At some point we will have to examine, not simply our beliefs, but the dynamic of belief.

Ideals are not absolutes.

The universal is the essence from which we rise, not the ideals to which we appeal. More the light shining through and animating the film, than the narratives played out on it.

Every culture needs their core creed, codes, heroes, narratives as a center of gravity, or they dissipate. Tower of Babel.

Yet these nodes exist in larger networks.

While the essence of the node is synchronization, the essence of the network is harmonization.

One is the node, oneness is the network.

Organisms and ecosystems.

Good and bad are not some cosmic conflict, between the forces of righteousness and evil, but the basic biological binary of beneficial and detrimental. The 1/0 of sentience. What is good for the fox, is bad for the chicken.

So while culture is stories to bond people together and teach the children, nature is some enormous computer, that doesn't always give us the answers we want to hear.

Ancient Israel was a monarchy. The Big Guy Rules. Sort of like the religion.

Democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures.

Rome adopted a monotheistic sect as the Empire was rising from the ashes of the Republic. The Big Guy Rules.

Which served as the eschatological basis for the next 1500 years of monarchy. Divine right of kings.

When the West went back to democracy and republicanism, it required separation of church and state, culture and civics.

The evident problem with making some Almighty God the moral policemen, was that as fear of God died, there wasn't an evolved social and civilizational code to replace it, so the Will to Power rose to fill the void. Might is right.

Morality is not absolute, or it simply could not be transgressed. Like a temperature below absolute zero. It is an ideal. Basically the rules of a functional society. Collective responsibility, with rights as reward. When rights are ordained and responsibility is optional, it's toast. Tower of Babel.

Leaving us in this current mess, where the basic unit of exchange, money, has become the locus of the culture. The medium has become the message.

I realize the whole tribal group hug thing is good. That when all of reality was the Sinai desert, it was good to have a tribal guardian angel. Even when it came to other tribes, that your Big Daddy was badder than their Big Daddy was useful, but it's no longer the Bronze Age. The technology has evolved, even if the social premises haven't.

That Israel is caught up in a rather serious feedback loop and much of the West appears to be following it down that rabbit hole, might mean it is time to consider the underlaying premises and not just hope the skies open and that stairway to heaven descends.