Imagine being buckled down to a seat in a cart as you travel down some rails, through a dark tunnel.
You see before you the cosmic canopy, full of stars, nebulas, galaxies, planets, moons, comets, and everything. You continue down the tunnel past this glorious scene to find a new one: a depiction of a planet forming and becoming habitable. Further through the tunnel, you see the story of life; you see creatures born, and creatures die, leaving only a few relics, dusty bones, and their progeny. As you race down the tunnel, you see this happen over and over, but as you witness this strange circus, you notice a general trend. As you watch, the creatures do not stay the same. they
become slightly better from generation to generation. True, you do see some steps backwards as you watch, in one display, an asteroid hit the earth and many advanced forms of life advanced no further, but all the same as you zoom along in your cart with your hand upon the restraint in front of you, life is becoming better, faster, stronger… Wiser.
You suddenly zip around a tight corner, your body being thrown against the side of the cart, and as you calm down, you see new exhibits open up before you. You see the thing called man come out of the Garden of Eden and how he had to battle thistles and thorns in his efforts to eek out his existence. With fingernails instead of claws, skin instead of fur, hands instead of talons, and brains instead of brawn you witnessed his rise to empire. You saw man build along the Nile, settle the Indus Valley, farm the Fettle Crescent, and generally develop any land suitable.
Your journey in the cart continues, and you see various pictures of cities, peoples, kings, disputes, battles, inventions, technology, ideas; and with each passing picture, things get better. Sticks and mud, becomes hide tents. Tents become wooden loges. Loges morph into adobe, stone, and brick houses. Houses become marbled estates. Estates become ornate palaces.
As you watch, you see the vices of man punish him and his evil ways, but you also see the virtues of man reward him in like manner. And thus, as your cart speeds up a little faster, you see wicked civilizations pass away, and righteous ones take root. You drive by Greece in it's wisdom and as you whip by you see it's decay. You see Rome in it's glory, and as you whip by you see it's decline. You see Byzantium in it's splendor, and as you whip by you see it sacked. You see the Arabs influence stretch from Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar into Africa, the Near East, and into the Orient, pushing right up to the boarders of Russia, then crumble back down to separate countries. And your cart races onward.
As a chain along the track grabs the cart beneath you, and you start to travel up a hill, you witness the renaissance spread throughout Europe and enlighten the minds of Europeans to a time before decay; to when Rome was a republic and when Greece was a land of scholars. As you approach the center of the lengthy slope on your journey upwards, you see Spain, France, Germany, and England overtaken with the infectious spirit of just government, free trade, and golden age thinking. You then see Europeans come across to the New World, and settle there. The Immigrants, forced to give up every residue of vice that survived the renaissance, quickly grew the best governance, the ripest trade, and the wisest men and women of the time.
At this point, you approach the apex of your long journey, witnessing as you pass the decline of the new world, as vice, like a weed, begins to grow. Quickly the government is corrupted and becomes putrid and tyrannical. As the people grow slothful and arrogant, trade shrivels and the markets and ports dry up. And, the people grow stupid and canine.
Suddenly, almost at the top of the hill, you bump the cart in front of you, you wandered for a second at the abrupt halt, but than you see that the tracks diverge into two separate routs. On the one hand, you see a set of rails head off to the right, and the other forward. The cart takes the tracks to the right. You watch as the cart goes racing down an incline, and than into a downward bent helix. In the end, the cart, once ahead of you, zooms, slows down, and is led along it's rails until it's path, once again merges with the main drag, the cart now far below, and struggling back up the hill. You wonder if such a fate will be yours.
Once your cart, is like wise atop the hill, you here a voice in a narrative tone issue from speakers affixed to the sides of your head rest: "You have just ridden through history. To choose your destined path, choose between the two buttons located on your dashboard." Two buttons, previously obscured by the darkness that surrounded you, lit up. On the first was inscribed the slogans "Justice, Liberty, Wealth, Wisdom" and on the second were inscribed the slogans "Fairness, License, Extravagance, Amusement ." You sit. You stare. You realize, that you have watched this decision being made sense you boarded this ride! You quickly press the first button, and the tracks move as to allow passage for your cart to travel ahead. You laugh to yourself as you think about the cart that gone ahead. They probably were here for the thrill and not the learning experience anyway.
Then as you near the steep hill that would soon send your cart cruising, you get a chance to see the future. You look out over everything to come, You see the hill ahead, the loopy loops, the spirals, and the dips. You see beyond this to the exhibits, with their bright colors and animatronics, what they present. Although you have an incomplete and hazy view, you are able to pick out a few details. You see many more scenes of man struggling between vice and virtue, always having to decide. you see progression, from all that came before; how better governments will be made, how wealth will be generated, and what new ideas will take shape. In an exhibit far, far below you see mankind join the cosmic dance, and spread through the stars. Beyond even this you see man develop biologically from, himself into higher and higher forms of existence. And at the end, you can see over the entire expanse of creation, God. With that, your cart goes over the edge, and you are taken into destiny.
You see before you the cosmic canopy, full of stars, nebulas, galaxies, planets, moons, comets, and everything. You continue down the tunnel past this glorious scene to find a new one: a depiction of a planet forming and becoming habitable. Further through the tunnel, you see the story of life; you see creatures born, and creatures die, leaving only a few relics, dusty bones, and their progeny. As you race down the tunnel, you see this happen over and over, but as you witness this strange circus, you notice a general trend. As you watch, the creatures do not stay the same. they
become slightly better from generation to generation. True, you do see some steps backwards as you watch, in one display, an asteroid hit the earth and many advanced forms of life advanced no further, but all the same as you zoom along in your cart with your hand upon the restraint in front of you, life is becoming better, faster, stronger… Wiser.
You suddenly zip around a tight corner, your body being thrown against the side of the cart, and as you calm down, you see new exhibits open up before you. You see the thing called man come out of the Garden of Eden and how he had to battle thistles and thorns in his efforts to eek out his existence. With fingernails instead of claws, skin instead of fur, hands instead of talons, and brains instead of brawn you witnessed his rise to empire. You saw man build along the Nile, settle the Indus Valley, farm the Fettle Crescent, and generally develop any land suitable.
Your journey in the cart continues, and you see various pictures of cities, peoples, kings, disputes, battles, inventions, technology, ideas; and with each passing picture, things get better. Sticks and mud, becomes hide tents. Tents become wooden loges. Loges morph into adobe, stone, and brick houses. Houses become marbled estates. Estates become ornate palaces.
As you watch, you see the vices of man punish him and his evil ways, but you also see the virtues of man reward him in like manner. And thus, as your cart speeds up a little faster, you see wicked civilizations pass away, and righteous ones take root. You drive by Greece in it's wisdom and as you whip by you see it's decay. You see Rome in it's glory, and as you whip by you see it's decline. You see Byzantium in it's splendor, and as you whip by you see it sacked. You see the Arabs influence stretch from Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar into Africa, the Near East, and into the Orient, pushing right up to the boarders of Russia, then crumble back down to separate countries. And your cart races onward.
As a chain along the track grabs the cart beneath you, and you start to travel up a hill, you witness the renaissance spread throughout Europe and enlighten the minds of Europeans to a time before decay; to when Rome was a republic and when Greece was a land of scholars. As you approach the center of the lengthy slope on your journey upwards, you see Spain, France, Germany, and England overtaken with the infectious spirit of just government, free trade, and golden age thinking. You then see Europeans come across to the New World, and settle there. The Immigrants, forced to give up every residue of vice that survived the renaissance, quickly grew the best governance, the ripest trade, and the wisest men and women of the time.
Suddenly, almost at the top of the hill, you bump the cart in front of you, you wandered for a second at the abrupt halt, but than you see that the tracks diverge into two separate routs. On the one hand, you see a set of rails head off to the right, and the other forward. The cart takes the tracks to the right. You watch as the cart goes racing down an incline, and than into a downward bent helix. In the end, the cart, once ahead of you, zooms, slows down, and is led along it's rails until it's path, once again merges with the main drag, the cart now far below, and struggling back up the hill. You wonder if such a fate will be yours.
Once your cart, is like wise atop the hill, you here a voice in a narrative tone issue from speakers affixed to the sides of your head rest: "You have just ridden through history. To choose your destined path, choose between the two buttons located on your dashboard." Two buttons, previously obscured by the darkness that surrounded you, lit up. On the first was inscribed the slogans "Justice, Liberty, Wealth, Wisdom" and on the second were inscribed the slogans "Fairness, License, Extravagance, Amusement ." You sit. You stare. You realize, that you have watched this decision being made sense you boarded this ride! You quickly press the first button, and the tracks move as to allow passage for your cart to travel ahead. You laugh to yourself as you think about the cart that gone ahead. They probably were here for the thrill and not the learning experience anyway.
Then as you near the steep hill that would soon send your cart cruising, you get a chance to see the future. You look out over everything to come, You see the hill ahead, the loopy loops, the spirals, and the dips. You see beyond this to the exhibits, with their bright colors and animatronics, what they present. Although you have an incomplete and hazy view, you are able to pick out a few details. You see many more scenes of man struggling between vice and virtue, always having to decide. you see progression, from all that came before; how better governments will be made, how wealth will be generated, and what new ideas will take shape. In an exhibit far, far below you see mankind join the cosmic dance, and spread through the stars. Beyond even this you see man develop biologically from, himself into higher and higher forms of existence. And at the end, you can see over the entire expanse of creation, God. With that, your cart goes over the edge, and you are taken into destiny.
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