporting. I use the term "massive," because the revisions frequently are larger than those that would be suggested by the government’s published 90% and 95% confidence intervals. I use the term "overstated," because the nature of the revisions usually is to revise prior reporting downward. Such has the effect of allowing stronger reporting in the current month than would have been possible based on original reporting. It also means that the prior month’s headline number was overstated by the amount of the relative downward revision..... www.shadowstats.com...

So I would say yes our attitude as a collective group can influence reality and TPTB use it frequently to "fine tune" the time of events to match their plans.

For example If we all believed China was an Evil Empire who made shoddy products with forced slave labor and poisonous material, wouldn't that change buying habits and perhaps bring a lot of pressure on D.C. to close the borders?


As far as the Doom & Gloom here at ATS, I think you are seeing a bit of "ghost stories around the campfire" too.

Also people sense something is not quite right in this country. They may not know WHAT is wrong but they do know SOMETHING is wrong and this gives rise to various "theories"

On the bright side, I have been absolutely floored by the number of people who are becoming knowledgeable. I just had dinner last night with two perfect strangers, I do not even know their names, and we discussed Mises!!!

Is this an upside to the Doom & Glooming? I think so.

Originally posted by Illusionsaregrander
reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

 

I think you are over analyzing it. And I rarely say that as I love to analyze.

Doom is always just a heart beat away for any animal on the planet. The lion waiting in the bush on the trail ahead, the car speeding down the street towards you, viruses, bacteria, brutal leaders, etc. Clearly animals who learn to be vigilant have a better chance of surviving, and thus passing on their genes.

All living things have their form of vigilance. Human beings just have the added feature of being able to be highly creative with it and imagine events that have never happened. Which also is an advantage. We dont HAVE to rely only on past experience, we can project too.

I think its foolish to blame other people for what nature (or God if you dont believe in evolution) has clearly instilled in us.

edit on 8-5-2011 by Illusionsaregrander because: (no reason given)

I don't believe nature or God has instilled these things in us, but society and religions ruled and used by men to manipulate us with these things.

While the religious are not likely to abandon notions of God as put forward in their religions, some would say they would be well served to revisit the more circumspect aspects of an all powerful perfect creator, making something so imperfect that rather than correct his mistake, seems to enjoy lording over his creation as a mistake, with the inevitible promise that he will correct it by destroying what he created to begin with.

These things weren't embraced willingly by the masses when they were first introduced, rather they were for the most part instilled by the sword and those millions of first nations people who wouldn't subscribe to them put to the sword and eliminated, as these constructs were gradually made fixtures of familiar and state society over centuries of repitition and powerful and wealthy institutions that simply would not go away and not stop spinning the yarns.

I don't feel I have over annalyzed because the reality is these are the things that are at the base of doom and gloom prophecies, religion, overly militant and authoritarian tyranical states, fear and a love of high drama.

When something as familiar as our present religious constructs become so ingrained in a society, it does get very hard to see beyond them, especially when they offer that vague promise of heavenly rewards or infernal punishments for not subscribing to them as well as the peer pressure of the masses.

No God invented and propigated these things though, just men, searching for power, and control, fame and glory and power.

reply to post by ProtoplasmicTraveler

A universe so unknown and so uncharted it literally then becomes full of infinite and random possibilities that once you step outside of the faith based box of simple religious explanations and constructs for it, then open the door to unlimited imagination.

religion has nothing to do with imaginations. does it ? tell me , please.

Fears are often imagined and rarely turn out as people envision, but become much harder to control on a world living in a state, where the Government, Media, and Religion are all using fear as a stick in the Carrot and Stick based performance system that they govern, manipulate and some would say enslave the masses through.

as we hear about the stick we hear about how merciful the god is.

I am not going to debate it any more because may be you don't like it.
I think generally you are saying that we are forced in this world and that we are suffering the lack of free will.
I think it depends on how you look at it . most of the choices we make define new limitations for us and it is because human race has many limitations.

thank you for your beautiful post. I enjoy reading this posts a lot.

reply to post by hmdphantom


Honestly my friend, my take on life and the universe isn't bound or even remotely influenced by books of people who lived thousands of years ago, creating constructs for society to govern itself by, by stating an all powerful being wanted them to live in those prescribed ways.

Judaism, Christianity and Islam was spread violently, not peacefully.

Go to a hotel room and the Bible that is there is courtesy of the Gideons.

Yet the truth is I would be impressed if an all powerful God made a book full of his words appear magically in front of me.

I would be wow, where did that book come from, hey who ever sent it, signed it God, cooool!

To some that is blasphemy but to me it is just common sense.

There is absolutely no evidence this God exists beyond man made devices, and men insisting it does, often violently.

Could there be a creator, one all powerful entity that made everything we see here and in the heavens? It's possible, but the world's religions don't capture that in anything but a self serving way for the states that subscribe to them and the masses enslaved to them.

I look at it this way, as a father, the one thing I want is for my children to learn to make good decisions on their own, that lead to their own happiness and growth in life.

I don't feel compelled to give my adult children a book that says and Dad says when ordering pizza always get the plain tomatoe and cheese on a thin crust.

Or for them to consult with me on every decision or pray to me for guidance.

So to me, it's really a system for people who just don't want to grow up, crave a father figure, and some absolution for their bad and or failed choices in life to ease their concious.

These religions have kept the world at war for two thousand years now, with each one, believing ultimately those wars will result in the elimination of everyone but those who believe as they do based on one of a few books that are thousands of years old too.

I don't call those books a solution, I call them the problem.

Thanks.