Good Evening Friends,

I hope that I have argued, semi-persuasively, the visible, demonstrable truth of Jean-Paul Sartre's assertion that: Man is the desire to become God. I have argued that this is a long-standing human tendency stretching far back into antiquity. I have argued that one of the ways this tendency manifest itself is in our habit of engaging in mimicry of the upper classes. And to the extent that our credit limit allows, all of us chase after those ultimate economic pharaohs who sit at the top of our society.

They, themseleves, struggle to acquire divine wealth ("He has more money than God."). Therefore, we, in trying to emulate - again to the very paltry degree that we are able - these economic pharaohs, are - ourselves, the bottom ninety-nine percent of society - striving for divine wealth, trying to mimic heaven.

I claim that money actually means a lot more to us than we know, far more. This is saying something given the extent to which we are consciously aware, we know that money has risen near the level of elemental importance to the species as oxgen.

Another thing that the French Existentialist philosopher, dramatist, novelist, social critic, and activist, Jean-Paul Sartre, wrote and said was that: Man exists without justification. What does this mean?

I think it means that "God" or some other extraterrestial "objective" authority does not pay us personal visits, put "his" arm around our shoulder and say something like: "Hey there, Bob! Listen, I just stopped by to encourage your to remain steadfast, to stay on course. You are taking your life in the right direction, making ME proud and honoring MY NAME, and so on and so forth. I want to give you particular kudos for the way you handled that knotty moral and ethical problem on Tuesday last. Your solution was a nice application of the principle I set forth in (fill in Biblical, Koranic, Talmudic verse, or whatever here). The only slight criticisms I would make are: you could pray more, you've been slacking a bit on the tithing, and you want to watch the purity of the pork products you consume. But all in all, I'm here to tell you: 'Bobby, you da man!!'"

This does not happen. Sartre explicitly represented atheistic Existentialism. But a lack of justification is part of the human condition in and out of supernatural belief. It is important to be very clear about this point. Believers and non-believers alike, as well as those in the middle, exist without external, "objective," extraterrestial validation. We seek and occasionally get the good opinion of others but this is not enough. They are puny, earth-bound humans like ourselves, they are not "objective," they lack the proper "perspective," and so on and so forth.

In Genesis, in the Bible, after Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden, and forced to wear clothes and work for a living, God seems to have withdrawn from the world and the presence of human beings, except for the occasional prophet who enjoyed occasional direct communion with the divine (but this communion was of a formal, vaguely "telepathic," remote nature, nothing like the informal, casual, immediate and intimate connection previously enjoyed by Adam).

We can say that when Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, humankind, as a whole, was condemned - along with the host of other condemnations heaped upon the species - to live forever in doubt (that there was an extraterrestial presence that duly noted our existence and works.

It is not insignificant to note that there are far, far fewer people who experience "direct communion with God" than there had been in previous centuries. I have seen persuasive arguments that there are both nutritional and sociological reasons for this. Of course, it is not "God" they come in contact with but a higher part of themselves, as I believe I mentioned before (see Gopi Krishna's book, The Secret of Yoga fom the Religious Perspectives series).

You know, the Garden of Eden expulsion perfectly symbolizes the nutritional and sociological reasons for the decline in mysticism, the separation from God.

The apple: nutrition - better nutrition means that the body is under less distress, less prone to hallucinatory experience.

Adam and Eve's disobedience of God's injunction not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: the way in which humankind seemed to take God less and less seriously - but yet the heart grows fonder in his absence. And this brings us to another point.

Since Man exists without justification, Man is condemned to be free, as Sartre also said. Man is condemned to be free. 'Condemned' is a word we have from the English translation of Sartre's writings, but condemned is the right word, nevertheless. But we'll continue next time.

wingedcentaur