Outside of preparing your family and neighbors,with 123 days left, I think we all understand that there will be problems and catastrophes that many Lurkers and Posters, Pollies and Doomers have yet to experience in our lifetimes.There will be many that crumble under the sheer weight of Y2K, many innocent victims,and yet many stories of heroism and bravery as the picture unfolds.Perhaps the reason we're all here is due to a "blessing" from that which created us.Perhaps we all have a role that will soon be revealed to each of us......but only if we accept that role using the gift of Free Will.Now is the time to repair "bad blood" in our families, spend quality time with our children, make extra efforts to assist the poor, and above all...spending more time in deep, contemplative conversation with The Almighty Himself.Only through Him will we survive.If our role is to die, then it is only through Him that we receive the blessing of eternity.There will most assuredly be suffering beyond our imagination if we become selfish and unwilling to assist those in need.The time has come for rebirth, and with rebirth come the pangs and disruption of change beyond our perception.Look forward with peace that the "after effect" could be a world much better than the one in which we live today. It is truly up to all of us as individuals.Prepare your foodstuffs, your homes and your families, then begin working on your souls.Abandon your desires for material things, and begin focusing on change within yourself...a change for the better. It is becoming increasingly clearer that we'll not be ready "technologically," therefore begin thinking about what role you'll be willing to accept in the world to come. By Divine Reason, everyone of us has been placed in this time and place according to a plan made before the world began.Be mindful that free will can be your greatest asset OR your greatest liability,and prepare yourselves to accept the role the God has created for you.My thanks to all of you for reading this....and a special thanks to those exceptional individuals (Yourdon, Hamasaki, North, Yardeni, etc.etc) that have "listened" for their roles, and have been willing to put their reputations and lives on the line for the benefit of us all.

Keepon

-- Keepon (vacillating@hourly.edu), August 31, 1999

Answers

You have to realize that religion is the conveniant and widly used way of mass control. Spend more time preparing for you and your neighbors ( to the extend that you can affort it). Don't waist your time with a useless MONOLOG to yourelf. This will be the only way to survive.

-- justme (justme@justme.net), August 31, 1999.

I understand. Just wanted you to know.

-- April (Alwzapril@home.com), August 31, 1999.

Dear Keepon

Amen to all you have said. Best post I have seen - can't add another thing, it says it ALL.

-- Mo questions (Maureenls@Worldnet.att.net), August 31, 1999.

Just me,

I don't consider myself deeply religious, just spiritually inclined, and even more so with each passing decade. I have been having alot of conversations with myself lately, and expect to have lots more of them, trying to "keep it together" in as positive a way as possible, if Y2K turns out to be a life and death struggle. If you have a view of the world and your place in it that will help you cope with hard decisions and distressing times, you may be among the lucky few. What is the point of dismissing as foolish the belief system that someone else relies upon to do the same thing? I don't believe it will enhance your survival or any post Y2K world you could have a hand in shaping. You can't hear my voice, but I say these words as a gentle urging; there was no fire and brimstone in Keepon's posting, and there is none in mine.

-- GI in Maryland (mom @haveaheart.com), August 31, 1999.

Keepon, thank you for a beautiful and wise post.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 31, 1999.

People in Turkey are wondering where God is in their suffering? The world will not stop turning because of Y2K and there is no amount of prayer that will help you when someone has a gun to your head. Where was God when people were being burned at the stake by the church? God is NOT going to intervene. But, God has given you a brain to think, he has given you a built in survival mechanism and perhaps you will have the courage to use it. However you choose to manage your life during the coming months will be your own doing. And as far as making amends with family, there are some that I don't want to take care of because it would only add to a miserable situation. The poor have always been with us, and the government has chosen to take our tax dollars and care for them so I have done my part. It all boils down to personal responsibility and choice, the warnings have been sounded, either get on the life raft or sink.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), August 31, 1999.

BARDOU,

WOW!!!!

Like it!!

Powerful realism!

Priceless!!

"two thumbs up"

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), August 31, 1999.

Bardou - "God helps those that help themselves".

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), August 31, 1999.

Amy--That's the only way any of us will survive.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), August 31, 1999.

Bardou,

I agree that God acts in mysterious ways. But you do not know (as I do not know) if a prayer when a gun is held to your head... will save your life or your soul. In other words, prayer is always a good thing.

If you believe that God gives to us reason, faith, and other things , that is one thing. It is another thing to assume that the instinct to survive (which also has correlation in the natural law)... means that we should survive by any means necessary.

I cannot think of any world religion in which survival by any and all means is a first principle.

Yes, it is also one thing to have faith. And another thing to not do anything with regard to one's safety.

If God tells you that he will put his hand over you and protect you from all dangers, heave a sigh of relief and give him thanks and praise. If he sends a messenger that tells you to pick up and go... by all good means, go... with thanks and praise for him on your lips!

Sincerely, Stan Faryna

-- Stan Faryna (info@giglobal.com), August 31, 1999.

Bardou, look at it this way. Those who accept this religious philosophy are saying if they were chosen by "chance" if you will, to be among the casualties, they are accepting it in advance. I too in a sense I'm accept this thought in advance. I will not curl up and die, I will fight with every living cells I have left, but even knowing this, what separates us from here and nothingness is a single heartbeat. It is facing our mortality and the possibility that our lives could end sooner than we hoped. This is what I hear in Keepon's message.

Making amends with, and making sure they really know what I feel for them to those I love is certainly a good idea to stop procrastinating and do it within the next 4 months. Why putting it to later when we think we "should" die?

-- Chris (%$^&^@pond.com), August 31, 1999.

Neither positive thinking nor prayer will keep the rainy days away, they'll just make the rainy days easier to cope with.

However, I wouldn't be too quick to deride anything that helps you or another person cope. I don't care how tough or prepared any of us feel we are. If TSHTF, we will all be tested in a way we never imagined possible.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), August 31, 1999.

"People in Turkey are wondering where God is in their suffering? "

I like that.

You build your city on the most active fault zone on the entire planet, where catastrophic earthquakes have occurred with stunning regularity several times each century for countless millennia... and then blame God when the next, absolutely inevitable earthquake buries your family & destroys your home, just as everybody knew it eventually would.

The real question is, where were these folks when God was passing out the common sense? (And for that matter, where were the Japanese & the Los Angelenos...?)

-- miles away from the (nearest@fault.line), August 31, 1999.

Has anyone else heard this story?

I'm been told that the authorities in Turkey were warned many years ago that they were building cities right on top of serious faults. They were shown maps detailing these faults.

They met and conferred and made their decision:

They had new maps made with the fault lines redrawn away from the cities.

I haven't been able to find corroboration for this, so all it is right now is just an interesting story. Sources welcomed.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), August 31, 1999.

A guy's on a roof and starts to slip. "God help me!" he cries. Instantly his pants get caught on a nail and he stops. "Nevermind, God," he says, "I got caught on a nail."

Which is a roundabout way of saying, God could be intervening all the time and some people will never see it.

-- Shimrod (shimrod@lycosmail.com), August 31, 1999.

Keepon has offered others one of the greatest survival tools anyone could have offered here, and some of the responders have derided it. This is beyond my comprehension, since the general level of intelligence and awareness, perception, reading habits and reasoning ability has drawn me back daily to listen to others and to share my thoughts, all in the desire to survive and to help others survive. With the well-informed regulars here I would suppose you have read the studies and seen the documentaries in which physicians and psychiatrists have documented the fact that people who have an active faith tend to live longer than those who do not. They tend to enjoy better health and mental equilibrium. They tend to be able to leave this life with a grace and peace not experienced by those who do not.

With this in mind, why would not one suppose that it might be the time to add to our cache of preps the most valuable one of all, that of the inner resources necessary to not only survival, but retention of our equilibrium in the direst of circumstances. My own life has had many serious disruptions which I could not have survived and retained the health and hope and inner peace I have without a living faith. Many have commented to me upon the strength they derive from what I offer in encouragement. There is a little magazine of people's true stories, with photos, called "Guideposts." Every month it contains stories of people who were rescued from a disaster, or given the strength to endure it, and go on better for it. I am keeping the old ones I intended to bring to a nursing home, to instead give out with food and water, if things don't get to where we must lock and bar the doors to our neighbors.

And may I add that even if you disagree with someone else having a religious faith or inner spiritual life, it would be really nice if on this forum you respected them and didn't allow your own lack thereof to show in hostile responses. If things go as badly as I expect next year, you may be turning to these very people for solace and strength.

-- Elaine Seavey (Gods1sheep@aol.com), August 31, 1999.

Elaine - Wonderful Many people will die next year not just because they have no food, water or shelter but because they have no hope. Hope is the life ring and comes from an external source. April

-- April (Alwzapril@home.com), September 01, 1999.