I don’t believe the people at Google are evil, but I do believe an evil monster lives within them…

• I don’t believe the Bible was written by God
• But I do believe it was inspired by God and written by humans
• I don’t believe there is a God…as depicted in the Sistine Chapel (i.e. the old man)
• But I do believe there is a god living inside us all that is bigger than us and we can’t understand it or describe it
• I don’t believe religion is OVERALL a force of good in this world
• But I do believe it was an ESSENTIAL (and inevitable) force of good in the past as our civilizations developed
• I don’t believe children should become religious
• But I do believe they should be a member of some kind of religion to give them a sense of a higher power
• I don’t believe in fables
• But I believe they are critical to all of us to give us direction, hope and bond us together
• I don’t believe prayer is to get points with the old man
• But I do believe it can help each of us
• I don’t believe in the Devil
• But I do believe it lies in the human heart ( — Matt Johnson)…including the religious…and the corporate

I believe the Bible contains a lot of nonsense. But I do believe it contains a lot of wisdom. For example:

Commandment #2: Though shall not worship false idols.

When I first was taught this commandment in school, I remember thinking, well duh, nobody these days believe those marble statues of antiquity such as the God of Love, the God of Famine, God of War, etc. are Gods, so this commandment is just an outdated bunch of nonsense. Or it is?

What about the God of Money and the God of Power? So many people in tech pursue these Gods, as they truly believe it is the way to show your ingenuity, provide for your family, provide your freedom, and get respect from your peers. They believe it is the way to live, without question. The problem is that it’s actually kind of true, especially in the global world we live in today. But they WORSHIP Money and Power and they are not aware of it. That means everything else is secondary. Things like balance, thinking about how this impacts people and our society, etc. The ultimate enabler is the stock market, it allows us to worship evil without realizing it.

Evil is literally the opposite of Live, the definition of which is:

1. Morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked

2. Harmful; injurious

So who is to blame for feeding the Evil meme? We’re all subscribing to these services, so we’re evil too, right? Whenever in doubt about such things, always start with those that have the most power. I have the opportunity to frequent a powerful all-male establishment that has many of these tech leaders as members. I asked them about this evil. They don’t disagree. But they do agree that there is nothing they can do about it because the stock market would fire them if they interfered with the machine…. and I understand their position. Although I don’t agree with it, I respect that they are playing at that level, and I’m not, so I’m probably missing something.

What am I missing? Maybe simply time? When we first settled the Wild Wild West, it was not for the faint hearted. It became mainstream and pretty fair over time like the rest of the country because individuals (humans) wanted it that way and worked hard for that. We had no choice, we’re humans living in a pretty good country. It’s obviously unrealistic to think that the West should have been as stable as the rest of the country right out of the box, and the World Wide Web is the same.

And so I hope we continue on that path, and new powerful forces don’t overwhelm us before it’s too late. Yes, the bible contains SOME wisdom, but not in its words only, we need to interpret what our human ancestors were warning us about. And by the way, they didn’t watch TV and social media posts, they had nothing else to do with their free time but think and connect with the real world around them. The forces of nature don’t change their essence over long periods of time, only their form.

The Painting: I saw it at an art showing and had to have it on my wall. Thanks David Hawkins of San Francisco!