http://www.libertarian.to/NewsDta/templates/news1.php?art=art680
"Today, I want to take a step back from the everyday, to look at the big
picture. The Western world seems to be going to the dogs. Hardly a day
passes without more bad news for good people. I want to try to understand,
why are these things happening to us? Why now? And are we justified in being
optimistic for a future of peace, freedom and prosperity?
The place to look for pointers to the present, I think, is in the past; so
it is with history that I am concerned today. But it is not a subject I have
found easy to study. The problem with history is, there's too much bloody
detail. So I am going to concentrate, not on detail, but on trends, on flows
and ebbs, on flux and crux.
Looking at history in the large, I found that human institutions seem to
take on a life of their own. When an institution meets the demands of its
place and time, it prospers. Often, though, it will falter after a while.
Sometimes, it may rescue itself by mutating into a new form, and may even
prosper anew for a time. Eventually, though, such institutions overstay
their welcome. They decay and die. [..]"
-Neil Lock
--
Niels
Alt.Atheist #2237
"The thing that saved me was Upanishads; Hinduism. Where you have
practically the same mythology [as Roman Catholicism], but it has been
intellectually interpreted. Say, already in the 9th century BC the Hindus
realized that all the deities are projections of psychological powers and
they are within you not out there [points away]."
-Joseph Campbell in The Hero's Journey
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