Our civilization stands on the brink of mass destruction in a manner that far exceeds the historical decadence of past civilizations, such as Rome, Greece or Egypt. Never before has humanity populated the planet in such record numbers; never before has mankind amassed such a vast arsenal of annihilating weapons; never before has a society been able to generate as much wealth and power within a social system of economics; and never before has technology advanced our society at such a rapid and progressive rate of development, and yet in still our civilization faces serious jeopardy. Although the physical structure of our civilization appears to be well in tack, its spiritual foundation is in shambles and its moral constitution is plagued by greed, crime, violence, ignorance, poverty and political corruption. Our planetary system of social advancement is under the guidance of men of financial power and political popularity, instead of men of intelligent genius and Divine vision. The spiritual foundation of humanity depends upon the qualitative development of the spirit within the human being, and its exaltation of consciousness. The progressive development of morality depends upon righteous, constructive and intelligent behavior. It is sad but true - history tells us that moral conduct hasn't improved significantly in approximately 5,000 years. The qualitative development and progress of both moral conduct and spiritual life are being neglected out of the dominating interest of the progress and gratification of materialistic social life. Spiritual life and social life are indeed inseparable - their relationship makes up the whole of the function of human life. However, when spiritual life and social life are not in accord or in harmonious equilibrium with each other, social life falls victim to emotionalism (belief in the dictates of the senses via the "ego,") which lives in denial of the intellect and unconsciousness of the soul. Social life eventually smothers spiritual life, then self-destructs from mental disorder. I will attempt to do my best to explain the imminent catastrophe of present day civilization from both perspectives - social and spiritual.

We have created a monster called society. Society is being labeled a monster because of its magnitude of dehumanization and uncontrollable expression of destruction. Dehumanization is caused by any culture that contradicts human nature and promotes physical and mental illness that results in violent, irrational and immoral behavior. This social monster has a patriarchal foundation (male dominated), a democratic framework (social liberty to choose lifestyles and political leadership) and a capitalistic system of economics (free enterprise that allows the rich to get richer). The results have left us with female suppression, political corruption and a gap of poverty between the rich and the poor the size of the Grand Canyon. Since tradition (previous ways, means, thoughts, lifestyles and habits of behavior) lives longer than its architects and engineers, it becomes a burden of inheritance to society in the form of "status quo" - a burden felt only by the masses and tolerated by the elite few. The existence and preservation of the status quo obstructs the true progress and form that modernity shapes in the process of humanity. Status quo constitutes vested interest by the opulent elite. Tradition by inheritance alone lacks sufficient experience. The lack of proper experience contributes to the lack of consciousness. The lack of consciousness generates irresponsibility. When the elite few inherits wealth and power and evades discipline, righteousness and accountability, they become irresponsible for the maintenance and well-being of the process of the production that created the wealth and power that they inherited. Irresponsibility of the maintenance and well being of the process of the production of wealth promotes greed. Greed proceeds to corruption when there is no power to govern the power that causes greed.

Corruption increases in proportion to the increase of power by wealth. Wealth that is abundantly out of equilibrium with its means of production is considered to be counterfeit wealth. Counterfeit wealth can only pass for real wealth in the minds of those that are ignorant of the production of wealth. This devious, yet marvelous trickery is achieved through the manipulation of value or the economic science of inflation. In a more layman language - the increase of cost of the product is consistent while the cost of production decreases if at all possible. Allow such a germ behavior to operate within an economic system and corruption will infiltrate every cell of its structure in due time. We call this cellular infiltration of corruption - "Cancer." Because irresponsibility is as widespread as corruption, the death of present day society is not a probability, but a certain inevitability! Our society's overall mental and physical health status is already malignant! Greed has even created a means of squeezing profit out of our cancerous condition through treatment. Radiation is being sold as a cure treatment. Its value is astronomically out of proportion to its cost of production.

"Profit is made from the products that cause cancer, then the cancer patient contributes to additional profit for treatment. Even Hotdog, my half great Dane and half Chihuahua that has Alzheimer's disease knows that something smells bad about this situation."

It's terribly sad to know that the actual treatment and prevention of cancer (nutritional dieting and sufficient amounts of intake of health food, proper exercises of body, mind and spirit, along with a lifestyle of rightful living) is not an economic venture of profit. Therefore, its development and promotion is considered against vested interest and unappealing to stockholders. The inevitability of the death of our society is not so much attributed to its cancers of greed, corruption and irresponsibility, as much as it is attributed to the protective response against change by society's stockholders - the guardians of wealth and power. They are the ones whom will not hesitate to hire an assassin to eliminate anyone who might lead a movement to eradicate the ills of our society at the expense of their wealth and power. And it is they that secretly store their vials of hemlock as to escape the misery, pain and suffering of the consequences of the irresponsibility and karma of their wealth.

Wisdom from Wealth - "Eat, drink and be merry" says the wealthy and wise, "For tomorrow has no promises of certainty, and social doom is inevitable due to the reciprocity of Grandeur and Decadence in nature"

"For a rich man to continue the gain of his wealth will eventually lead to corruption and injustice, but for a poor man to inherit wealth will most definitely result in chaos and barbarism. Therefore, wealth is better off in the hands of the rich, rather than the contrary. If you don't think that nature supports this logic through the laws of selection and elimination, then confiscate all wealth and issue only one dollar to every human being, and in due time the rich will return to opulent status and the poor will be minus their dollars."

Corruption is far from being the most destructive of our social ills. Wealth has created the most threatening disease of our entire human system - an extremely familiar disease called poverty. The rocket escalation of wealth is strangling the citizenship of lower economic status with poverty, depriving them of a standard of living and the necessities to sustain a decent life. Poverty has practically eliminated the middle class segment of society. Poverty, accompanied by stress, anxiety and discontentment has spearheaded the suicide rate pass the rate of homicide. Citizens taking their own lives has already reached epidemic proportion and has become the third leading cause of death in civilian life and the second leading cause in military life.

"Poverty has clutched its jaws of deprivation deep into the flesh of the unfortunate many of humanity, sinking its fangs into its victim's veins as it releases its venom of demise. As civilization sinks like the Titanic, its passengers are totally unconscious of their fate. They are distracted by the amusements of the media. Their attention spans are over saturated with infomercials, and their thoughts and opinions are manipulated by the science of politics. They have forfeited their identity as humans for the robotic status of consumers. What a pitiful sight from the view of a philosopher!"

Man's true understanding of his spirit is determined by his rise in consciousness. His consciousness is developed through his experience. Experience forces the nerve system to register the event or activity being experienced, and the brain records it all. This process uses pain as a sensory mechanism of consciousness. Therefore, pain and consciousness are partners in the process of awareness. The human obsession with comfort has cultivated the avoidance of pain. Pain avoidance has helped create one of the most lucrative businesses in the world of commerce - the drug business of pain relievers. Avoiding pain makes life incomplete. The completion of life involves a cyclic relationship of opposites - the Yin and Yang of life. When we only accept the Yang and reject the Yin we cause imbalance, then life becomes unreality when we exert all of our efforts and energy to accept the comfortable, the good and the pleasurable, but avoid the uncomfortable, the evil and the unpleasant. Unreality is the culprit of human insanity. It has imprisoned its victims in a world of selfishness, driven by the emotional reign of the ego. The ego is driven by its nature - "Desire." That nature (desire) has been programmed to obsess pleasure. The obsession of pleasure and the avoidance of pain restricts the development of spiritual growth and consciousness and forces life to become a delusion of substitutes. Our world of substitution has showered us with uncertainty and insecurity - promoting dominance of our most influential emotion - "Fear." The promotion of fear by ignorance gave rise to the origin of superstition. Superstition attracted an organizer and the organized. Authority was given an invisible and unquestionable status of omnipotence, and the organizer claimed exclusive rights to communication with the omnipotent as a messenger. Thus were the impregnation, gestation and birth of "Religion." Religion generated hope, cultivated faith, promoted morality and initiated the progressive development of civilization. Let us face it - had it not been for the origin of Religion, humanity would have probably met its demise from barbarism ages ago. Religion developed into an organized ritualistic expression of emotionalism, embracing the belief in a sacred deity of omnipotence, motivated by love, fear and necessity. Religion escaped the majority of its accountability in this world because its rewards and promises were only fulfilled in another world called "Heaven." Then along came the age of reason, which sent proof knocking on the door of Religion in the form of "Science." Science upset the reign of Religion and rivalry began. Religion cursed Science in the name of God, and Science chastised Religion out of logical reasoning. When theories and hypotheses of scientific experimentation began to demonstrate the consistent behavior of natural laws, Science began to let the air out the tires of religious claims. The scientific exposure of the weaknesses of Religion has rendered God homeless in the hearts and minds of many of the pessimists and the weak of faith - a group whose numbers are on a rapid increase due to the magnitude of human suffering and the late appearance of a prophesized savior. The attack on Religion has left Science somewhat irresponsible for the consequences that burdens humanity. Science has failed to replace the faith of Religion with the knowledge of Science among the masses, thereby, creating a widening gap between the relationship of God and man - a relationship that Religion worked so long and hard to unite. This gap of God/man separation has humanity in chapter 13 headed for spiritual bankruptcy. Instead of Science eliminating ignorance with intelligence through education, Science has rendered the masses hopeless and powerless through the development and progress of technology.

"Together, the computer, the Internet and E-commerce has generated second class citizenship among the majority of earthlings on planet Earth."

Technology is the engine of dehumanization and the brain of the monster (society). Profit governs the direction of technology and the behavior of its technicians, which is managed by corporate structure for the gain and satisfaction of its stockholders. Stockholders are ordinary people with extraordinary power. They are compared to a constipated bull in a china shop - that which they don't mess up they mess on. Their position of power is so far removed from the mechanism of social function that they have no clue of how to analyze, repair, secure and provide maintenance for the up-keep and well-being of our social system, and yet they control the off and on switch of our economy.

Pardon me if my explanation of the decay of our civilization gives reflections of the prophesy of a doomsday sayer. I am definitely a contemporary philosopher of absolute optimism. I embrace not just a faith in Divine destiny, but an intuitive understanding that all things lead eventually to a greater betterment.

"When the cockpit of civilization is powered by Kamikaze pilots, destruction changes from probability to inevitability. I envision a new flight team, a responsible crew and intelligent passengers aboard Spaceship Earth with an objective destination of a greater humanity."