Movie 51 Prophesy 6 Madness
It has been said – and I don’t know, wasn’t there – that Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over looking for a different result. If so, I stand guilty as charged. Thirty years I have tried to warn people that kinship is required for fertility, and responses have been cool to cold. So let me define “Madness” as self-destructive behavior.
There is ample reason to suspect that a terminally outbred community will be selected for elimination. Drugs, biologically unproductive socialization and self-destructive behavior all would qualify.
Many years ago, during the 1960’s the US was involved in a war in Vietnam. There were protests against the war, and I was quite sympathetic so far as that went, but the protests somehow became part of what we called the hippie movement, and that was a package. It included some restriction on speech (In Berkeley they said military recruiters should not work on campus.), squalor, promiscuity and drug use. I was resentful, because a cause I held dear came with the other baggage. History has gone on so that censorship is a great concern, thousands of homeless live and die on the sidewalks of great cities, heterosexual promiscuity seems kind of quaint but drugs continue to be an interest of the descendants of the hippies.
I would say that the right of free speech is so fundamental that attacking it is destructive even for the attackers. Squalor, even though it is not hippies indulging in it but the powers of government who have permitted it on the streets is self-destructive for those powers. Antibiotic resistant tuberculosis is on the rise, and unlike disease carried by insects or fluids, TB spreads because an infected person spits, it dries out, rises as dust and is inhaled; the day is probably coming when breathing the air in the great western cities will entail death by consumption no matter how rich and powerful one is, nor how assiduously one twerks and pirouettes over the dung and needles that decorate the sidewalk. Sexual attitudes now are fluid enough so that much sexual drive is not biologically productive, which may or may not be dangerous to the individual but certainly penalizes the population. As for mind altering drugs, I have in hand an edited version of a paper by Alex Barenson published by Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, that says there is as much marijuana being used by young adults currently as at any time since 1970 and the active THC ingredient that produces the “high,” is present at ten times the concentration that was available in plants fifty years ago. Don’t bother reminding me that his attitude is controversial; he mentions that more than once. He also says that marijuana use can lead to schizophrenia and that the combination of schizophrenia and THC poisoning is very dangerous indeed with regard to violence. Lest you doubt the man, I have also an article “Strong Pot is Hot,” Economist vol. 430 no. 9135 March 23, 2o19 page 74 reports an increase in psychosis with marijuana use. Remember “reefer madness”? It’s back. Be that as it may I think there is no doubt that more people nowadays are choosing the madness of a high over rational pleasures. Younger folks don’t seem to have the same rising use, but I would not be surprised if they are found to be using chemicals more powerful still.
But the issue at stake is of self-destructive behavior, and there is at least one study (Am J Public Health. 2014 December; 104(12): 2369–2376.Published online 2014 December. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2013.301612 PMCID: PMC4232164 PMID: 24432945 Medical Marijuana Laws and Suicides by Gender and Age D. Mark Anderson, PhD, Daniel I. Rees, PhD, and Joseph J. Sabia, PhD) indicting that legalizing marijuana leads to a fall in suicide rate. More recently (MARIJUANA LINKED TO HIGHER RISK OF DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE IN TEENAGERS, STUDY FINDS BY KASHMIRA GANDER ON 2/13/19 AT 11:00 AM EST) a compiled study has found at least a modest increase in suicides with marijuana use among teenagers. I think it fair to say that self-destructive behavior after marijuana use is not epidemic, but across the board I think the US suicide rate is indeed a catastrophe.
Let’s go to scripture, since I am doing this in my prophet persona. As usual I shall try to distinguish between a story and a back-story that probably was introduced later to account for something in the story. The back-story receives small faith from me.
We shall start with the story of Lot. Lot was kin to
Abraham. They both had enormous flocks, and Lot moved to land near the Dead Sea. That is about 500 miles as the crow flies, and it would be unlikely he would choose to drive his sheep and goats across that much desert, so we would expect him to have gone north, then west and then south to follow vegetation. Yes, I am creating my own back-story so believe me at your peril. But any way you cut it, the two must have had enormous flocks indeed. I propose that between them they had cracked the puzzle of kinship/population size and fertility.
Even with that most precious of secrets, it seems hard to believe that their flocks grew to such size in a single human lifetime as to necessitate traveling that far to keep them apart. Maybe they were actually more than one person each. In fact, Abraham initially is called Abram; I smell more than one man and a bit of back-story work.
But as events unfold, the story of Lot follows one man for a few days, so we shall assume that there really is a “story,” which was narrated by Lot himself after the fact. Anything he did not personally witness is suspect, however. So he took up residence in the city of Sodom. Since mating and fertility were his whole life, and since he had two daughters, one might suppose he was looking for sons-in-law. The curtain rises to find Lot at the city gate. My back-story, optional to you, is that he has come to look and see how many babies are being carried about; his whole life has been matching mates to regulate fertility, and he has misgivings about the city.
Genesis 19 King James Version (KJV)
19 And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;
One meaning of angel is messenger, and given the amount of executive work managing those flocks required, it is unsurprising that a couple of messengers came to him to give him news and pick up instructions. So the scene is plausible.
2 And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.
3 And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.
This sounds like standard hospitality of the time and occasion.
4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:
5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
When I was young(er), I regarded this scene as entirely implausible. Now in an era of increasing gender fluidity, my sense is that we are within a nose hair of reenacting this scene.
6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,
7 And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.
Lot and I part company here. I confess I would probably reach for a weapon before I tossed my daughters out to be abused by a mob of disorderly men.
9 And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.
10 But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door.
So far it is all plausible at least in the Lot himself is recounting his own experience. Notice that our “angels” are now frankly referred to as “men.”
11 And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
Lot does not actually see this; he probably infers it from the cries of men as two young shepherds with slings pelt them in face and beat the snot out of them with crooks.
12 And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:
13 For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.
14 And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.
This smells like back-story; notice that the next line begins as if this passage had never happened.
15 And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
16 And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.
17 And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.
That passage seems most reasonable under the circumstances, although the final clause sounds added.
18 And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my Lord:
19 Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:
20 Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.
Did you catch that? Lot is afraid of the wild (maybe; actually he is surrounded by an army of shepherds and has been following flocks his whole life), but he says the city he wants to go to “is near to flee unto and is a little one.” That is clearly important to Lot, but for those of us who have not spent a lifetime enabling fertility by optimizing population size, it seems trivial. This is the kind of detail that lends plausibility to the notion that there really is a story at bottom.
21 And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken.
22 Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
23 The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.
Plausible and obviously known by Lot.
24 Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven;
25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
Alas if I could write like I think we could save the world. But of course, who could have seen it? Lot and family were looking the other direction. No witness; ring the back-story gong.
26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/280419514275933773/ 7/14/19
Of course, it’s back-story now. The time line has changed. The narrative has them already in Zohar. I have heard, sorry no reference, that there are rock salt cliffs along the Dead Sea, close to the site of Sodom, and erosion can make some parts like a standing human. Our back-story helper pulled that in to make the story more convincing, but of course it does the opposite.
27 And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord:
28 And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.
Ok. From 500 miles you just might see a fire storm six miles high, but it would just look like a thunderstorm a few miles away; and when did Abraham and Lot, whichever Abraham we suppose it is, get together and compare notes? The furnace reference sounds to me like we are dealing with the work of the same back-author as before. Now suddenly Lot is more afraid of Zohar than of the countryside. It seems he has learned something about Zohar. We learn shortly that his daughters find Zohar to be just like Sodom.
29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.
30 And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.
That makes sense; the fertility mechanism we have studied determines that it is not how distantly related a couple is – out past 10 generations – it is how long the outbreeding strategy has been employed. Again, we have a detail the principles in the story cannot have known without a computer simulation, but which we know. This is good support for the belief that, yes, there was a story. Something like this really did happen.
31 And the firstborn said unto the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man in the earth to come in unto us after the manner of all the earth:
32 Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
33 And they made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.
34 And it came to pass on the morrow, that the firstborn said unto the younger, Behold, I lay yesternight with my father: let us make him drink wine this night also; and go thou in, and lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father.
35 And they made their father drink wine that night also: and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose.
36 Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.
The daughters promptly confirm our suspicion about Zohar, get their father drunk and have their way with him.
37 And the first born bare a son, and called his name Moab: the same is the father of the Moabites unto this day.
38 And the younger, she also bare a son, and called his name Benammi: the same is the father of the children of Ammon unto this day.
Of course, Lot eventually had to figure it out, or they told him. The existence of these nations was not known ahead of time by Lot, so of course we can’t claim him as witness, but the original hearers, or at least fairly early hearers would have known of the two nations, so I think this should be included as part of the original story. Incest worked out pretty well.
King James Version (KJV) Public Domain |
