Cat Consciousness
Everything I Have to Say About the War on Terrorism
It's hard to wander too long through the virtual halls of The Church of Yahweh before you learn I live alone with 2 cats.
I have learned many things living with these creatures. As a practical consideration, what I have learned most is that we should not support or buy "pure bred" creatures. This is unfair to them. For generation after generation, "pure bred" cats (and dogs, and horses...) have come from lines where brother and sister become father and mother. Together. As a result, the "pure bred" creatures are much less healthy than the regular mutts.
By God's grace, I am a mutt. But that has nothing to do with the topic, so we will skip ahead.
Booey, the cat on the right, is a mutt. Yes, he's a very furry mutt, but he's just a regular cat. He has no problems. He can eat a rat that's been dead for a week and only think it needs more salt.
Fuzz, the one on the left, is cursed to be a "pure bred." He has cat papers & all the silly trappings that go along with being "pure," like a formal, registered name. "Lord Buckingham Fuzzmovitch" is what the national cat in-breeders association knows Fuzz by. He's on a restricted diet, yet throws up all the time, and has a variety of problems that have nothing to do with this discussion. But I do care about the little guy, and figure I owe it to him to try and keep him comfortable.
Anyway, this is about cat consciousness...And the War on Terrorism.
Last week Mr. Fuzz had the latest in his long series of health problems. He couldn't pee. I saw him squatting for about 20 minutes and thought "Uh Oh." So, off to the vet's we go.
The vet does the following: a physical exam, takes his temperature, draws his blood, does a chemistry exam on the blood, looks at the blood under a microscope, determines he has a low-level blood infection, determines he has crystals in his urine that could kill him, gives him a shot, prescribes an antibiotic (one milliliter, twice a day), and prescribes yet another, even more restrictive diet. Oh, and hands me a lovely bill. (My cat's vet, by the way, is a married lady with 3 kids. She is also the single most intoxicatingly sexy person I have ever met in my entire life. I would never tell her that, because she is in a family. But I mention it only to say yes, I 'm human, and even the simple act of going to the vet can be an adventure of unimagined joy.)
So anyway...As I'm driving home I think about all the structures, systems, and vast realms of knowledge that went into helping this cat:
- What is blood?
- What is an infection?
- The entire field of microbiology
- What antibiotics are, how they were discovered, how they are manufactured
- The invention, understanding and physics of the microscope
- The limitless world of chemistry, and how mercury expands & contracts in response to temperature, and how we understand this so precisely that we can create a thermometer...and know what its readings mean
- The manufacturing, sales, quality assurance, and distribution systems to get the supplies from the factories to the local vet
- The entire educational & licensing system known collectively as Veterinary Science
- The technologies needed for me to be able to make a phone call, and then drive to the vet
- Not to mention all the banking systems and monetary theory that support the financial ramifications of all the above
Well, of course I could go on & on. Fill infinite pages with all the support structures & knowledge this cat benefited from.
And he was, and is, and will forever be, utterly and absolutely ignorant of all of it.
Beyond that, (for "ignorant" at least implies an ability to have greater understanding), the cat is theoretically incapable of ever understanding any of it. It is not like he's just lazy, and could study molecular biology if he chose. No. There is simply no "wiring" whatsoever in the cat that enables him to comprehend any of this.
Now we human beings have a lot of pride. We are sure that, if we just work hard enough, we can unravel the mysteries of existence and create life. We can talk about our Preexistence, God's Infinite Justice, Omnipresence and Eternal Life as though we know what we are talking about.
All systems, organic or otherwise, have their limits. The cat has his, and I have mine.
And far beyond the limits of our human framework, I am convinced, lie structures and systems as theoretically incomprehensible to us as the Collective Consciousness of Veterinary Science is to my cat.
And that's ok. At least for me. Plenty of mystery and new things to explore.
But what is not ok, to me or God, is when we use ideas like "Trinity" or "Vicarious Atonement" or "Predestination" or "Salvation" or whatever else to abuse & harm our fellow human beings.
A modern Lutheran church demands a man sign a pledge to "The Holy Trinity," or he will be fired. Just a few years ago, in Hitler's Lutheran-inspired Nazi Germany, he would have been shipped to a gas oven.
The Al Qaeda demands allegiance to their understanding of the Koran, or you will be killed.
They differ only by degree. In their essence, they are exactly the same thing.
My cat's consciousness is but a narrow, fragmented subset of mine.
I am convinced my consciousness is much, MUCH farther from God's Consciousness than Fuzz's is from mine. I even have a cute little mathematical "proof" (having to do with the limits of an infinite series) that I think establishes this as fact. (So-called "proof" being omitted for sake of the reader's sanity.)
But if you disagree, then I certainly will not hate you. Or kill you. Or excommunicate you in the name of so-called "doctrinal purity."
It's just more for us to explore.
Ahyh
p.s. Mr. Fuzz can pee just fine now. He asked me to thank you for your concern.
p.s.s.
Luther's writings inspired 400 years of "christian" hate & murder, until Hitler became his greatest follower.
Luther's 7 point program was followed to the letter by Hitler. This is an English translation, word-for-word, of Luther's original German:
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"Set fire to their synagogues and schools; and what will not burn, heap earth over it so that no man may see a stone or relic of them forever.
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"Pull down and destroy their houses since they perpetrate the same nefarious things in them as in their schools. Pack them all under one roof or stable, like the gypsies, that they may know that they are not lords and masters in our land as they boast.
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"Deprive them of all their prayer-books.
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"Forbid their rabbis henceforth to teach.
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"Deprive them of the right to move about the country.
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"Forbid them the business of usury, and take from them all their belongings.
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"Hand the strong young Jews of both sexes flail, axe, mattock, spade, distaff, and spindle; and make them work for their bread in the sweat of their brow, like all the children of Adam. Confiscate their property and drive them out of the country. (W53, 525 abridged).
"It will be found, at close inspection, that Luther's laws are much more strict, or at least as severe, as those of Hitler. Very often he repeated his order, “The Jews have to be expelled from our country.” Or he gave the Christian advice. “The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows seven times higher than ordinary thieves” (W53, 502)." From "Martin Luther - Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor," by Peter F. Weiner.
http://www.tentmaker.org/books/MartinLuther-HitlersSpiritualAncestor.html
These writings of the "Great Reformer," the namesake of the Lutheran Church, are still printed, studied, and appear in the library of every Lutheran Pastor.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) made a light "formal denouncement" of these writings. It was 1995, but better late than never.
The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has never officially apologized for, or retracted, any of these statements.
I have personally heard more than one Lutheran Pastor tell me how much they "hate the fucking kikes."
In the name of the Lord, of course.
They are willing to overlook these "minor misunderstandings" of Luther because, after all, he did restore the might, majesty & mystery of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.
"Infinite Justice?" We can't imagine the meaning of the words.
