Remember your sword

BLM WHM SMN SCH THF RNG BRD MNK WAR DRK PLD > 99

So today I am writing about watching Deep Space 9 and what a flop right?  You take something holy and pristine like Star Trek: The Next Generation(TNG) and put your finger right in the middle of it and mess it up for the religious types.  What do I mean?  Well, some people liked to watch TNG so as to get a clue as to what the world would look like if it was better and if so maybe how to take some of those cues and apply them today. 

But first thing DS9 does is put a danged Ferengi in there as though certifying that there will always be a mafia... even in deep space and perhaps maybe a whole planet of mafia that somehow has not exterminated itself.  Disgusting.  Still, after FORCING myself to watch 5 episodes, I am slowly just letting them play until the story lines start to make sense and the characters start to offend me less.  Whose idea was it to put an angry black man in charge btw who is completely gentle with his son which makes the whole character more or less unbelievable?  Meh.  In time I expect he will or maybe his character will, get the experiences(like maybe with the Borg) that make him a real person or leader and not this Wabbajack that he is now.   

Moreover though, today's episode, In the hands of the Prophets, made me think about my life again.  I am meant to be someone of significance.  And because of that I must continue to learn if only to serve at some future date.  And to that end I must understand everything and if not, well then as much as possible.  In this episode, the prophet of the Bajorans was killed and the planet was looking for a new "pope" as it were.  The slightly militaristic best candidate shows up at the station and objects to the teachings of the wormhole as a scientific construction rather than something placed there "by the Gods" as the Bajorans' religion teaches them.  So it's a clash of culture vs. cloture. 

There is a lot to be learned from this episode because everywhere you go, you will be faced with a culture and if you are not careful you will be faced with an onslaught of perhaps "new" cultures that want to interpose themselves between you and what you personally believe.  

For example, in Businesscard, we had a nice full set of experienced associates working there.  We made the same pay as other associates but because we were serving business customers we sort of had the best of the best associates working there because the job had to be applied for by already existing associates rather than people off the street.  Now fast forward to we hire some people off the street and they come into our area and first thing that happens is people start to have their items from the break room stolen, namely their food.  The old culture would make stealing illegal but who's gonna see you eating someone else's food but the person who's food it is, right?  And it's very unlikely that person is going to be coincidentally on break when you are.  And it doesn't help matters that people off the street, before they have that nice regular paycheck start to normalize their lives, might have a tough time paying the rent, finding transportation, or even paying for their daily meals.  New culture right?  Now, we have to "guard" what we put in the fridge even though we didn't have to previously.  

But more than that is the notion that we have to start deciding which culture is right.  Obviously the previous culture where everyone trusts each other not to take someone else's food, is the right philosophy but if people are starving... well, NO philosophy is right if people are hungry.  That's the definition of no philosophy is "people are hungry".  

Similarly, in the episode the prophet candidate ACTS against the favored candidate by sending her kamikaze helper to kill him.  See, you are done being a preacher once you have ACTED against one of your own.  Your religion, your belief, your goodwill... all of that is OVER once you have attacked someone.  You can't be a leader once your philosophy is "we are against this here type of people".  She showed that in the episode.  ISIL is showing that to the world but maybe we are showing that too.  Once we break our own rules we don't have a set of laws.  We don't have a country.  It's important to note that and act to replace leaders that lose sight of that, or at least replace the ones that "give in" to animalism, to addiction, to LIKING war.  War is sometimes necessary but it should not be a choice, it must be a response.  

This is what religion is, it's a sword.  A word tells the past, an s-word tells the future. What does a sword do?  It cuts.  It DIVIDES.  It judges.  This is what the S stands for in Superman.  He cuts.  He breaks the cycle.  You take an O, then split it, then flip half of it down and you get an S.  Superman is Republican Jesus.  Superman is an avenger, something less than a prophet something more than a man.  An angel.  A cause.  

Religions should be chosen for the sake of giving yourself a defense against cultures.  When you take up a gun, your intention is not to use the gun because if so, that is indicative of ferality.  But you should address the gun, understand the gun, and choose a gun.  It's only absent of a purpose that we can choose the best one for us.  So it is that you should understand weapons, understand that your home deserves a defense, and you should choose to defend it by equipping it with a weapon... for defense.  

Similarly, a religion is a weapon.  It's only absent of religion that you can see that maybe the world is better off without religion, like guns.  Maybe it's better not to have pointed discussions about belief that point to things ethereal and sublime.  But it feels better to have it doesn't it?  And you are quite defenseless to people that have it.  Demons from the bar can show up to hate you periodically and, if you are alone, you will face those demons alone.  You mustn't.  You must choose... and choose wisely.  People from the bar have their own code, their own culture, their own religion, right?  

If you ever go out on "service industry night" you will see a bunch of people following a culture that is perhaps not the culture of other types of people.  

They say this in Destiny once and philosophical moments shake me to my soul when they happen and it happened in the game.  

The girl said, "a side should always be taken, little light, even if it's the wrong side".  

I have always been one not to pick a side, but you and we should all pick a gang, pick a religion, pick a mafia, and have it subsist under the country we have built or that was built FOR us.  By this I mean our groups must be a SUBSET of the country.  Your group's teachings and its "ten commandments", if you will, must be a SUBSET of the Constitution... because if you are alone, you and your immediate friends without religion, are easy pickings for such that would impose their beliefs above your non-beliefs and call you and yours... CHAOTIC.  

Remember your sword.