Peaceful Attrition, or "You're Welcome To Leave... Have a House, On The House!"

essay

There's this great idea called Perfect World Concept, see? And all people need to do is to follow the directives over there on the right-- the 'Primary Guidelines'. If they do that, they will move the people of planet Earth into a World Family society, which is the closest thing to Eden that humanity has ever seen. It's very important to follow ALL the guidelines because they work hand in hand.

Unfortunately, some of these guidelines, including the most important ones, fly in the face of how some people currently live their lives. That's not to say that these people are leading anything but kind and decent lives-- they most certainly are-- but they are missing an important element of the Perfect World experience (which I think is a ride at the Hilton hotel in Las Vegas...?). They have been taught by their elders to break Guidelines 2 and 7, and quite by accident at that.

I'm speaking about the religious. I don't care which religion... take your pick. And I'm not talking about the casual observers, the ones who make their way to their houses of worship a few times a year, during the most holy of holidays... no, those folks are well on their way to living in the Perfect World.

The most observant and pious, the ones who take the passages of their respective bibles literally, THOSE are the folks I'm talking about. For example, a guideline in the Christian bible suggests everyone 'be fruitful and multiply'. Wise words, those-- when they were issued, back in the first paragraph of the first book of the Old Testament, before Adam and Eve. By the looks of things, we followed that rule best of all. But the actual quote is:

²⁰And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens." ²¹So God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²²And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." ²³And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

God wasn't even talking to humans at the time! He suggested that the fish and birds multiply to fill up the oceans and the skies. The reason he did that was so that humans would have plenty of food to choose from, I'm guessing. Would he have so cavalierly suggested that humans fill up the planet, making it difficult to feed them all? I think not. He actually created a garden, called it Eden, and meant for his original inhabitants, A&E, to live there with their family. Without knowing how big the garden is, we can surmise it was not all that big, since when they were cast out of it, there was a huge world on the outside to fill with people. Which means that God was planning for people to stay within the garden walls... just a small section of the planet. Kind of like Guideline number Seven, which mandates that people Do Not Exceed One Billion Souls.

Right now we are at almost 7 billion and growing. We are polluting the land, the air and the water and contributing greatly to the increase of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, which if left unchecked, could turn our environment from ideal to hell-- like that of Venus (with a HUGE greenhouse effect, thick cloud cover over the entire planet, surface temperature of around 800 degrees... that's eight HUNDRED).

Huh!

Is it true that misinterpreting the bible is what got us into trouble on the planet in the first place? Sure seems that way. Let's look at the other Guideline-- 'believe in FACT'. While it may be true that there are a lot of facts in the bible, there are also a tremendous number of 'miracles', events which seem unreproducible today. Even though some of those miracles could simply be erroneously reported quirks of nature (the 'parting' of the Red sea could have been a natural phenomenon involving volcanic activity, for example), it defies the concept of believing in fact and treating fiction stories as parables which teach vital lessons in morality. And when we believe in the unprovable, we are intentionally not using one of the greatest gifts god gave to us (according to the bible, that is)-- our human brains.

What can be done about these problems? Erroneous thinking like that grabs hold and spreads through our impressionable children. When parents disseminate the 'truth' to their children, they tend to accept the information as stone-tablet fact. At worst, all their future learnings will be held up to that faulted mirror, and dismissing even proven fact if it doesn't reflect favorably off their looking glass of lies.

I'd cause the problem to disappear with mandatory free education, beginning early in life. I know, I know... we have that now.

Actually, we don't. The school I briefly mentioned in my post entitled 'The First Major Step: New Education' doesn't yet exist in our nation, although a few private institutions begin to approach that thinking. I was joyous when I saw the Vulcans employ a similar technique to teach their children in the Star Trek movie this summer-- at least someone in Hollywood has their thinking cap on!

School has proven to be valuable in the mainstreaming of children's education, preventing the compartment-style learning found in a segregated community. But religious parents will likely be incensed at what they view as an attempt to wrest religion from their children and fight back with fanatic devotion, as extremists often do. There is no foundation more impenetrable than religious zealotry. Their is no doubt that the mistaken lessons twisted from the bible will be forced upon every generation within their enclave, relentlessly preventing the truth from entering.

On to the title of this post. 'Peaceful Attrition' is a stepping stone which leads to the Perfect World, nothing more. It is NOT a solution. The religious cannot long live alongside the 'sinners', as Perfect Worlders would likely be called, and would ultimately mount some form of attack. This is NOT a behavior found in the Primary Guidelines.

At some point a decision will need to be made to create or assign communities which will become religious enclaves, where the remaining religious folk, or 'Fictioners', can keep their beliefs alive. These areas will be attractive, modern and temperate, with beautiful homes and lush surroundings. They will also be far, far away from any Perfect World cities. All their raw materials will be provided to them to modify their hometowns as they wish, and they may retain their use of the antiquated 'money' which has become useless in the Perfect World. Contact between worlds would be discouraged but not prevented-- accepting that 'nonbelievers' will always exist is a lesson that would be taught in Perfect World Podschools, along with the emotional strength to withstand the standard barrage of fanaticism.

But say we don't want to stoop to the Australian prison colony approach the way that England did. So what other methods are available to us?

It is possible that over time, the slow and deliberate application of societal pressure could induce a change in the religious temperament so that segregation would not become necessary. That is, if enough television programs and commercials and public service announcements and talk shows and unscripted 'reality' series and news programs begin to lean towards the smart, ever so slightly, over time, and more logical ideas begin to gain acceptance (as has already been happening for years), then it is possible to win over future generations of children, freeing them from religious enslavement.

Of course, the ultra-right fight back by creating their own media and making it, and only it, available to their youth, segregating themselves in the process. It may not be possible to live alongside people who cannot or will not follow the Primary Guidelines.

So we're back to segregation. But hold on a minute... let's take a look at the 'followers' box on this blog to see how many people are reading it... Okay, I don't have that many Perfect World followers; actually, at this writing, the number stands at zero. Okay, so there aren't many Perfect Worlders right now. In that case, I have another idea.

We leave. Oh, I don't mean the country, the state or even city... no, we just leave the lifestyle of America. We remain where we are but practice the foundation of Perfect World. Follow and spread the 10 Guidelines. Raise your children that way. Join a Perfect World Church.

What? A church?!? I thought we Perfect Worlders, we PW's, were not religious!

We're not. Follow along. This church is a church in name only-- it's really a meeting place for all the other Perfect Worlders, as you create a parallel world for yourselves. Maybe it's like an Elks Club instead of a Church... no matter. All the needs for a PW community will be listed in a dedicated post in upcoming days, but in the start you will simulate PW while still living the standard life of Americans. You will need to create a podschool for your children, a Costco-type place for all your foodstuffs and housewares, a Home Depot-type place for all the group's construction and manufacturing parts, a trade-barn where all your unwanted items can be swapped for other people's unwanteds (like a thrift store), the software program which runs the community most efficiently, and an interface which would convert your outside jobs to best aid your PW community.

The smallest integrated PW society will necessarily be pretty large, as we would need a full complement of abilities to reduce or eliminate our dependence on the host country-- builders, doctors, chefs, farmers, inventors, teachers, entertainers, writers... the whole list. Of course, there are many jobs which are no longer necessary in the Perfect World-- for example, we WILL need logical thinkers, but we WON'T need lawyers. We WILL need organizers, but not shopkeepers. Most of the jobs involved with security will disappear, but living alongside IMPERFECT worlders, we will need to be able to protect ourselves and our families from insurgency, so self-protection will be a necessary interim measure each PW citizen will learn.

Many PW's in the community will work in a non-PW occupation to start. In the beginning there will not be enough PW people to reproduce a modern society, so trade will be necessary. At first, many in the total will be contributing their entire incomes into the coffers of the whole community, so that large or complex machinery can be purchased from outside and brought into the collective.

Eventually our financial wizards can manipulate the funds to grow into a large nest egg that is distributed as needed, when interaction within the larger host country is necessary.

Without resorting to religious-type proselytization, at some point PW's will seek to find like-minded people to bring into their communities. Maybe an annual event can be created that would be open to all, with games and rides that would appeal to the PW mentality. The objective would be to make PW large enough, with communities in every city and town in the nation, to influence the voting of the country at large. PW's could join the non-PW political arena, and when in a position of influence could introduce subtle PW bills that slowly move the country into a more PW-friendly place.

That's when we run into the same problem-- when do the newly-enacted laws clash with the small remaining 'nonbelievers' (who in fact ARE believers-- just not in PW), forcing them to seek refuge in communities of people whose viewpoints are similar to their own?

By that time, I should think, Perfect World would be so firmly entrenched that it would account for a clear majority of the people. For the rest, it would be fitting if we could offer them a place to move into that we had secretly built for them over the years-- a ready-to-populate metropolis we have appropriately named God City, an enormous shining jewel which resembles the biblical artwork depicting Heaven! There could even be a large 'bowels' to the city, a dark underbelly called, oh... how about 'Hell Town', where people of 'question' could live and carry on their sick business!

If I were a person of faith, I imagine I'd take one look at that shiny megalopolis, and see it as a truly fitting residence for myself and other people of pious probity. And for those among us we deem unworthy (and we shall always find SOMEONE unworthy) they will be given a choice: To be cast out of the city and into the dark and evil nether regions of Hell Town, to reflect on their imperfections and strive for forgiveness and orthodoxy; or to choose banishment...

to the world outside of God City... in other words, The Perfect World.

To OUR Perfect World.

And we would be waiting. "You're welcome to enter. Have a house... on the house!"

Copyright 2009 Bruce Ian Friedman