This is the last of a four-part abridged Conversation With A Covenant Emissary. As a prelude to The Covenant it addresses whether the human design is so flawed that, despite The Happiness Commandments, the extinction of humans is inevitable. Any assumptions made about The covenant Emissary are neither alleged nor implied, confirmed nor denied.
W: Earlier you used an expression that is very disconcerting. You said, or at least implied, that the human design might well be so deficient that it renders the self-governing part of the survival of the human species impossible.
E: A design flaw and an inability to cope with eventual changes in their environment are antecedents to the extinction of any species. Human beings, who are just another species, are no different. Humans could become extinct for any number of reasons. If the surface or the atmosphere of the planet becomes antagonist to the human life-form, through no direct result of human behavior, a seemingly random happenstance, humans could become extinct.
It is more likely, however, that your demise will be the result of chronic ,stubborn, and arrogant human behavioral patterns. I am repeating myself, but humans have this addictive need to feel happy all the time. But your behavioral patterns do not bring you happiness. They only give you short-lived highs and longer-lived lows. This downward spiral of defective behavioral patterns, over generations, will lead to your eventual demise.
W: You are convinced that our design will not permit us to survive. So, is it God's fault that we are such pathetic poorly designed creatures who are destined to self-destruct and become extinct?
E: I will respond to the first question. Perhaps you remember this line from my vision. "And he called it the first law--the law of survival'. It is an unfortunate paradox. To increase the chances for survival, humankind was created with two kinds of attributes. You were equipped with a comparatively large complex brain with which to think, learn, reason, and adapt. You were also equipped with three stimulus responses that you call pain, anger, and fear.
Your relatively large complex brain was intended for long and short term solutions for your progress and survival. Pain, anger, and fear, were required for survival when an immediate response was necessary. This is an over-simplification, of course, but you get my point. Unfortunately, over time, for the majority of your kind, the first attribute--the complex brain-- was relegated to the basement of things valued in the survival hierarchy and the other the other three--pain, anger, and fear-- became more valued even when they were not acknowledged as such.
Pain, anger, and fear motivate more human behavior than they should. Much of that behavior is irrational, even in the long term. Your addiction to the feelings you call happiness combined with your need to feel superior to your own kind, have alienated you from Creation. It has fostered an emptiness that magnifies even more the pain, anger, and fear that motivates more behavior than they should.
What once had been automatic responses to combat immediate risks and imminent danger, much like a slightly different form of animal instinct, instead became the dominating part of the human survival psyche--making it the worse possible place for long-term human survival. Now pain, anger, and fear are your constant companions, even in your search for your God and your search for happiness.
Alienated from your God, you suffer the pain of mortal being and the fear of eternal being. Not knowilng what to do about either, anger becomes the behavioral narcotic of the people. In the human survival psyche, aggressive behavior and wanton displays of power of any kind is synonymous with success, happiness, and survival.
W: I have no defense against your argument. Too many of us believe that intellectuals and critical thinking humans are weak and should be ignored or mocked. Consequently, the aggressive personality and the tough talker are seen as leaders even when they are intellectually challenged and have no physical or mental prowness for toughness.
E: Of course. Little men who become dictators or are pollitically astute, even when they are intellectually challenged, understands the power of pain, anger, and fear in the human survival psyche. It motivates the masses to do things no thinking person would ever do. Thinking requires energy and humans notoriously are intellectually lazy. The modus operandi of those who desire to motivate and control painfully scared people is to repeat short messages--especially false ones--that demand little thinking. The process takes you farther away from Creation and closer to your extinction as a species.
W: Are you suggesting that the behavioral voices of the masses will help determine the fate and long-term survival of the human species?
E: What else?
W: And you believe that civilized covenant behavior defined by what you call The Happiness Commandments is the first step in reversing the downward spiral to chaos and extinction.
E: That is my message. The feelings you call happiness are Creation's rewards and gifts to those who commit to living lives guided by, what I call, The Happiness Commandments.
W: I have experience my share of happiness and disappointment. I've wished for more of the first and less of the latter. I've prayed for more of the first and less of the latter. On balance, I've done OK. I get into trouble only when I choose to let myself compare myself to the myriad accomplishments and lifestyles of other people.
E: Of course. No one can be all things. So there are always others who have more, have done more, and have done different.
W: But it is more than that. I am acutely aware of what slavery, war, and poverty can do to the human spirit as well as the human body. I haven't exerience any of those three. I have been poor, but I have not known poverty. I have never been a participant in war. Slavery is just a bad memory etched into my brain by stories and accounts from others who were closer to it. But all three are still actively out of control on this planet. I feel anger and pain when I try to come to grips with what man does to humankind. So, many of my moments of unhappiness and disappointment comes when I struggle with the desire to rid the world of war, slavery, injustice, and poverty, and know that I am powerless to do anything about it.
E: And you blame your God for letting it happen? That's a question.
W: Sometimes. Many of us struggle with that question. All I know is that how ever many years I have left on Earth are obviously important to me. Just as we all do, I would like to spend them being as happy as I can in spite of all the turmoil that goes on around me and all the chaos in foreign places.
I welcome our discussion of The Covenant and your concept of happiness and the joy of mortal being. But I know I will die and I have struggled with what happens to me when I no longer exist in this human form--assuming alll the while that whatever I am will exist in another form after my mortal death. I was raised as a Christian and I have tried to be a good Christian. But even there, the spectre of hypocrisy, conflict, tension, greed, anger, war and ambiguity are ever present--and it twists me out of shape.
E: Then let us try to untwist you. Let us talk about The Happiness Commandments and the rewards of a civilized moral covenant.