Oil (Petroleum)
HEGE Series
Oil is what puts the “mod” in Modernity. Although only having come into its own in the West in modern times, oil has been known and used since ancient times, as long ago as Sumeria and Babylon. Oil only became preminent in human civilization in the twentieth century. However, modern civilization still has essentially everything in common with ancient civilization, because Modernity is totally dependent on the natural world for “power” (primarily oil, but also other hydrocarbons (natural gas and coal), and uranium and hydrogen), power which Modernity (like antiquity) seeks to extract from nature in order to have power over nature itself including human nature, power over every thing and every creature, including all humanity.
Human civilization is by definition urban, not rural. Nomadic peoples (hunters, gatherers, and herders like Abraham the father of Hebrew monotheism) are not civilized, not settled but unsettled, so they do not build cities, and hence are not urban dwellers. Agriculture is what enabled humans to become “civilized”, to stay put, put down roots, build cities and empires on the surplus produced by agriculture. Just as wheat became the agricultural basis for civilization in the Old World of the Eastern Hemisphere, so corn (or maize) became the agricultural basis for civilization in the New World of the Western Hemisphere, as did rice in Asia.
Oil is the underpinning, the foundation and basis of modern Western civilization, which is urban and industrial, whereas earliest civilizations were dependent on surrounding rural agriculture and were non-industrial, relying on craftsmanship for handmade, not factory manufactured goods. Prior to the discovery, development, production, refinement, and manipulation of oil, even though humans were civilized (city dwellers) they were dependent on natural solutions to their needs.
While oil is considered a natural resource because it exists in nature, humans have unnaturally manipulated oil into things that have never before existed in the natural world and which do not biodegrade into naturally occurring materials, thereby permanently polluting nature. Oil, or crude oil as it is known, is a crude or most rudimentary form of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen (C-H-O) which are the building blocks of the material universe. By rearranging molecules of C-H-O derived from crude oil through organic chemistry, humans have created all manner of artificial, synthetic (or Frankensteinian) compounds and goods from C-H-O molecules chemically STITCHED together in ungodly ways, such as vinyl, polyvinyl chlorides, polyester, rayon, styrofoam, and all manner of proverbial plastics.
The word plastic has colloquially come to generally describe all manner of such artificial (manmade, not natural), unnatural industrial production. For instance, synthetic fabrics produced from oil (such as nylon, polyester, rayon, acetate, spandex, acrylic, and microfiber) can all generally be referred to as plastic fabrics, and other products as plastic products (such as styrofoam, vinyl, etc., including all manner of chemical products whether produced from oil or not). After long years of such industrial production (over a century and a half by dawn of the 21st century), wastefulness inherent in the modern urban industrial system has resulted in a huge Plastic problem — a huge problem of Pollution of the entire Earth environment consisting of atmosphere, air, freshwater, saltwater, and soil, everything humans (and all creatures) rely on for their very existence.
The problem with such human artifice that produces as much wasteful Pollution as it does ungodly artificial, Franken plastic compounds, chemicals, materials and products (including Franken-food, and Franken-medicine) is that God only knows the effects that such artificiality has on nature as God created it, including the human body. It is reasonable to presume that effects of any such Franken plastic (artificial) production produced through human artifice will most likely be detrimental rather than beneficial given the history of such products to date, including chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, flame retardents, asbestos, etc. etc.
At the bottom of all this devilish magical and monstrous manipulation of nature is Love of Money, which God's anointed (Christos/Christ, Mashiach/Messiah), the King of kings and Lord of lords revealed to be the root of all evil. Love of Money (materialism, material mammon worship) is perhaps the worst form of idolatry imaginable, because at heart it is delusional enslavement to the Evil One, who is bent on destruction of all the works of God's hand, especially humanity. By way of temptation (inspiration), humans are ironically and unwittingly deluded into destroying themselves as well as their environment on which they depend for material existence. Such delusion enslaves humans to the illusion of power through material riches which places them under the influence of the Evil One, from which they aid and abet him in his modern project of material destruction. In other words, demonic delusion equates to human Hubris, just as depicted so very long ago in the Western classic literary works of Frankenstein by Mary Shelly and Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Such literary works are warnings produced in the West, for the West, but which have gone unheeded by the West, just as the West has trivialized the spiritual basis of Western civilization (Traditional Christianity), and failed to heed the call of the Christ (Anointed) of the Living God to humility and repentence.
The Evil One is only able to destroy the Created Cosmos by first inspiring (tempting) destruction of spiritual comm-union between humanity and God. Reason and creativity (the basis for artifice) together with free will comprise the Image of God in which humanity is created, but humanity is also created in Divine Likeness, not simply Divine Image. Without spiritual comm-union with God, Divine Image in humanity without Divine Likeness results not in Wisdom but Hubris, not in godliness (Christ-likeness) but devilishness. The discovery of oil, its manipulation, and creation of the global oil Economy has truly been a devilish deal from the get go, a proverbial Faustian bargain by which humanity has sold its soul to the devil. Oil quickly established dominance over previous sources of steam and coal as The Power Source (derived by humanity from nature) driving the Industrial Revolution. The rise of oil has significantly marked a turning point in human history, after which the wholesale destruction of Earth and humanity by the Evil One has finally become blatantly obvious, destruction that especially since the mid 20th century has proceeded exponentially and unabated, and most likely will do so until the end of time. In that respect, oil is providential, one of the ways in which the Living God has foreseen that humanity will bring itself to the brink of destruction, at which time He will again send His Anointed (Mashiach/Christos - the Parousia) to bring an end to temporal time, and to judge the eternal fate of each and every human, both those still living at the end of time and those who have previously passed away.
Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus.
See — Babylon, The Beast, Human Body
Goethe‘s Faust | Wikipedia
Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe | Wikipedia
Frankenstein | Wikipedia
Mary Shelley | Wikipedia
Frankenstein — A Cautionary Tale of Playing God and Unchecked Ambition
—“On a deeper level, Frankenstein is a bold representation of the dangers and consequences of playing God and attempting to control nature through science and technology. Shelley’s story is a cautionary tale about the potential dangers of unchecked scientific advancement and the hubris of human ambition. It serves as a warning about the potential consequences of attempting to play the role of a creator without fully understanding the ramifications of our actions....
Victor Frankenstein, in his quest to create life, ultimately fails to take responsibility for his creation. He is unable to control the creature and ultimately abandons it, leaving it alone and shunned by society. The creature, in turn, seeks revenge on its creator for the suffering it has endured. This serves as a reminder that with great power comes great responsibility and that we must be willing to accept the consequences of our actions.
While reading the novel, you also start getting the idea of isolation and the human condition. The creature, created by Victor, is initially innocent and kind-hearted, but it is rejected and shunned by society due to its appearance. This leads to the creature feeling isolated and alone, which ultimately leads to its descent into darkness and violence. It highlights the fact that we are all capable of both good and evil and that our actions and surroundings can greatly influence who we become.
My final take is that the novel also brings the nature of creation into account. We, humans, aren’t capable of creating and controlling life. Victor Frankenstein, in his quest to create life, plays the role of God and ultimately is unable to control his creation. This serves as a reminder that the role of the creator is not one that should be taken lightly and that we must be prepared to accept the responsibilities and consequences of our creations....
Frankenstein is a novel that continues to resonate with readers today, nearly 200 years after its initial publication. The themes of responsibility, isolation, and the human condition are just as relevant now as they were in Shelley’s time.
The novel warns us about the potential dangers of unchecked scientific advancement and the hubris of human ambition, and it serves as a reminder that we must be willing to accept the consequences of our actions. It is a powerful work of literature that will keep on inspiring countless other tales like it already has in many cultures and forms of media.”
Artifice - Wiktionary, Dictionary.com
— a skillful or artful contrivance... a clever expedient; ingenious stratagem
craftsman, artificer [artist, designer]
Artificial - Wiktionary, Dictionary,com
— man-made by human skill; produced by humans (as opposed to natural [God-made], or normal)
imitation; simulated; sham; insincere; fake, forced or feigned
from Latin artificiālis “contrived by art”; from artificium (“skill”), from facere (“to make”)
equivalent to artifice
Creativity - Wiktionary, Dictionary.com
— ability to use imagination to produce a novel idea or product...ability to create or invent
ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.
originality, progressiveness, or imagination
See —
Greenwashing
Free Market Fundamentalism
Global Warming
Merchants of Doubt
Big Oil Tries To Buy Its Own Courts
— “Conservatism”, ever the shill for Big Business; the Grand “Old” Party, ever the uncompromising corrupt, criminal cronyism since the days of Reconstruction “free” labor
The Dark Bounty of Texas Oil
Will the booms and busts of the energy industry always dominate the state?
Oil and gas: the engine of the world economy
History of the Modern Oil Industry
History of the petroleum industry | Wikipedia
Petroleum | Wikipedia
— “Petroleum, in one form or another, has been used since ancient times. More than 4300 years ago, bitumen was mentioned when the Sumerians used it to make boats. A tablet of the legend of the birth of Sargon of Akkad mentions a basket which was closed by straw and bitumen. More than 4000 years ago, according to Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, asphalt was used in the construction of the walls and towers of Babylon; there were oil pits near Ardericca (near Babylon), and a pitch spring on Zacynthus. Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus, one of the tributaries of the Euphrates. Ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society.”
The Great Acceleration: An Environmental History of the Anthropocene since 1945
— “The Earth has entered a new age—the Anthropocene—in which humans are the most powerful influence on global ecology....
More than any other factor, human dependence on fossil fuels inaugurated the Anthropocene. Before 1700, people used little in the way of fossil fuels, but over the next two hundred years coal became the most important energy source. When oil entered the picture, coal and oil soon accounted for seventy-five percent of human energy use. This allowed far more economic activity and produced a higher standard of living than people had ever known—but it created far more ecological disruption.
We are now living in the Anthropocene. The period from 1945 to the present represents the most anomalous period in the history of humanity’s relationship with the biosphere. Three-quarters of the carbon dioxide humans have contributed to the atmosphere has accumulated since World War II ended, and the number of people on Earth has nearly tripled. So far, humans have dramatically altered the planet’s biogeochemical systems without consciously managing them. If we try to control these systems through geoengineering, we will inaugurate another stage of the Anthropocene. Where it might lead, no one can say for sure.”