My father always stressed learning Wisdom. Especially the wisdom literature that is in the Bible. That is not the entire Bible. Some is written by priests and mystics. Wisdom Literature is written by sages and is about human interaction and human nature. It is found in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, some Psalms, and prophets. Some have cited Jesus as the greatest Wisdom teacher in the Bible because he taught in the Wisdom tradition using proverbs, stories with a lesson, and discussion.
The wisdom of the sages is like the science of ancient times only without being contaminated by the dogma of secular humanism and materialistic determinism as are modern science and society.
This is called the Way of Wisdom and I refer to those who follow it as Wayfarers.
We are all born the same way from male seed and a female egg. Because humans are so similar the ancient proverbs of the Romans, the Hebrews, the Vikings, the Chinese and the Hindus all have proverbs produced by sages and they are all so similar that some, who don’t know the history, think they were copied from each other. This is not entirely true. I say not entirely because Benjamin Franklin developed a reputation for being wise by taking Roman Proverbs and re-writing them for a modern audience. These are the “sayings” that are a part of American culture. Sayings “The Pot Calling the kettle black” and many others. Wisdom from 2000 years ago that was repackaged for a modern audience. The sages studied nature and the world and observed human interactions. They are like scientists whose laboratory was the world around them and their subject was humanity.
They, like the sages of Greece, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, the Norse, and China, all spoke of the struggles of humanity for existence and survival. They noted human relations and developed proverbs to teach future generations what they had learned. As I said, humanity still acts the same under stress, although our stressors may have changed.
Many things have changed since the proverbs were first written. Technology, the so-called enlightenment, society, governments have risen and fallen and entire kingdoms have grown, flourished, and died of senility or by blade and fire. Our society is in danger of denying of senility. That is because we don’t remember our past and anyone who doesn’t know their past cannot fully understand where or why they are. A Greek Philosopher once said that anyone who doesn’t understand the past only knows their own present, and not much of that. I believe this to be true.
Yes, many things have changed, but one thing has not. That is human nature. That is why I pull so many quotes and proverbs from the past in my writing. I have quotes about the polarization of society into to camps that can no longer even talk to each other as hatred and anger spins out of control. The ones I am thinking of come from America during the 1830s to the 1860s and were about the polarization of North and South that led to the American Civil War but they could just as easily be written about our society today. Other quotes come from Rome, the Vikings, the Chinese, or Ben Franklin. These are still valid today because people change very slowly. Evolution is a millennia long process and we are still anatomically, biologically, emotionally, and mentally the same as when anatomically correct humans first appeared about 40,000 years ago. Evolution is slow. And we face the same problems with government that the Romans did:
The mistake of the enlightenment was thinking that a change in idea would change humanity. True it made a lot of changes. Western Civilization spread all over the earth and, because of the Enlightenment and Christian values they believed there was value in all people and that the created world made sense because it was not random but created. A random world can make no sense. A random world actually invalidates the science that proposed the very concept for randomness. Because the world made sense science developed in the Western World (I might add that the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Mesopotamians all believed the world was created and that there was intelligence behind it but the Enlightenment ramped up the faith in what that science could accomplish).
Science and the development of European technology led to their dominance and they spread the ideas of Western Civilization throughout the world. It was through the spread of Western Ideas through its colonialism that Western Culture spread through the world. In the Victorian Age and before they believed that it was “the white man’s burden” to help those who were more backward. So they brought plumbing, sanitation, libraries, schools, modern hospitals, and a hatred of slavery to the lands they conquered.
In the recent movie the Woman King we see the Dahomi and their female fighting unit. Unlike the movie in real life this unit was among the most feared slavers in Africa. Finally, French troops destroyed them because only by destroying the Dahomi could the French break the back of slavery in the areas under their control. America and England were the first nations in the world to ban the international slave trade and to dedicate thousands of lives and many ships to blockade the slavers of the African coast. This was not for capitalist gain and profit. In fact, the slave trade had brought Americans, English, Spanish, and limitless others millions of dollars. The slave trade was opposed because it was wrong NOT because to do so was profitable. Our schools and media have been regularly lying about this but it is well documented. Even today, only those nations in Europe, America, and countries where the ideals of Western Civilization are firmly established do they oppose slavery. They believed that God was watching them and that it was their responsibility to help those who were less advanced.
In fact, one of the greatest religious hymns in Western Society “Amazing Grace” is the story of a slave trader who became a Christian and realized that slavery was horribly wrong and we were enslaving God’s children. Likewise, our Constitution would have been at least a page longer if they had not taken out Thomas Jefferson’s rant about the British Crown forcing slavery upon America and that their trafficking in MEN (yes, Jefferson capitalized only two words in the Declaration of Independence and his reference to the blacks as MEN was one of them.) It was Jefferson that signed into law the bill that became law banning the International Slave Trade in the US. It was everyone’s thought that this would kill slavery and it would then die a natural death. In fact, President Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America pledged the Confederate Navy to join the blockade but when President Lincoln attacked the Confederacy and blockaded their ports that became impossible. Another tidbit ignored in our schools today. [See also: https://ofnaturesgod.com/an-amazing-story ]
Somehow, if we use words from another culture we are committing the sin of cultural appropriation but the entire world wearing Western business suits, using Western banks, and setting up Western styled Democratic nations is not cultural appropriation? I guess we shouldn’t be surprised about this error of the leftists. If all your ideas are built on lies what is one more?
Modern society ignores proverbs and traditional knowledge found in the Bible and other religions and most today don’t even know about Biblical sages and the Wisdom Tradition that observed human nature, made their observations, and then wrote down what they discovered so that future generations could avoid the pitfalls found again and again in human nature and human interactions. Historically, every civilization that turned away from such wisdom collapsed some generations afterward.
Another lie is that war and violence is not part of human nature. This is a modern affectation of sociology and psychology that denies biology, evolution, history, and innumerable observations and facts. In fact studies show that even chimps and gorillas wage war, patrol their borders, and set up deadly ambushes of their enemies. In Friedman’s book “Strategy, A History” the first chapter is the tactics and strategy employed by primates. Zoological books have often demonstrated these tendencies of primates. Humans are primates but somehow a few hundred years of enlightenment has erased millions of years of evolution. [See more at: https://sabersedge.online/natural-laws-and-natural-rights ]
History and proverbs are valuable because they are the stories of the people who came before us. Perhaps if ANYONE in the state department knew history we wouldn’t have been fighting for twenty years in Afghanistan only to abandon it, like everyone did before us. Perhaps, even if they had only read a biography of Alexander the Great they would have remembered his statement:
“May God keep you away from the venom of the cobra,
the teeth of the tiger,
and the revenge of the Afghans.”
Alexander the Great, 336 B.C. to 323 B.C.
Before him Persia had struggled to control this region. After Alexander the Romans had the same trouble. Centuries after the British Empire fell on its face in the hills fighting incessantly against the Afghan tribes. After the British the Ottoman Empire was stopped by the hill tribes. Eventually, the mighty Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and finally after thousands of Russian dead and destroyed equipment they gave up and left. We invaded Afghanistan to get vengeance upon terrorists who had destroyed thousands of Americans and the twin towers. But then the US State Department in its hubris and ignorance of history decided to stay. Because of this ignorance and overweening pride thousands of Americans were added to the foreign dead killed in Afghanistan. It was no surprise to many military commanders, historians, and those with knowledge of the country.
Now we are in an age of censorship. And we could use another ancient voice to enlighten us. In fact we could offer thousands of quotes about freedom of speech but lets look to ancient Greece and see what they said.
“A slave is he who cannot speak his thoughts.”
Euripides, 480 B.C. to 406 B.C.
About speaking our thoughts; SabersEdge has been subject to hundreds of attacks daily. For a site that makes no money and has limited exposure there must be something here that someone wants to stop. They don’t need to try so hard. I will need to increase my support by ten people supporting me with 5$ a month, in the next couple weeks, I will be able to keep this site open. I need your help to keep writing. Otherwise they will delete it and all files on the 14th and I will work exclusively on writing my books. Hopefully, I can keep this site and ofNaturesGod.com open because I enjoy them but they are a loss I cannot afford without your help. I have asked for support in nearly every post. It is not greed. I am a disabled vet supporting a family of 3 on less than $2000 a month. For me to meet the added security and make the site easier to navigate (it has grown beyond it original structure,) and to simply maintain operation I need just ten people to step up and pledge support on Patreon or to make a one time gift of a larger amount. Otherwise, at the end of the month this site will cease to exist.
I have spent a couple weeks struggling with trying to find other ways to fund the site but have found none. If the site is not worth supporting then I guess I have misread the need for truth and analysis in our society. But you readers, have persisted in returning even though I have not posted for a week. You understand the value of my work and I simply ask that you give up one nice coffee or less than one value meal a month to help me.
I may be able to get employment with the Defense Counterintelligence Personnel program. I have been getting job offers. I have resisted because a Top Secret clearance would mean I could no longer speak or act freely – but getting a six figure income using my brain, not my physical body, may be doable and would end my financial struggling. Apparently, the general public doesn’t recognize my skills as readily as the government and corporations do. We will see if I get any support or if any encouragement to continue my work comes forward.
I hate the idea of giving into attacks because I cannot afford site security against our enemies. One by one they can silence us, and they are trying to do so throughout the internet and media, but together we are strong. Help me to resist with just $5 a month
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