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The Christian religion, and its New Age offshoots, is the chief proponent of the many End of the World scenarios with which we are most familiar. Scenarios about the end times originate mostly in the body of apocalyptic, eschatological writings of the New and Old Testaments. It is in the final book, Revelation, that most striking and symbolic representations about the end of the world are said by many to be depicted. It is a difficult work to comprehend. Probably no other piece of writing in history has been examined more thoroughly and interpreted more widely. It is the end-of-the world legend, a doomsday tale on moldy bread with virtual reality special effects in abundance. It is the inspirational fountainhead for mad prophets, spittle spewing pulpit- pounders, apocalyptic Enochian magicians, fanatical true believers, grade-B movie makers, and knaves and snake-oil salesmen of every form and sort. In William Bramley’s book, The Gods of Eden, he noted that when we consider history, we can clearly see that the drive of human beings to have peace is as strong, if not stronger, than the drive to have war. But, when the issue of war is examined, one realizes that, most often, the “trigger” for war and related “inhumanity to man” is that the drive It’s easy to look back on history and see where this or that group was “misled” in their beliefs and thereby fell into errors of thinking that led to the perpetration of unspeakable horrors. We can point to the genocide advocated by the God of the Hebrews, or the religious-zeal- run-amok of the Catholic church when it instituted the Inquisition. We can see the twisted version of the “genetic superman” that led to the holocaust of World War II. It’s easy to discern these errors of the past, because we “know more now”. Well, isn’t that an interesting thing? We It almost seems as if the game has just gotten more and more complex, but the same essential errors keep getting repeated. What is at the root? (Aside from the fact that we notice the above examples all Human beings have a sort of built in drive to be “insured” or “underwritten” regarding any choices they may make. This is due to a fundamental condition of our reality. This condition seems to be a sort of “randomness” or lack of control of our lives. Our observations of reality tell us that there is “something out there” that we need to know about because having this key can “make or break” us. We adopt religions because we are anxious. We are anxious because we realize, 181 High Strangeness — Part Two for spiritual freedom is twisted by manipulation. know more now. How much more can we learn? relate to monotheistic exclusivity.)