Tikal

I think of all ancient cultures, one of the ones that has fascinated me the most is the Maya.  I mean, in comparison to most other cultures, there is relatively little known about them.  I've always dreamt about discovering ruins or something someday.  Especially, pyramids - they rock.  One of my favorite pyramids has to be The Temple of the Great Jaguar at the ruins of Tikal (pictured below).  Even though Mayan pyramids tend to be smaller than other Central American pyramids, which don't even compare to the Egyptian pyramids, it still has that enigmatic appearance combined with an awesome environment that makes it radiate essence of awesome .

The lower picture depicts Pyramid of the Sun found in Tenochtitlan, the largest ancient structure of the Americas compared to the Great Pyramid of Giza.  They have almost equivalent perimeters (The Pyramid of the Sun is 97% of the size of the Great Pyramids base).  The Pyramid of the Sun is about half as tall as the Great Pyramid, and has less than half the volume of the Great Pyramid.  That leaves the Temple of the Great Jaguar way down on the stats list, but I like it all the same.  I'm not sure why - I guess that's why it's called enigmatic.

It always bewilders me the achievements of ancient peoples compared to our own.  Theirs might not be as high, but considering their lack of technology, that greatly increases the amount effort put into it.

If their gods inspired them to do make such great works with backbreaking effort, what has happened to the same Christian spirit that we once had?  How can we Christians look back on that and call them weak and superstitious, when they flourished in Classics and we are threatening to bring on the Nuclear Age.  What kind of screwed up world is that?

Going off my last subject - most people can't see any fault in their own perfect worlds.  They've become absorbed in a web of ignorance equivalent to the Dark Ages.  I'm not trying to dis Christianity or anything, but most do have a tendency not to look beyond and try to see things from a different point of view.  Isn't it odd that the Dark Ages included the Crusades, and now we're in the same position in a war (Second Crusades) with the Muslims?  AIDS is already being referred to as "The Modern Plague".  History repeats itself, and if we never learn from our mistakes, we're going to continue this declination!

It's all one cycle fed by itself.  Narrow-mindedness equals ignorance, ignorance equals repeated disaster, repeated disaster equals more narrow-mindedness...

This is fact!  It's happened before!

Example: The last Dark Age, people could not read, and the Church is able to manipulate them for their own greed.  The Pope had a hierarchy established with him at the zenith of the pyramid.  The Church claimed authority over all kingships, and through them worked their way down through the Feudal system to the town priests who could spread the word of the papacy as the word of God.  No joke, this is coming straight from the reading of A.P. European History.  The popes would actually write their OWN Bible verses to control illiterate commoners.

If our generation does not act, I fear for the world.

You can't say that we can just sit and let the world continue as it is...

...a world where people of different religions can't even come to at least respect each others differences...

...a world where we rather build a new football stadium than send 100 students to Harvard...

...a world where we can't survive without our video games and TV, and no longer look to the heavens for our entertainment...

...a world where we witness miracles of life, but prefer to focus on death.

The point is that if we could recreate the same spirit that inspired the ancients, the same fervent passion for knowledge that we humans once had, we could break this cycle before it breaks us.  Can you imagine that, a world where people all over thrived in economies as rich as the cultures past - where life was devoted to religion, family, and learning.  People learned because they wanted to, not because they had too!  They wanted a future for the world!  That sounds like a pretty nice place to live if you ask me.

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Even if you don't agree with me, fine, it's your suffering.  I'm telling it to you how it is.  If you feel superior enough to the rest of us that you don't think this is your problem to deal with, think again.  If you can live with knowing you let humanity slip out of our grasp, that's nice, but I have a conscience and I can't do that.  We all belong to this Earth, and we need to fix it together. 

I'm sure I'll lose a few readers from writing this, but that doesn't matter to me.  The fate of the Earth is in the hands of this generation and if we don't get our act together and start opening our eyes - we've got something else coming at us.

If you take nothing else from this - Narrow-mindedness is the root of all evil.  =[

Tags: Scholarship, Life, Religion, History