Gathering 2004 Saturday Part 22

2005-7-15 02:54:00

Part 22

The next gathering was after Columbus discovered the new world. A new world was discovered which no on knew about. When word got to the old world that there was a new world, what happened? People said, "Hey, we can go and create a better life for ourselves in this new world. We can have freedom from religion and freedom from the king and do our own thing." People who were interested in something higher, in freedom and gathered out of all the kingdoms. Instead of gathering together to create new kingdoms, this time the gathering was out of the kingdoms. People gathered out from all kingdoms of the world to come to the new world to create a better life for themselves.

Audience: inaudible question on the Roman Empire

JJ: The Roman Empire was run by Caesars and emperors and by absolute authority. The kingdoms were run by absolute authority but many people came to the new world with the idea of escaping authority and because of this it gathered together people who wanted to escape authority into one location. Then when they wanted to formulate a government they began to talk about new ideas. They thought, "We didn't like having a king. He threw a lot of people into prison and took away freedom. Let's create something better." So they put their heads together to create something better. They created a system where there was greater freedom.

Eventually as they create this system with greater freedom it came into conflict with the kingdom world. Thus we had the great Revolutionary War between England and America. Whenever there is evolution the old way tries to destroy the new way. The old way is always threatened by the new way because the new way will actually destroy the old way. It destroys it through attrition because when a new and better way is found everyone forgets about the old way and joins the new way. Those on the old way want to prevent the new way from happening. When the colonies wanted to be free England said, "No, you have to go by the old ways."

Audience: This is true in religions as well. (inaudible) What we have now will one day be replaced with a higher system.

JJ: Right. It happens with everything. Even with Galileo inventing the telescope, he could prove for sure the earth was not the center of the universe. The Pope said, "Oh yes it is the center of the universe and you need to recant that or else."

Audience: Hopefully we're evolving higher instead of destroying ourselves.

JJ: Yeah. We tend to go two steps forward and one step back. That's the way evolution goes. We're in danger of going back to the Stone Age. There is a danger there but hopefully we can transcend it. So, the next step was creating a more democratic system where people had some say in the government. They fought the Revolutionary War and broke off. Interestingly enough, after we broke off, England adopted the ways of the new country so now England is fairly democratic in itself. The Monarchy is pretty much in name only.

The third step in our social evolution was the creation of a more democratic society or a constitutional republic as it's technically called where there is input from the people voting. People have an opportunity to have a voice with freedom of speech and opportunity to make changes in their government. Let's take a break but be thinking about what our next step in evolution is.

We can have facts without thinking but we cannot have thinking without facts.  John Dewey (1859 - 1952)