The 5th Power.

In my last post I talked about four powers which we as human beings seek to control; power over death; power over nature; power over one another, and power over God. But these four powers which I discussed are really superficial and do not bring any lasting joy or happiness. One may be happy gaining these powers for a little while, but in achieving any sort of power you only increase your thirst for more. We fear losing this power the most, fear that some day someone or something will come by and take that power away from us; and so we fight to maintain it. This is ultimately a costly failure for no matter what you do, no matter the steps to take to maintain your position of power, you will eventually lose it.

But there is one more power that you can control, one that is not finite, that is created at your birth and dies with you. This power all men are born with; this power comes in the form of self awareness and self control. To know yourself, to know what makes you feel, act, cry, laugh; to know yourself is the greatest power one can ever hope to achieve. We know, from a very early age, that we are “we” and that others are “others.” This simple knowledge is the foundation of our ability to control our own minds. We distance ourselves from others and create in our mind the sense of “us” VS “them,” IE everyone else.

But this power that we are born with lies in our sub conscious, within the dark corners of our inner mind hiding from our conscious thought and we are, for the most part, unable to tap into its vas riches to obtain it. Because knowledge equals power, we must know ourselves in order to hold power over ourselves. To know ones self is to hold great power; in fact, to know ones self may be the greatest power any man could have. No man can escape death; no man could ever hope to control every other man, woman and child in this world, and no man could ever tame all the powerful forces of nature and natures God. Only the power over our minds, thoughts, and actions can be gained in this world, and ultimately it is this power which brings lasting peace.

To gain power over the four previous powers requires taking it from something else, and very often causing harm to others. The more you gain, the more the desire for more stalks you like a tiger though a jungle, preying on a helpless dear. Because of this the power one gains from our environment will, in the end, cause fear of losing said power, and an undying thirst for more. On the other hand, there is only so much power one can gain from their own mind, and once that power is gained it can not be lost, or taken away without great effort. There is no thirst for more and no fear of losing it; and so, although you achieve your goal, the thirst for more will be absent. It is because of this that by gaining control over ones own self you may be able to put aside the struggle for power and strive for other goals, happiness, belonging, and love.

Unfortunately this form of power is by far the hardest to achieve, and so few ever go down this road. But for those who do, for those who harness the power of their own minds, the rewards for doing so are as numerous as the stars in the heavens.

What We Seek to Control.

In my last post I talked about the idea that every human being on this earth desires one thing, and that one thing is power; the ability to influence people and events. I gave my reasons for thinking this and argued that no matter what your actions, they are motivated most of the time by this single overwhelming desire, whether concisely or sub concisely. But what is it that we strive to control? By definition to have power is to be able to control events and people, but that doesn’t narrow it down enough. There are five powers that we as humans wish to control above all else, four of which will be discussed in this post. These powers are Finite; they can neither be created nor destroyed as I said in my previous post. The fifth power is special, and is not Finite, and so it will receive its own post later on.

Death. Death is the single most disturbing and mysterious phenomenon that we as humans perceive. Philosophers, religions, and scientists have tried time and time again to uncover the mysteries of death, but none of the answers they find are of any comfort to the majority of people. Human beings as a whole still fear death, despite beliefs in an afterlife that many of the world’s greatest religions teach. We simply do not know, and are unable to know, what death has in store for us. If not for death we could accomplish so much more, and yet we are burdened by the knowledge that some day we will leave this earth forever, never to return. We seek to control it with science and religion; using science to expand our lives beyond what nature would normally allow and by making ourselves look young, and religion to explain the unexplainable, to help know what happens when we die for to have knowledge of something is to hold power over it.

We seek power over nature; we seek power over one another. Every scientific discovery, every invention, were discovered or invented to in some way take power away from nature or our fellow man. Our constant drive to harness and control the power of nature has led to some of mankind’s greatest achievements and discoveries. The light bulb, the airplane, space flight, are all examples of mans persistence not to be bound by the laws of nature; to break free of the bonds of natural law. On the other hand, the strive to control one another is the root cause of conflict and struggle in this world. Because gaining power over one another is, far and away, the easiest kind of power one may obtain, it is the one kind that is most often sought out the most.

The fourth power, and the ultimate power that all men struggle to obtain, is the power of God or the concept of God. Even if one does not believe that God exists, even if one is a stanch atheist, they still seek the power to not necessarily control God, but to BE God. To be God, in a strictly human none religious sense, is to hold absolute power and knowledge over everything and everyone. God IS power; God is knowledge. This is one power that can never be reached. It is necessary to obtain complete and absolute rule over all three of the previously mentioned powers before can begin to think of themselves as a God, and it is a complete impossibility to do so.

We make strives every day to control nature, but nature still controls our daily lives; we manage to bend others to our will but they always brake away in the end; we prolong our lives and hide death from our bodies, but all men die; God is an unreachable goal that leads all seekers to failure. It is these four powers that hold sway over every aspect of our lives; their power over us and our attempts to wrestle that power away.

The Great Power Struggle.

Power; Influenceing/controling people and events.


This is an idea that I’ve been thinking about for a while now and I’d like to get your feedback on it. This theory was inspired mainly by Hobbs’s theory of Egoism, that human beings are incapable of acting outside of our own self interest. This theory of mine came about through careful observations of people I know in my life, and of my own actions.

It is my belief that there is only one thing in this world that all human beings, of all ages, races, creeds, cultures, and religions, people of all classes and backgrounds, strive to achieve, and that ultimate goal, that higher order, is power or to prove ones power.

Almost every action a human commits is in some way, shape or form, is done to gain power or prove that you have it. It is not for happiness, belonging, or piece of mind, those are secondary. Whenever given a choice, one will always chose power over anything else. It is the motivation for how we live our lives. It is the center point on which our civilizations are founded,the source of our greatest achievement, but it is also the cause of our turmoil’s, of death and suffering. Power is what we seek, whether concisely or not.

Power is finite, it, like physical matter, can not be created or destroyed, merely transferred from one to another. To gain power, one must first take it from someone, or something else. When you gain power, something else that previously had that power must lose it. This can easily be seen in the world around us; when man learned to fly we took power away from nature, when a criminal murders another they steal their victims power over their own body. Power may not be shared, but it may be peacefully, and willingly, transferred from one person to another.

I don’t know, maybe I’m a pessimist, but when I look around me and see the actions of my family, my friends, my neighbors, and people around the world, I see the strive for power. I’m not saying that seeking power is bad, to do that would be like saying it is bad for a tiger to eat a dear; its nature’s way. The only time when seeking power is wrong is if it is at the expense of another human beings rights; life, liberty, property, and pursuit of happiness. Any other time people are free to seek power, to gain and lose it, as they best see fit.

Morality; absolute or relitive?

It is a question that I personally have had a very strong opinion about for some time now, is morality, one of the pillars on which human civilization is built, absolute or are is it, like art and food, relative to the individual? Although there have been many argument for the idea behind relativism, certain weaknesses in the theory have ultimately caused to reject the idea entirely as unpractical, unrealistic, and actually dangerous to society.

Moral relativism is, by definition, the belief that it is absolutely true that nothing is absolutely true. This blatant contradiction undermines every argument, every idea and theory, that the relativist puts forward, because they can not answerer the question, is their theory true? Try it, whenever somone tells you morals and truth are relative, ask them if that is true. If relativism is true, then its false. If its false, then its false, and so no matter how one answerer's the question they will disprove their theory altogether.

But it is not this contradiction that worries me the most about relativism, its the fact that a relativist can not, under and conditions, make a judgment on another persons or cultures actions. Relativism comes in two forms, personal relativism, the idea that morality is different for each man, and cultural relativism, the idea that morality is different with each culture. Both have one crucial flaw, you can not judge anything. A true relativist, one who thinks very strongly in this belief, would not be able to comment on the slaughter of Jews duringWWII by Hitler, or the violations of human rights being committed in places like Sudan, Saudi Arabia, or by the Taliban when they ruled Afghanistan.

Recently in Iran a woman was gang raped, and then when the government found out she was arrested and nearly put to death for "allowing" herself to be defiled. The cultural relivest can not say that their action were morally wrong, since they believe what is moral for an American is different for what a Saudi believes is moral.

There has to be an underlining moral code that is the same for all societies and cultures no matter their history, religious beliefs, or geographical location. Curtain things simply can not be done. Now what is that underlining morality? Theory's abound, such as Aristotle's Virtue Ethics, or Emmanuel Kant's Deontology. So what do I think is moral? That topic will be discused in future posts.

Welcome one and all.

Welcome one and all to my new blog, Finding Truth in Today's World. This blog will talk about all sorts of topics from philosophy, to religion, to politics, to curent events, nothing is out of bounds. My first posts here will come later today, I just want to extend a welcome to those I've met on other blogs and have invited to see mine. If you find your way onto this blog, please leave a comment so I know I'm not talking to myself, that really gets frustrating.

The reason behind creating this blog is to invite open discussion about controversial topics. I want everyone to feel welcome here and free to say what they wish, as long as they avoid personal attacks against me or those who wish to make their opinions known. Such behavior is childish and immature. I myself know that I am as ignorant of this world as anyone else, and so I am not close minded to other beliefs. When you make a comment, please try to make it so that your posts will add to discussion. i don't want to see this;

"Oh, Jonathan, your so right about everything."
That's not helpful, and although I enjoy compliments, I don't really want one that doesn't add anything to discussion. Well, lets get to it.