"We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution."-Bill Hicks

In a glaring moment of honesty, even pastors know that this is all illusion. We fabricate, imply importance, insist that our concerns relate to anything.
The truth, the flaring ember of psychotropics, the vivid distortions of hypnogogia, the challenge of thought both rigorous and objective, is that, at the bottom, there is Nothing. We do not pass off into heaven, or return in a calculated form to make the same mistakes again. I know how much we want to believe in some grand order, if not responsive to our needs at least cognizant of our existence. It feels good to extrapolate feelings of interpersonal love to the highest, universal level. A life without faith is cold, difficult, demanding, nerve-wracking, daunting. It means that nothing one does is of significance and that despite a life of love, laughter and work you will still die in an utterly lonesome spasm. And so you will be gone, and no one will take your place because your role was not neccessary. And you won't transcend human consciousness and rise to the spirit realm, because neither the realm or the spirit is anything but our wonderful imagination.

What, then, are we to do with all of this energy? If to throw it into faith and concerns for the afterlife is an utter waste, what to do with all of our abilities in technology, philosophy, analysis, the arts, etc. Why bother at all?

I think we can find our answer in the particular pattern of evolution that mankind has taken. Now,I don't believe that evolution, by its very nature, tends towards intelligence or human-like ubiquity and versatility; We may very well be freaks on the planet and in the universe. But what I do sense is that the particular path that We have followed has been one of discovery, struggle, and "progress". We've come from the same humble beginnings as insects, and yet have been able to dominate every other living thing despite our lack of physical superiority. Communication and analytical ability has allowed us to overcome all obstacles and it is in these qualities that we must rely for the future.

In short, mankind has gained the ability to influence reality on a large scale. Even now, all of us live within a fragile, fabricated world that explicity requires money, families, religion (even if it goes basically unfollowed), social atmosphere, entertainment, etc. This world that you and I live in has been created over the centuries to circumvent or satisfy basic biologoical needs (some of which are unique to vertebraes or mammals or primates or humans). What's never questioned is whether or not these are the best solutions. IS an agricultural society really a vast improvement over hunter-gatherer? For several hundred years it may have been, but now that the downtime has allowed for the acceleration of technology, perhaps it would be feasible for an individual to provide their own food (I'm thinking primarily through the advancements of genetic engineering, computational power, etc). Is a nuclear family the best way to populate the earth, or do moderntimes require a retooling of the basic premise? What will we do when overpopulation becomes a real issue (like sometime in the early '90s). Does money make sense, or is it simply a way for unworthy individuals to inherit power and/or the motivation for greed? I don't intend to answer any of these questions, but to merely convince more capable minds that they are worth asking.

If we can shift our religions and our biases and our blind ambitions to constructing our new reality, or gradually overturning this one, we may be able to overcome all of our biological neccessities without becoming slaves to our impulses. Perhaps we can eradicate the desires for unhealthy foods and dangerous drugs by supplementing our meaningless lives with a mission rather than the fairy tales we now support. Maybe, through our ingenuity we can affect reality in such a way that life is meaningful.

Seems worth working on to me.