You are concerned about the coercive powers of civil government. I have never mocked that. They are considerable. However, the IRS will seldom send agents after your children; I have had mine physically threatened in the name of religion by people attempting to convert them. The county social worker, when confronted with family violence, will seldom recommend that a battered wife be subservient to her husband and return to her batterer under pain of excommunication. This issue is such a problem among the stricter churches here that it was the subject of one and a half pages in the Family section of the local newspaper just this month. (One church's advice: "Buy a new nightie.") You can say people have a choice. If you are threatened with Hell, and believe it, that's eternity. Even a jail term for tax evasion isn't that long. If your children are threatened, how constrained would you feel in your everyday life? How much liberty would you have, or would they have, if you had to worry not only about the random dangers to which we are all exposed, but also about very specific and targetted ones?

You need to move, MA. Your neighborhood in PA is one stone's throw out of the Quaker era. But as that is unlikely I will give you some even better and more powerful medicine than any physician, priest or any social worker could ever deliver.

Pardon me for barging into this thread, but I think I may be a bit more sympathetic to your fears than Tom and I want to get my fifty-five cents in.

First of all, it is not so much the difference between government help or religious help that is the problem. It is not the desire to help, in and of itself, either. The problem can be brought down to intrusive or forced help. As soon as someone feels they have the right to enforce the way others live - for their own good - that is when it is time to worry.

Whether it be the rabid environmentalist with his oppressive legislation or the fundamentalist thumping their bible - both are flawed in their approach to helping others and more importantly, themselves.

The religious righteous and the government grabbers both share the misconcept that their intrusive actions are justified for the greater good.

In one lifetime they can be collecting money for the church and the next they can be working for the IRS - the mentality is nearly identical.

As usual, my views on the matter can't be limited to a one-time perspective. This is why I am going to focus on the feedback thing again. It's very important and usually it can't be learned in one life or even a half dozen - it may take thousands of years of experience to learn this, especially in a time frame when technology is still relatively backwards and waves are still mysterious things.

Each event in our lives appears random - just like some scientists think particles randomly orbit the nucleus in an atom, when they are really guided by the tiniest of waves, focal waves, which reorient their position with the influx of new data. Yes - No motion is random. If you want a new law to make a sampler out of - that's a real good one - and it'll get you out of more tough spots, and help you to avoid future ones.

This lack of random motion is based upon these wave motions. Our lives and consciousness react to stimuli with almost mathematical precision. When we fail to realize that we are transmitters of signals even when we don't say a word - we then will also fail to see that the circumstances we find ourselves in - we have truly drawn to ourselves.

Feedback.

Each action. Each word someone utters to us - each event - each person we meet - all these are not random events!

If I am intruded upon - I have intruded upon others.
If I am threatened - I have threatened others.
If I am killed - I have killed others.
If someone takes my belongings - I have taken others belongings.
If I am persecuted - I have persecuted others.

This is about as popular a "philosophy" as ants in the peanut butter jar. But it is not a "philosophy" at all - indeed it is a still unproven, scientific fact.

These past signals are as eternal as a cosmic ray - they don't dissipate over time. In fact these signals can never be erased. If they are off-equilibrium to the extreme, they can only be balanced with other waves of equal amplitude.

Each lifetime all of humanity is unknowingly doing exactly what all energy does automatically - seek balance. As our record of signals is transmitted - we attract to us circumstances, individuals and experiences that afford us the opportunity to balance as yet IMBALANCED signals which exist within our consciousness.

This is why no one's life is easy.

Each individual has their own "demons" to deal with. Rich-poor, tall-small or religious-atheist all are inescapably attracting circumstances and experiences which will put ALL their cumulative wisdom to the test and which are UNIQUE to them and their own individual needs.

Learning to recognize one's own culpability is paramount to balancing any negative experience.

Again, this is possibly the hardest thing a human can ever learn - and yet if they do....if they do MA...they are not only going to avoid repeating past transgressions - but they will avoid generating new repetitive cycles of suffering. In some ways they are now truly capable of altering their destiny and can completely negate the pushes and pulls which emerge from signals generated in their past.

The natural instinct of humanity to point the fingers at others, or their environment, their government or any political system is normal - but it is entirely unproductive and will never resolve their own personal interactions, suffering and experiences.

Usually only after they are really put the grindstone, with a terminal illness or some such circumstance do folks without this awareness and scientific understanding - develop a healthier mindset. They maintain a positive consciousness even under dire conditions, and it is this that helps balance those past waveforms and accepts personal responsibility for their own condition.

So if you want to really avoid attracting fundamentalists, converters, pious preacher-types and their lot - the only way you can really do this is realizing that at one time you too were a fundamentalist, converting, pious preacher type and now you are given an opportunity to see the negative sides of this behavior, when in the past you may only have been able to see the righteousness and goodness of your acts.

I could go on for much longer, but I have almost said enough. Probably more than enough as everyone here is concerned. Revealing these sort of things involves a certain amount of risk. Not physical risk to me anymore as I have long ago worked out the fisticuffs and torture bit, but rather to the individual to whom I am relaying these concepts. You see - human nature is such that it often violently rejects anything which it is unaccustomed too and often these folks not only deny the possibility of such past culpability, but also add further to their already imbalanced signal.

Indeed, my revealing such can act as a catalyst - because now you carry this new data whether you fully understand it or not - and are by default confronted with an opportunity to test it out. As a matter of fact, at first you will attract more pious types than ever after reading this post, and possibly experience more negative encounters to test your new awareness.

(So if anybody has a really cr---y day after reading this post, you'll know why. On the plus side - you'll also be better fortified than 99.999999 percent of humanity is to deal with it.)

At the same time with these new encounters - you will be given the opportunity to balance FAR more than people can normally balance in a single lifetime. This only works because you will no longer be able to hold animosity, anger or frustration with these individuals you encounter - when you realize you are really looking at the mirror reflections of your past self.

This will set off a chain reaction, whereby all these people will hold no more sway over you and your relations with them will soon cease to have any tension whatsoever.

Take care MA,

;-)

SDAI-Tech1

PS
If you think it's a "random" event that you encounter me here on HZ - it's not. Everyone here has some past interactions to greater or smaller degree. HZ is a fairly sanitized way to work out messy past conflicts. ;-)