What is Spiritual?

Prophets and Queens

2011-10-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

Life has been full and I haven't posted in awhile because my attention has been on the latest transitions in my life. I post fairly regularly on Club Adventist and in the course of dialog I was motivated to go back and look at some early influences on my beliefs about God. I grew up in the Seventh Day Adventist Church in a period of time where the Seventh Day Adventist Church was going through some major transitions in how it defined itself. Today, just like most denominations, it is composed of a wide variety of believers that run the spectrum from fundamentalist to liberal protestant and some unique variations only the Seventh Day Adventist Church could form.

When I was in college there was considerable debate on how one was saved and a number of thought leaders were forced out of the church. Just after I graduated from college, the founding thought leader Ellen G. White, considered to be a prophetess and a messenger from God, was under considerable attack for plagiarism by Seventh Day Adventist historian Walter T. Rae, Phd. The fall out from this has forced Adventist thought leaders to form some interesting apologetics. Currently the battle over evolution versus creationism being taught in Adventist schools, colleges, and Universities is being fiercely debated. The church is having a hard time getting their biology teachers to teach creationism, particularly at the University and College level.

When I talk about these things with friends and colleagues that haven't grown up in a fundamentalistic religious culture they express puzzlement and amazement. And I can completely understand their difficulty in understanding. I think the difficulty comes because it isn't about an intellectual understanding, but an emotional one. So much of the presentation of these beliefs on the surface looks like nonsense, but when I look at the conditioning process, at the core of such loyal commitment to concepts that defy reason, I find much that does make sense.

I want to look at this process within the testimony of Ellen G. White herself. Arguably she is the Queen of Seventh Day Adventism. And I think this attitude of princess thinking is expressed most clearly in the narrative of her own conversion to accept Jesus into her life.

Reading Ellen White was strongly encouraged when I was very young as a means of gaining wisdom and salvation. It was understood and taught that if one neglected this important study there was an extreme risk of being deceived by Satan and the resulting loss of one's eternal life. Understanding Ellen White was also essential to be included in the last remnant. The remnant were a final minority, loyal to Jesus, that would be present at the second coming of Jesus in which Jesus was going to destroy the earth and redeem the saved. An essential sign of being one of the remnant was going to church on Saturday, hence the name of the Church. Seventh Day (keeping Saturday as the Lord's Day) Adventist (looking forward to the second advent or coming of Jesus)

In my particular case the ability to read these long narratives written by Ellen White came very early. I had a college level reading ability by the time I was in 4th grade. At least the standardized tests said I did. In any case, the reading was not difficult. And our family library contained many of her major works including a 10 volume collection of her sayings called The Testimonies to the church. Her testimony is contained in the first volume of this 10 volume work.

She wrote 40 books and some 5000 periodicals. The White Estate has 50,000 pages of material attributed to her. By the time I was in high school I had read most of her books and a considerable amount of her periodicals. At the time I was a true believer and I took what ever she had to write very seriously because, as you will see, she very dramatically presents the life threatening nature of not following what she has to write.

I was not taught to think critically when it came to the Bible and the writings of Ellen White. These were established as the starting point for truth and were not to be questioned. The paradoxes present in many of the claims were presented as subjects too deep for the human mind to understand and we simply had to accept them as true by faith. It never occurred to me to question many of the nagging awarenesses that I had at the time. I was set up to try and make sense out of nonsense is how I put it now. And yet we used extensive amounts of critical thinking when it came to refuting the beliefs of other religions and denominations, not realizing that we were condemning ourselves in the process.

I think one of the reasons I write about the history of my own participation in these delusions is because for many years I taught these things to others. In a way it is an expression of amends for these mistakes. Don't worry I'm not wracked with guilt. It is more of a fascination with the whole human process that can take over such large groups of people and motivate them to dedicate their whole lives to these narratives. I'm simply writing from the inside. It is still part of the process of forming who I am today and I have gained valuable skills and lessons from this part of my journey.

Here is the first part of her testimony.

I was born at Gorham, Maine, November 26, 1827. My parents, Robert and Eunice Harmon, were for many years residents of this state. In early life they became earnest and devoted members of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In that church they held prominent connection, and labored for the conversion of sinners, and to build up the cause of God, for a period of forty years. During this time they had the joy of seeing their children, eight in number, all converted and gathered into the fold of Christ. Their decided second advent views, however, led to the separation of the family from the Methodist Church in the year 1843.

When she refers to the second advent views she is talking about a movement started by William Miller who taught that Jesus would come sometime, initially in 1843, and then in 1844 based on interpretations of Bible prophecy mainly within the books of Daniel and Revelation.

In this next section she describes a severe childhood accident

While I was but a child, my parents removed from Gorham to Portland, Maine. Here, at the age of nine years, an accident happened to me which was to affect my whole life. In company with my twin sister and one of our schoolmates, I was crossing a common in the city of Portland, when a girl about thirteen years of age, becoming angry at some trifle, followed us, threatening to strike us. Our parents had taught us never to contend with anyone, but if we were in danger of being abused or injured, to hasten home at once. We were doing this with all speed, but the girl followed us as rapidly, with a stone in her hand. I turned my head to see how far she was behind me, and as I did so, she threw the stone, and it hit me on the nose. I was stunned by the blow and fell senseless to the ground.
When consciousness returned, I found myself in a merchant’s store; my garments were covered with blood, which was pouring from my nose and streaming over the floor. A kind stranger offered to take me home in his carriage, but I, not realizing my weakness, told him that I preferred to walk home rather than soil his carriage with blood. Those present were not aware that my injury was so serious, and allowed me to do as I wished; but after walking only a few rods, I grew faint and dizzy. My twin sister and my schoolmate carried me home.

I have no recollection of anything further for some time after the accident. My mother said that I noticed nothing, but lay in a stupor for three weeks. No one but herself thought it possible for me to recover; but for some reason she felt that I would live. A kind neighbor, who had been very much interested in my behalf, at one time thought me to be dying. She wished to purchase a burial robe for me, but my mother said, Not yet; for something told her that I would not die.

When I again aroused to consciousness, it seemed to me that I had been asleep. I did not remember the accident, and was ignorant of the cause of my illness. As I began to gain a little strength, my curiosity was aroused by overhearing those who came to visit me say: “What a pity!” “I should not have known her,” etc. I asked for a looking glass, and upon gazing into it, was shocked at the change in my appearance. Every feature of my face seemed changed. The bones of my nose had been broken, which caused this disfigurement.

This next paragraph is significant because it describes her state of mind. Note how she did not want to live.

The thought of carrying my misfortune through life was insupportable. I could see no pleasure in my existence. I did not wish to live, and yet feared to die, for I was unprepared....At this time I began to pray the Lord to prepare me for death. When Christian friends visited the family, they would ask my mother if she had talked to me about dying. I overheard this, and it roused me. I desired to become a Christian, and prayed earnestly for the forgiveness of my sins. I felt a peace of mind resulting, and loved everyone, feeling desirous that all should have their sins forgiven and love Jesus as I did.

And within the intense atmosphere of the Millerite movement, that her parents were involved with, she describes her disappointment that Jesus did not come.

I well remember one night in winter when the snow was on the ground, the heavens were lighted up, the sky looked red and angry, and seemed to open and shut, while the snow looked like blood. The neighbors were very much frightened. Mother took me out of bed in her arms and carried me to the window. I was happy; I thought Jesus was coming, and I longed to see Him. My heart was full; I clapped my hands for joy, and thought my sufferings were ended. But I was disappointed; the singular appearance faded away from the heavens, and the next morning the sun rose the same as usual.

In this next passage she becomes very dramatic. I do have sympathy for her and I think a lot of people can relate to her feelings of being left out or being different. But when people give her the position of being the voice of god, her experience and her immaturity becomes the ideal. You will see later that she points to this intensity of experience as being a requirement for acceptance by Jesus.

I gained strength very slowly. As I became able to join in play with my young friends, I was forced to learn the bitter lesson that our personal appearance often makes a difference in the treatment we receive from our companions. At the time of my misfortune my father was absent in Georgia. When he returned, he embraced my brother and sisters, and then inquired for me. I, timidly shrinking back, was pointed out by my mother, but my own father did not recognize me. It was hard for him to believe that I was his little Ellen, whom he had left only a few months before a healthy, happy child. This cut my feelings deeply, but I tried to appear cheerful, though my heart seemed breaking.

Many times in those childhood days I was made to feel my misfortune keenly. My feelings were unusually sensitive and caused me great unhappiness. Often with wounded pride, mortified and wretched in spirit, I sought a lonely place and gloomily pondered over the trials I was doomed daily to bear.

The relief of tears was denied me. I could not weep readily, as could my twin sister; though my heart was heavy, and ached as if it were breaking, I could not shed a tear. I often felt that it would greatly relieve me to weep away my sorrow. Sometimes the kindly sympathy of friends banished my gloom and removed, for a time, the leaden weight that oppressed my heart. How vain and empty seemed the pleasures of earth to me then! how changeable the friendships of my young companions! Yet these little schoolmates were not unlike a majority of the great world’s people. A pretty face, a handsome dress, attracts them; but let misfortune take these away, and the fragile friendship grows cold or is broken. But when I turned to my Saviour, He comforted me. I sought the Lord earnestly in my trouble, and received consolation. I felt assured that Jesus loved even me.

What is interesting is some of the details she chooses to include in her narrative. The following is one of them. She plays the role of the forgiving martyr rather well. Now remember this is the adult Ellen White writing this.

The same girl who was the cause of my misfortune was appointed monitor by our teacher, and it was among her duties to assist me in my writing and other lessons. She always seemed sincerely sorry for the great injury she had done me, although I was careful not to remind her of it. She was tender and patient with me, and seemed sad and thoughtful as she saw me laboring under serious disadvantages to get an education.

And it gets rather more dramatic as she continues...

My nervous system was prostrated, and my hand trembled so that I made but little progress in writing, and could get no further than the simple copies in coarse hand. As I endeavored to bend my mind to my studies, the letters on the page would run together, great drops of perspiration would stand upon my brow, and a faintness and dizziness would seize me. I had a bad cough, and my whole system seemed debilitated. My teachers advised me to leave school and not pursue my studies further till my health should improve. It was the hardest struggle of my young life to yield to my feebleness and decide that I must leave my studies and give up the hope of gaining an education.

Three years later I made another trial to obtain an education. But when I attempted to resume my studies, my health rapidly failed, and it became apparent that if I remained in school, it would be at the expense of my life. I did not attend school after I was twelve years old.

My ambition to become a scholar had been very great, and when I pondered over my disappointed hopes, and the thought that I was to be an invalid for life, I was unreconciled to my lot and at times murmured against the providence of God in thus afflicting me. Had I opened my mind to my mother, she might have instructed, soothed, and encouraged me; but I concealed my troubled feelings from my family and friends, fearing that they could not understand me. The happy confidence in my Saviour’s love that I had enjoyed during my illness was gone. My prospect of worldly enjoyment was blighted, and heaven seemed closed against me.

I took this all very seriously. As I read it now it's hard not to laugh. It sounds all so much like a romance novel. The narrative continues to describe how she came to be involved with the Millerite movement. Again, a lot of exaggeration and drama.

In company with my friends I attended these meetings and listened to the startling announcement that Christ was coming in 1843, only a few short years in the future. Mr. Miller traced down the prophecies with an exactness that struck conviction to the hearts of his hearers. He dwelt upon the prophetic periods, and brought many proofs to strengthen his position. Then his solemn and powerful appeals and admonitions to those who were unprepared, held the crowds as if spellbound.
Special meetings were appointed where sinners might have an opportunity to seek their Saviour and prepare for the fearful events soon to take place. Terror and conviction spread through the entire city. Prayer meetings were established, and there was a general awakening among the various denominations, for they all felt more or less the influence that proceeded from the teaching of the near coming of Christ.
When sinners were invited forward to the anxious seat, hundreds responded to the call, and I, among the rest, pressed through the crowd and took my place with the seekers. But there was in my heart a feeling that I could never become worthy to be called a child of God. A lack of confidence in myself, and a conviction that it would be impossible to make anyone understand my feelings, prevented me from seeking advice and aid from my Christian friends. Thus I wandered needlessly in darkness and despair, while they, not penetrating my reserve, were entirely ignorant of my true state.

Arriving at home, I spent most of the long hours of darkness in prayer and tears. One reason that led me to conceal my feelings from my friends was the dread of hearing a word of discouragement. My hope was so small, and my faith so weak, that I feared if another took a similar view of my condition, it would plunge me into despair. Yet I longed for someone to tell me what I should do to be saved, what steps to take to meet my Saviour and give myself entirely up to the Lord. I regarded it a great thing to be a Christian, and felt that it required some peculiar effort on my part.

My mind remained in this condition for months. I had usually attended the Methodist meetings with my parents; but since becoming interested in the soon appearing of Christ, I had attended the meetings on Casco Street. The following summer my parents went to the Methodist camp meeting at Buxton, Maine, taking me with them. I was fully resolved to seek the Lord in earnest there, and obtain, if possible, the pardon of my sins. There was a great longing in my heart for the Christian’s hope and the peace that comes of believing.

Notice the almost total fear based motivation. She describes suffering, but it is almost totally self inflicted based on the dramatic presentations of these tent preachers and the Methodist church. Transcriptions of some of these sermons are available in which they describe the preacher having the audience slowly imagine burning for all eternity until they rush down front in a frenzy of fear. Ellen White describes this later on in her testimony.

I had been taught to believe in an eternally burning hell, and the horrifying thought was ever before me that my sins were too great to be forgiven, and that I should be forever lost. The frightful descriptions that I had heard of souls in perdition sank deep into my mind. Ministers in the pulpit drew vivid pictures of the condition of the lost. They taught that God proposed to save none but the sanctified. The eye of God was upon us always; every sin was registered and would meet its just punishment. God Himself was keeping the books with the exactness of infinite wisdom, and every sin we committed was faithfully recorded against us.

Satan was represented as eager to seize upon his prey and bear us to the lowest depths of anguish, there to exult over our sufferings in the horrors of an eternally burning hell, where, after the tortures of thousands upon thousands of years, the fiery billows would roll to the surface the writhing victims, who would shriek: “How long, O Lord, how long?” Then the answer would thunder down the abyss: “Through all eternity!” Again the molten waves would engulf the lost, carrying them down into the depths of an ever-restless sea of fire.

Seventh Day Adventists have certainly upgraded the belief system to remove the doctrine of an eternal hell, but much of the fear is still there today. And she didn't stop to think that maybe if the hell thing wasn't true, the whole thing might be a very tall tale.

She describes a particularly meaningful presentation in this next passage.

I was much encouraged while listening to a discourse from the words, I will “go in unto the king,” “and if I perish, I perish.” In his remarks the speaker referred to those who were wavering between hope and fear, longing to be saved from their sins and receive the pardoning love of Christ, yet held in doubt and bondage by timidity and fear of failure. He counseled such ones to surrender themselves to God, and venture upon His mercy without delay. They would find a gracious Saviour ready to present to them the scepter of mercy, even as Ahasuerus offered to Esther the signal of his favor. All that was required of the sinner, trembling in the presence of his Lord, was to put forth the hand of faith and touch the scepter of His grace. That touch ensured pardon and peace.

What is interesting is this is the story of Esther, a Jewish girl in captivity, who won a beauty contest to become a pagan Queen. Her actions would be totally outside of the value systems held by Ellen White. She slept with the king as part of the contest and she had her hair made up and undoubtably wore a lot of jewelry. In a bid to save her people she risked her life by going unannounced into King Ahasuerus who had decapitated his previous queen for crossing him. This would hardly be the comforting view of god she was looking for. And yet it might be closer to the view she actually held.

It makes a great story and great drama, but hardly the basis of one's life decisions. She goes on to describe her great ups and downs as she tries to come to a place where she feels saved. Eventually we come to her baptism. It seems that she finds meaning in her suffering because it turned her away from earthly pleasures. And yet, as you will see, she finds ways to present herself as the one having gone through great suffering to gain an inside knowledge of what it really means to be spiritual and her dramatic taking up of the heavy cross of being a Christian.

My life appeared to me in a different light. The affliction that had darkened my childhood seemed to have been dealt me in mercy for my good, to turn my heart away from the world and its unsatisfying pleasures, and incline it toward the enduring attractions of heaven.

Soon after our return from the camp meeting, I, with several others, was taken into the church on probation. My mind was very much exercised on the subject of baptism. Young as I was, I could see but one mode of baptism authorized by the Scriptures, and that was immersion. Some of my Methodist sisters tried in vain to convince me that sprinkling was Bible baptism. The Methodist minister consented to immerse the candidates if they conscientiously preferred that method, although he intimated that sprinkling would be equally acceptable with God.
Finally the time was appointed for us to receive this solemn ordinance. It was a windy day when we, twelve in number, went down into the sea to be baptized. The waves ran high and dashed upon the shore; but as I took up this heavy cross, my peace was like a river. When I arose from the water, my strength was nearly gone, for the power of the Lord rested upon me. I felt that henceforth I was not of this world, but had risen from the watery grave into a newness of life.
The same day in the afternoon I was received into the church in full membership. A young woman stood by my side who was also a candidate for admission to the church. My mind was peaceful and happy till I noticed the gold rings glittering upon this sister’s fingers, and the large, showy earrings in her ears. I then observed that her bonnet was adorned with artificial flowers, and trimmed with costly ribbons arranged in bows and puffs. My joy was dampened by this display of vanity in one who professed to be a follower of the meek and lowly Jesus.

Her joy was dampened by someone else? This is a sign of extreme self centeredness and not a sign of great wisdom and insight. Notice the life and death emotional energy given to jewelry and dress even though Esther the queen, the heroine of the story that was so influential to her conversion was probably dressed to the nines.

I expected that the minister would give some whispered reproof or advice to this sister; but he was apparently regardless of her showy apparel, and no rebuke was administered. We both received the right hand of fellowship. The hand decorated with jewels was clasped by the representative of Christ, and both our names were registered upon the church book.

And just like Jesus as a boy in the Temple she shows superior insight. Insight even greater than the minister. She notes earlier that, even as young as she was, she understood that baptism by immersion was the true baptism, not sprinkling. And it continues...

This circumstance caused me no little perplexity and trial as I remembered the apostle’s words: “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.” The teaching of this scripture seemed to be openly disregarded by those whom I looked upon as devoted Christians, and who were much older in experience than myself. If it was indeed as sinful as I supposed, to imitate the extravagant dress of worldlings, surely these Christians would understand it and would conform to the Bible standard. Yet for myself I determined to follow my convictions of duty. I could but feel that it was contrary to the spirit of the gospel to devote God-given time and means to the decoration of our persons—that humility and self-denial would be more befitting those whose sins had cost the infinite sacrifice of the Son of God.

She goes on to describe how people in her church simply didn't want to hear anymore about her testimony. This person coughed or that person turned their back. And little ol' humble me was so confused. I simply had no option but to leave. This describes why she had to join the Millerite movement and leave her home church, even though it was the place of her baptism.

I don't think she was being particularly malicious on a conscious level. I think she had deluded herself that this experience was evidence of superior insight. She took this stuff seriously and created a narrative so that these impossible expectations could miraculously happen. It is quite creative and certainly imaginative. The fact that millions of Seventh Day Adventist believers still exist is evidence of its effectiveness to convince.

And I can see why I suffered many of the same things as a child because I was modeling my experience on this. And it didn't really matter how intelligent I was, the emotional connection to this type of fear is so overpowering that it negates most rational processes that might free one from this no win situation.

And what is very telling is this later reference to this whole dramatic struggle that she had over contemplating an eternal hell.

This impression deepened upon my mind until I feared that I would lose my reason. I would look upon the dumb beasts with envy, because they had no soul to be punished after death. Many times the wish arose that I had never been born.

I think the Millerite movement and later Seventh Day Adventism allowed her to free herself from this belief. If she could have understood that non-belief is not the scary horrible thing she was lead to believe she might have been able to consider it.

Instead this is the answer she was given...

I now confided all my sorrows and perplexities to my mother. She tenderly sympathized with and encouraged me, advising me to go for counsel to Elder Stockman, who then preached the advent doctrine in Portland. I had great confidence in him, for he was a devoted servant of Christ. Upon hearing my story, he placed his hand affectionately upon my head, saying with tears in his eyes: “Ellen, you are only a child. Yours is a most singular experience for one of your tender age. Jesus must be preparing you for some special work.”

All good cons appeal to one's ego. You have a special work. And considering her need and the offer of relief, how could she help but believe this to be true?

He then told me that even if I were a person of mature years and thus harassed by doubt and despair, he should tell me that he knew there was hope for me through the love of Jesus. The very agony of mind I had suffered was positive evidence that the Spirit of the Lord was striving with me.

And here it is. Her whole narrative of suffering was evidence that god was actually with her. This implies that every Christian has to go through this agony of mind to find acceptance of Jesus. She returns to this agony of mind as evidence of god working on the heart in a number of other places including this quote on secret prayer. Notice the intensity has to be at the level of pleading for your mortal life.

Do not neglect secret prayer, for it is the soul of religion. With earnest, fervent prayer, plead for purity of soul. Plead as earnestly, as eagerly, as you would for your mortal life, were it at stake. Remain before God until unutterable longings are begotten within you for salvation, and the sweet evidence is obtained of pardoned sin.

She then expounds on the idea that her misfortune was possibly God's way of bringing to her attention the enormity of her own transgressions as a 10 year old girl. And to defer any critical analysis she is promised that she will understand the reasons once she gets to heaven.

He said that when the sinner becomes hardened in guilt, he does not realize the enormity of his transgression, but flatters himself that he is about right and in no particular danger. The Spirit of the Lord leaves him, and he becomes careless and indifferent or recklessly defiant. This good man told me of the love of God for His erring children, that instead of rejoicing in their destruction, He longed to draw them to Himself in simple faith and trust. He dwelt upon the great love of Christ and the plan of redemption.

He spoke of my early misfortune and said it was indeed a grievous affliction, but he bade me believe that the hand of a loving Father had not been withdrawn from me; that in the future life, when the mist that then darkened my mind had vanished, I would discern the wisdom of the providence which had seemed so cruel and mysterious.

Ellen White used this same narrative of almost dying and being fatally discouraged anytime she was criticized or challenged and instead of healing others, would claim the miracle of being healed as evidence of God's favor. This ended up being quite effective in keeping her detractors at bay and sustaining the myth of her prophetic ability.

If you are still with me I applaud your fortitude in getting through all this detail. Imagine being immersed in this every day from when I could first speak to college. I'm grateful to a number of very empathetic mentors that reached out to me and helped me walk through the dark places. This is a very difficult world view to free oneself from.

I realize this type of detail is probably far more interesting to me, but I had to do this type of thing to take away a lot of the fear involved with my early belief systems. And I hope this narrative is useful to those working their way out of any type of fear based belief system.

These types of belief systems are part of almost every organized religion. Hopefully we are evolving away from the need for this type of certainty.

Why do we need god?

2010-11-06T14:49:00.000-07:00

I grew up in the Seventh Day Adventist church culture and we would often have evangelistic meetings or what was called "Week of Prayer" with the stated goal of re-igniting the spiritual life. It was assumed that there was this God shaped hole in each person that needed to be filled, so the question, "Why do we need God?" was rhetorical in that context. Asking this question was a way to encourage an inward look at what might be lacking in a persons life.

It was assumed that no one would come to the conclusion that life was pretty good because, of course, humanity is fallen and under the curse of sin. And if this God shaped hole was empty this person was in need of salvation. So there was this sense of urgency and seriousness because lives were at stake and all problems would be solved once this hole was filled.

I would like to ask the question, "Why do we need God?" in a much different sense. Why do we need any type of god? What motivates humans to create all these different expressions of gods and goddesses?

In many forms of Christianity the world is portrayed as a great battlefield with a war being fought between Jesus and Satan for the souls of humankind. There is often fear that one might be influenced by Satan or even taken over. Making sure that Jesus is in one's heart is essential protection from the snares of Satan. There are many methods to make sure Jesus is in the heart including prayer and Bible study. The implication is if one leaves any part of the inner being unfilled by God or Jesus, it will leave an inroad for Satan to gain a foothold. One might make themselves more vulnerable by reading Harry Potter, using an Ouija board, doing Yoga, using meditation, magic 8 ball, or a host of other forbidden activities.

There is a belief that Satan can "whisper" suggestions to people as a way of influencing or tempting a person to do something harmful. And it is recognized that this belief might look a little looney by more moderate Christians. I think it's because there really isn't any evidence of the whispering or that there are beings doing the whispering. Irregardless this can be taken quite seriously.

One of the major flaws I see in many religions is ultimately their core is based on fear, particularly the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Their world views all have some version of punishment and reward. And to deal with this fear one might make up all sorts of myths to make sense of the world.

I think we can recognize that we have a subconscious that filters a lot of sensory input and summarizes it for our conscious mind. The weakness of the conscious mind is that it can only pay attention to one thing at a time, while the subconscious processes things in parallel.

There is an interesting physical model of the universe being explored that sees the world as being holographic in nature. The unique property of a hologram is that it can be sliced in half and you still have the whole hologram. If this is true of reality then all the information that makes up reality is redundantly available locally for the conscious mind to access.

We simply can't process all that information at the same time, so the conscious mind passes this through our perception in a linear fashion so that we experience life as if time is passing.

One of the goals of many types of meditation is, not to check out, but to find a state where the chatter of fear stops and we can have our whole attention available to listen more closely and thereby become more conscious. This idea that the devil is just around every corner waiting to enter into our minds is simply another fear that can become a major distraction for some people.

There are a number of studies of people who master their art and professions. The thing they generally have in common is the ability to focus all their attention on their art for long periods of time.

When we study what it means to be loved the idea of attention is very important. The two things that define love for most people is being seen and being heard. If one is engaged in the fear based focus on Satan being on the prowl the ability to love is severely hampered and the focus is on oneself.

This is why any belief system that focuses on fears tends to be self centered and reduces a person's ability to love and empathize. Fear also tends to keep a person immature.

In community, when people can really hear and see each other deep bonds form and life feels like it is meaningful. This provides the foundation for joy, our most sublime experience. Fear destroys all of this and most fears are based on illusions.

So if there is a Satan I would say it is simply fear.

It was pointed out to me that the Bible states perfect love casts out fear. To quote Tom Wetmore's answer, "That sort of confirms the framing of the great cosmic battle of God vs. Satan if God = love and perfect love casting out fear. In the end love wins. Fear loses the battle for the hearts and minds of the people."

This brings me back to the original question, "Why do we need god?" or "Why do we need to anthropomorphize the unknown?"

I think humans are afraid of the unknown so we tend to anthropomorphize these powerful influences on our experience. Love and fear are both powerful experiences that defy description because essentially they are both irrational.

In a way we project ourselves onto our gods so we can make the unknown more predictable. I think that is why god looks so much like an iron age ruler in the Bible because the Bible writers are projecting humanity onto their god. And it would make sense that humanity would make gods out of both love and fear. We hear the statement, "God IS love" enough times that it is part of many people's assumed reality. And Satan being seen behind every harmful and destructive aspect of society certainly embodies him as a representation of fear.

I think Carl Jung describes this well as our tendency to draw on archetypes to help explain the great collective consciousness. Joseph Campbell does a great job of tracing these archetypes among different religions and traditions in his books on mythology.

I see nothing wrong with exploring spiritual experience using anthropomorphic representations of these mysteries. And I think that is why freedom of religion is essential for a healthy society. What crosses the line into harmful is when these representations are sustained as being real through force, coercion, and fear. When this is done I think it reveals a religion's immaturity and self centeredness of its members. It also removes the benefit that comes from the archetype by reducing the archetype into something less than human.

So when fear is the core motivation, the god that is worshiped is no longer a "higher power", but is something with even its humanity removed. Because, fear has no room for empathy.

Positive Christianity

2010-10-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

There has been some discussion of positive atheism and this has clarified into the exploration of a rational base for ethics. I thought I might present something positive about the contribution of Christianity or more specifically Jesus to this rational ethic dialog. As I see Christianity expressed by its most vocal adherents it tends to be largely negative so I thought I might present something that I have recognized as a major positive contribution Jesus has made to the dialog of ethics and meaning. Hence the title Positive Christianity.

I think more agnostics and atheists would recognize the contribution of Jesus more often if Christians would't point to it as evidence of the Holy Spirit working on the hearts of us poor atheists and agnostics. So with that disclaimer I want to wade into this pool that has more than a few pitfalls. (Baptismal metaphor intentional)

I have been contemplating the idea of having empathy as a more influential basis for ethics for a while and it has been interesting to see others exploring this idea. Jesus establishes this basis without referring to it directly with his statement to love your neighbor as yourself. This appears to be a direct reference to one's ability to project one's experience on another.

Jesus further expands this idea of loving one's neighbor with the clever story of the good Samaritan by expanding the definition of our neighbor to all of humanity. The misdirection of the story provides a rational trap by which the listener has to answer the question of who is one's neighbor by what they do rather than their class or race.

In this TED video Jeremy Rifkin explores the evolution of empathy...

The ideas that stand out here for me are that humans are soft wired to be good to each other and we can evolve to be wired differently. We can also have this soft wiring suppressed. I think some forms of religion suppress this by redefining who our neighbor is and recreate new forms of class that don't deserve empathy within its modified world view.

Sam Harris in another TED video talks about the rational basis for ethics along the same lines.

I think if the Bible was only the phrase love your neighbor as yourself and the parable of the good Samaritan the message would be a lot clearer. As we engage in the very human dialog of what it means to live with each other and to find meaning without destroying each other I would hope we could learn how to recognize what works from reason informed by empathy.

Is Disagreement Religious Bigotry?

2009-12-28T16:41:00.000-08:00

David Hayward at nakedpastor presented the following cartoon on his blog...

Often the discussion of ideas breaks down because the accusation of rudeness is used to imply that whatever the person being “rude” is saying is untrue. In my experience those who follow any of the three Abrahamic traditions generally expand rudeness to anything appearing to question the nature or existence of their god. Accusations of blaspheme tend to be brandished about in these situations.

When I was a believer I noted how easily I could be offended. It made me wonder how solid my idea of truth was if it was so vulnerable to criticism. I have noticed that if something is true, it doesn’t need to be defended. I simply came to the point where I couldn’t defend my Christian beliefs in any objective way. And on the subjective level I came to realize how many of my Christian beliefs were extremely destructive to my quality of life.

On a personal level the subjective is absolutely needed to make life full. Love, beauty, art, music, and whole host of inner experiences make life quite wonderful. So if one claims their belief brings them a sense of wonder and joy, there is no argument since the truth of their wonder is based solely on their interpretation of the experience. They are absolutely the arbiter of their own truth as far as how it affects their enjoyment of life.

Now its quite different when that person decides that since their subjective experience is wonderful then everyone has to have the same exact experience to feel wonderful and until the whole world has that experience, the universe will simply not be “right.” And this person decides that those who do not agree that this experience is the one and only true way, are in fact condemned to burn in hell forever. That is essentially what many Christians are doing. This has no basis in truth or fact and is simply untestable in any objective way what so ever and yet confident claims are made of its universal veracity. In addition I would guess most Christians don’t actually have an experience to reference, but are simply defending something they have been told is true.

Now I can be dishonest and tell you that I respect your belief, when in fact there is nothing believable about it to me, other than I can believe that it makes you happy. And even though Christians feel it is their duty to “love” me so much by telling me that my lack of belief makes me amoral and a evil influence on society, I can still appreciate the obvious joy something like “God loves me” can bring to a person.

When I look at Christianity’s track record of violence, manipulation, and oppression, I find no evidence that it should be the universal “truth” that the whole world needs to follow. I really can’t find any philosophy or religion that could fit that bill. I do know a number of methods for learning and adapting I could recommend.

The deal breaker for bridge building is the fact that every Abrahamic sourced religion believes that the whole world should be like them. Any bridge building done by them would be a lie. It would simply be a means to convert everyone to their idea of what is true. The type of bridge building implied by the cartoon can only be done when religious belief stays in the realm of subjective experience and communication is done for the motivation of curiosity and understanding.
Christians gives a lot of lip service to truth and yet becomes offended when someone who disagrees is completely honest. When someone is honest with me that information is very valuable. When someone simply tells me what I want to hear, that person doesn’t care about me, but sees me as a means to an end. And this happens too often in Christian communities as the latest “mission” project or “cause” defending Christian values sweeps through town.

We live in a weird world where large groups of people holding rigid views of god and truth are in a continual collision course, even among themselves. One simply needs to publish the right offensive cartoon, say a particular “liberal’ phrase, or accidently misunderstand a small point of a complex culture to ignite a holy outrage. This spawns leaders telling the group they need to fight for their truth and how the world is going to fall apart unless they give everything. They claim that they are the persecuted one’s even if they are the majority and that anyone who is against their beliefs is motivated by evil intents to destroy all that is good and wholesome. And the latest is that anyone who is against their religion is bigoted. I guess I should never under estimate the power of fear.

Tabloid Christianity

2009-09-29T11:04:00.000-07:00

Right now there are several debates going on within city councils around the country of how to handle prayer given before council meetings. The city of Lodi in California has been one of the most prominent in the news. The group "Freedom From Religion" has threatened to bring a lawsuit against the City of Lodi if it doesn't enforce its own policy of non-sectarian/non-denominational prayers before council meetings. Their specific issue is the use of the name of Jesus in the invocation, which happened 39 times last year.

Just recently, the council received a letter from Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt who formed "The Pray in Jesus Name Project" in Colorado. In this letter he stated, "If you vote the wrong way, or silence prayers or leave in place the current policy that suddenly enforces censorship of Jesus' name from prayers (as never before) you should be aware of our plan" to place a billboard in the Lodi area listing how each council member voted under the column headings "For Jesus" and "Against Jesus."

Several solutions have been offered. "In the memo from Pacific Justice Institute, which is based in Sacramento, Chief Counsel Kevin Snider discussed leading cases involving public invocations and encouraged the Council to adopt a neutral policy allowing ministers and other members of the public to open the meetings with prayer or other comments, free of any censorship by the Council. Under such an approach, prayers in Jesus’ name could not be singled out for exclusion. PJI also offered to represent the Council at no charge. In a federal case in Washington, D.C., PJI is currently defending Revs. Rick Warren and Joseph Lowery, who were sued by atheists for offering public prayers at President Obama’s inauguration."

Mike Johnson, senior legal counsel for the Christian-based Alliance Defense Fund, believes case law allows religion-specific public prayers so long as they don't disparage other faiths.

Whether or not prayer before government functions is constitutional or not seems like a side issue to the tactics these so called Christian organizations use to push their views and raise money. There is a lot of use of the word truth and a lot of claiming to stand up for the truth. They claim they are defending the truth. But it seems like truth is less like a practice and more like a label. I want to look at the tactics used by these organizations. It seems that they have fallen to the mentality of the ends justify the means, which isn't really standing up for anything resembling truth. Particularly if lies, exaggeration, and misrepresentation are the so called methods of standing up for the truth.

A glaring example of this is the organization "The Pray in Jesus Name Project" is using the claim of free speech to allow them to pray in public are at the same time attempting to limit free speech by preventing those they disagree with from speaking. For example they supported the movement to prevent Obama from speaking at Notre Dame at Stop Obama at Notre Dame Their line at the top of the page equates Obama with Pilate by asking, "Would you invite Pilate after he condemned Christ to death?"

Or the whole story on the Death Book for Veterans is another exaggeration. Here is an expose by Keith Oberman...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

And Rachel Maddox...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

It boils down to a small 53 page book called "Your Life, Your Choices" that was edited under the Bush administration with consultation of an inter-faith panel. The main voice against this book is James Towey, president of Saint Vincent College. He was director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives (2002-2006) and founder of the nonprofit Aging with Dignity. He also has a book he has written which he has been trying to sell the military to replace the book "Your Life, Your Choices." There is a "slight" conflict of interest there.

I think what we have is a group of people that have learned how to create Tabloid Christianity. They have learned how to create "hot" issues to rally the gullible Christian public for the purpose of raising money. They get to do this tax free and provide a living for themselves. Just as Fox News, led by Rupert Murdoch, learned how to tap into this tabloid culture, so have these so called spiritual leaders. This is evidenced by Fox's rise to the number one "news" channel. And it is evidenced by the ability of organizations like Pat Robertson's "700 club" and James Dobson's "Focus on the Family" to raise millions of dollars based on the fear of evil groups like gays, atheists, secular humanists, and other "evil" groups taking over America and its families. When you add the claim of God's blessing, the appeal becomes unassailable by reason. This became obvious as the statements made by both Dobson and Robertson became more and more bizarre.

What I think we are looking at is an appeal to the addiction of self-righteousness. If I can find someone else who is "destroying our American way of life" or "destroying the American family" or some other exaggerated threat, then I can use that to ignore my own responsibilities. Or I can derive meaning for my life because I am "fighting the good fight of faith." This is the antithesis of spirituality.

It also has an eerie similarity to the tactics described in the book 1984, only these are based more on the motivation for profit, recognition, and influence than totalitarianism. What is becoming more apparent is the willingness to express violence toward those who would disagree with this "moral" majority. They increasingly have become more like bullies than spiritual leaders.

There are a number of specialists that have risen around the need to teach Christians how to defend their beliefs in these exaggerated threats. They offer classes in how to win debates, silence detractors, and gain influence. Their tactics have little concern over the search for truth. They talk from positions of authority, rather than evidence. And when they do present what they call evidence, it is based on assumptions of authority.

For example in the debate over whether a fetus is a human being or not, they state that if you can prove that the fetus is not a human being they will concede defeat. This is a trick because the question assumes that the humanity of the fetus has been established. One could challenge them to prove that the fetus is human. When the debate shifts to the early pregnancy period they use the term life, rather than human being when referring to the grouping of cells. This ignores that if life itself is sacred in any form, then killing any life is murder. I guess I better stop mowing my lawn or eating chicken. But this is HUMAN life is generally the counter which is a subtle way of calling a group of cells a human being. It simply keeps going round and round claiming to be based on evidence and reason while ignoring the underlying authoritarian belief that its life because God says its life.

While I'm not making a case for either polarity in this post, I want to point out the need to keep things polarized. As long as there is an issue to fight for, then there is something to raise money and sell books for. If my opponent tries to compromise, then I will point out that they are only shifting because they know their positions is wrong and that I am right. Or if it appears to be reasonable and I might have to compromise my position, I bring out something else to be really scared about whether its related or not. In the abortion debate this is often dead late term abortion pictures or the argument that if we don't consider a few cells to be human life, its only a short step to killing unwanted people. Or even better, I misrepresent my opponent's position in my own words, and debate that.

All this seems to be an attempt to derive meaning from fighting evil, whether its manufactured or not. And in Christian belief evil will never be defeated until Jesus comes again. So even if evil is defeated, it generally won't be recognized because the Bible says things are only going to get worse until Jesus comes again.

Fear is a powerful motivator and a powerful way to raise money, gain influence, and manufacture meaning. Its something that Tabloids have recognized as well. And to me, it appears that many Christian organizations have recognized this too. Where does that leave the truth? And where does that leave love as a motivation for meaning?

Maybe someday we will be immune to tabloids, but until then our addiction to self-righteousness and judgment seems to be the big money maker.

Christ in Egypt by D.M. Murdock

2009-05-02T20:11:00.000-07:00

The book “Christ In Egypt, The Horus-Jesus Connection” is as much a story of Christianity as the New Testament. It is a story of the evolution of religious belief , beginning in Egypt, that continues today. D.M. Murdock begins this story in the introduction to the book. She describes the nature of how this story is told. The Jesus myth is not simply a previous tale of Horus with the name Jesus plugged in where one would read Horus. In fact there is not a single narrative of Horus that we could cite to plug Jesus into. Understanding this story requires an understanding of many different influences. In many ways this book reads like a detective novel.

The transformation of Egyptian religious belief is as much a syncretism of various gods and goddesses as is Christianity. It sets the mode by which humankind created religious belief. What I gather from her description, is this method of syncretism is what the ancient pagans saw as the perfection of the god myth through combining the tales of many different gods. There is evidence that the Egyptians were essentially monotheists and saw the various gods as simply one aspect of the great unknown creator god. They would have no problem combining different gods and their characteristics since they would see these as combining parts of a single great and mysterious god. This is expressed in hieroglyphs which picture a human body and the heads of two different gods on one single body. An example of this is a Horus-Seth united in a single being from the Amduat. Pagans in general had no problem including the gods of other nations and cultures to perfect their god myths. Egyptian influence on Greek, Roman, Persian, Hebrew, and other ancient beliefs is pervasive as you will see when you read this book.

This mode of religious expression is very foreign to the Christian believer who has been taught that God does not change. The assumption is that there was an original pure form of Christianity brought about by the disciples of Jesus and this is expressed perfectly from the Bible today in both spiritual and rational means.

Yet, even within the last 100-200 years we see various forms of Christianity being combined with modern ideas rather freely. This is easily seen by comparing sermons from 100 to 200 years ago to the sermons today. Some would argue that essential doctrines haven’t changed. They can only claim this if they dismiss as Christian those forms of Christianity they disagree with. Since we have many more versions of Christianity today than we did even 100 years ago, it would be difficult to pin down even one official version of Christianity to refute syncretism. And these various versions do disagree on what many consider to be essential doctrines. These doctrines include the nature of Jesus, the method of salvation, method of baptism, authority of the Bible, authority of the Pope, day of worship, and many others. This was as true in the 1st century as it is today.

What we find in this book is that Christian beliefs and practices are far from being unique, but are drawn from ancient practices that existed sometimes thousands of years before Christianity. Some of these practices were well known in the ancient world and some were parts of mystery religions. These practices and beliefs were combined together to meet the needs of the 1st century and then synthesized by force into what we call orthodox Christianity by the Roman empire. Lets look briefly at some of the claims of Christian uniqueness.

The virgin birth of the Christ (Anointed) child is central to the claim of Divine origin for Jesus. It has been presented as a unique feature of the Christian religion and the implication is that when it does occur in pagan systems of belief it is a late, post Christian, addition. D.M. Murdock provides extensive documentation of not only the virgin birth being a characteristic of Horus, but his mother Isis is a prototype of the virgin Mary. Early Christian imagery of Jesus and Mary is clearly a copy of the Horus/Isis virgin mother with child. The name Mary means beloved and is commonly merged with the name Isis in the form of Meri or Isis-Meri or Isis the beloved. Virginity has a number of reasons for its inclusion in these god myths. Later reasoning emphasized the need for purity and in the case of Jesus, virginity was proof that Jesus did not come from a human source.

One reason that it is so difficult to find other examples of virgin birth within the literature is because the term parthenogenesis is used for virgin (partheno) birth (genesis). This has been done to hide the fact that it is difficult to find any great leader or god in the ancient world that wasn't the product of virgin birth and is far from unique. The word in greek παρθένος parthenos means virgin and is the prominent root of the Greek temple to the goddess Athena called the Parthenon. This structure was predictably converted to a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the 6th century.

In the early case of Isis the reason for virginity was quite different. Isis, being the Goddess creator and origin of all life, would have to birth the universe as a virgin. This would make sense to the ancients who would observe that life emerged from the female gender in most species of life. So early creator gods were Goddesses and Earth itself was called Mother Earth. More specifically, Isis births the sun as baby Horus on Dec 25. In the inscription over her temple at Sais you read "The fruit I have begotten is the sun" And with Isis, her virginity was self renewed to the point that she could be a perpetual virgin.

After being born in the form of a helpless child the Sun continued to age and take different forms throughout the year until it would be born again on Dec. 25, the winter solstice. This was the turning point where the daylight hours would begin to get longer. What is interesting is that John the Baptist, Jesus' cousin and preparer of the way, was born exactly 6 months, at the summer solstice, before Jesus. The Christian celebration of St. John occurs at this time in which the daylight hours are the longest and would represent the beginning of the stage of the sun in which its hours would be getting shorter. It is interesting to note in John 3:30 (the most gnostic gospel) it states that "He must increase, but I must decrease." in reference to Jesus.

D.M. Murdock continues to show how Sun worship was an essential part of the syncretic mixture of religious myth which created Christianity. And she clearly establishes that Dec. 25 and the celebrations around the birth of the new sun existed thousands of years before Christianity and were unmistakable features of the 1st century consciousness. This was such a problem that early church fathers had to address accusations that Christians were not Sun worshippers. This is understandable considering all the solar and astronomical references to Jesus as the light of the world, the bright and morning star, the victory of light over darkness, and others in the New Testament.

"St. Cyprian spoke of Christ as the true sun (sol verus)." Cyprian also writes, "O, how wonderfully acted Providence than on that day on which that Sun was born...Christ should be born." "St. Ambrose says precisely, 'He is our new sun (Hic sol novus noster).' Similar figures are employed by Gregory of Nazianzus, Zeon of Verona, Leo the Great, Gregory the Great, etc." Christ in Egypt page 112-113 Clement of Alexandria calls Christ the "Sun of the Resurrection"

The church father Tertullian (c. 155-230 AD/CE) writes in a rather defensive manner to the charge of worshipping the sun, "...Others, with greater regard to good manners, it must be confessed, suppose that the sun is the god of the Christians, because it is a well-known fact that we pray towards the east, or because we make Sunday a day of festivity. What then? Do you do less than this? Do not many among you, with an affectation of sometimes worshipping the heavenly bodies likewise, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise?" Ad Nationes 1:13 Augustine (354-430 AD/CE) had to refute the same charges even later in Tractates on the Gospel of John.

When we consider the Egyptian winter solstice celebration we find Epiphanius, Plutarch, and Macrobius describing a similar ceremony that further indicates why Pagans would accuse Christians of worshiping the Sun. Macrobius writes in Saturnalia (1:18:10), "...at the winter solstice the sun would seem to be a little child, like that which the Egyptians bring forth from a shrine on an appointed day, since the day is then at its shortest and the god is accordingly shown as a tiny infant." In the case of Epiphanius the passages describing this celebration in Alexandria are deleted in the Migne edition which presents a case of deliberate and egregious censorship. This is because it describes an infant child brought forth as born of a virgin from the lower depths of the shrine of Core, which means virgin. This wooden image of the child sun is carried on a litter and has the sign of the cross inlaid with gold on each hand, both knees, and on the forehead. Gregory Nazianzen (329-389) describes the Greek form of this celebration in which is heard the festal shout, "the virgin has brought forth, the light grows."

This is just the tip of the iceberg. D.M. Murdock has much more information, with references, on the Egyptian origins of Satan, the resurrection, the star in the east, the three kings, the 12 followers, the miracles, the crucifixion, Proto-Christianity formed in Alexandria, and many others. This book will take a while to get through, and opens up so many more questions and avenues to explore than I ever thought possible. With this book, it is going to be far more difficult to deny the pagan origins of Christianity. It is going to be far more difficult to claim that Christianity is "The Truth."

That being said, it does open up many of the sayings ascribed to Jesus. These sayings can be applied in a much broader context and allows them to reveal many of their original intents within the mystery religions of the 1st century. These Bible sayings and stories are an integral part of the Western mind. Having the freedom to look at these stories as myths places them within our consciousness in a way that allows them to speak out from under the subconscious threats of death and condemnation. No longer does fundamental Christianity have a hold on these truths that are rather lifeless and frightening when applied in reference to beliefs in an eternal hell and the obsessive need to have Jesus become everyone's "personal savior."

D.M. Murdock obviously put a lot of work and research into this book. It is well worth reading and reveals insights into what is the true origin of Christianity. This information should have been available to the general public long ago. It is understandable why this hasn't been presented before because for many centuries any criticism of the "truth" of Christianity would be met by death, loss of the ability to make an income, and other social pressures. I have also learned to appreciate the finer points of the Egyptian religion. It is no longer this dark and scary entry into the land of mummies and monsters born of curses and superstition. It is a very sophisticated philosophy of light and darkness, good and evil, and the purification of the soul.

I highly recommend this book and encourage you to read it slowly and thoughtfully, taking time to place yourself back in time with D.M. Murdock when humanity saw things much differently.

Death and Re-birth, a post-Christian perspective

2009-04-19T13:52:00.000-07:00

First of all I want to thank everyone who sent me words of support and comfort with the death of my father. This was a life transition that has created a profound force for change in the way that I consider life. One of the purposes of this blog has been to look at how one can view the world with meaning in a post-Christian era. Death, birth, and re-birth have been mysteries explored by many religious and philosophical practices since recorded history began. I would like to explore the values and the mythical sources of meaning around these mysteries and how we might create new myths in the post-Christian era as an introduction to my next post.

What I have noted is that atheism and agnosticism in this country defined itself by what it was against and some atheists abandoned any exploration of the subjective as being a way of knowing truth. This labeling of people who don't believe in specific gods is limited by the definition of atheism itself. Atheism has no creeds, beliefs, or goals. It simply states that there is no god or gods. If the subjective experience was addressed it was often reduced to biochemical reactions that created the illusion of religious or spiritual experience. Or spiritual experience was presented as a form of addiction or “the opiate of the masses.” This is very understandable, considering the violence and manipulation that has emerged from many different religious systems throughout the history of humans and continues to manifest through various religious teachings based on fear and intimidation.

Another concern expressed has been the fear that without the restraints of religion and/or spirituality, corruption, violence, and suppression by the strong will create a world that no one wants to live in. On what basis can we value life? Can there be multiple foundations of value? How do we understand the meaning of life and death? Does the apparent randomness of life mean that there is no meaning?

Pre-Game Coin Toss Makes Jacksonville Jaguars Realize Randomness Of Life

The idea that consciousness might be something beyond physical reality has often been dismissed as wishful thinking by those who want to be cautious about supporting anything that might look like religion. Science and reason are the only things that they are willing to trust and even this is accepted as partial and destined to change. One has to learn how to live with a lot of uncertainty with these views. This is a very humbling experience because one is forced to realize how little control we have over outcomes, particularly when it comes to death. It is understandable that a person would find a belief in an all powerful god, that will make sure everything works out eventually, very attractive and persuasive. And once one accepts that there is an all powerful god out there, the need would be created for stories about this god’s motivations, wants, and how one might gain this god’s support. It might explain why one would want to violently maintain this illusion when it is attacked or revealed to be based on little more than wishful thinking. Without anything to replace this source of security, a free fall into uncertainty might be quite painful to the point that it might feel like death.

When I have studied various religious systems there is often a great deal of time spent on making sense of death. By far, the facing of and the experience of death dominate the stories and myths of the ancient world. It is the dominant theme of the Christian religion. Jesus dies so that we can live. Spiritual growth is presented as death to self so that Jesus can live within the life of the believer. In many ways the realization that we have no control over the complex world we live in is a death to self. It is a realization that we are not gods. And the more that I have studied science, the more acute this realization has been. Now, when I have given up the need to have all the “answers”, much of the fear of uncertainty has gone away. When I accept the world as it presents itself, there is a renewal of the life experience that transitions from fear to curiosity. I no longer waste energy on things that present no immediate solution. Once I admit that I don’t know, and learn how to accept that, I get to step down from trying to be god-like or “like Jesus” and become simply human. This surrender to the reality of my humanity could be seen as a death of the ego “self” that needs to know and assumes responsibilities that only a god could have. This acceptance of one's limits could be seen and felt as a re-birth. One becomes free from taking on god's job.

This, to me, explains the humble, but confident, presentation brought by many atheists and agnostics that I know. Not all are this way, so don’t mistake my observation for a generalization. If I were to give my own (certainly not one they would apply to themselves) label to this awareness I would say that it looks like a deep spirituality. It is the result of a particular form of honesty that has confronted the mysteries of life and admitted that we really don’t know. I think, too often, Christians mistake confidence and security for arrogance. This contrast has allowed me to see how fear-based many forms of the Christian religions are and why we are moving into a post-Christian world view. And this brings me to the topic of my next blog post. I would like to review the book “Christ In Egypt, The Horus-Jesus Connection.”

Let me give a little history of why this book was written and why I think it is an important book to read and understand. Often this type of book is seen as an attack because, understandably so, it begins to dismantle some very deeply held illusions that many people consider to be real. They associate these illusions with some very real positive changes in their lives. I recognize that Christianity, for some people, has been a transformative experience and this experience is rooted deeply in a belief in a real Jesus. There have been 2000 years and millions of people dedicated to this myth. This is quite a momentum of thought and energy. But consider, for a moment, that this Jesus myth, like so many others that we have changed, is not based on what we thought it was.

In dismantling the commonly held beliefs around the historical Jesus there is a real danger of losing the benefits of the Jesus myth. I don’t believe there is an individual danger in the long run because I recognize that the truth does set people free. I do recognize the need for inspiration within people’s lives. There is a need for mythology and storytelling that taps into the deeper self that may be lost to the default modern secular myth of happiness through consumption and wealth.

I have observed that when these myths become treated as real and one person’s or group’s myth is imposed on others, then the worst aspects of human behavior become revealed. In almost every religion that I have studied, when the orthodox branch of that religious system comes into power, violence emerges as the means of “conversion.” In most cases, when the mystical, non-orthodox branch is in power, conversion happens by attraction and a manifestation of compassion, empathy, and curiosity. Unfortunately, in most cases, the mystical branch is destroyed through violence and is portrayed by the victors as deserving of the application of violence. This violence can take the form of torture, often for rather minor “offenses.” This occurs in pagan and other non-christian systems of belief as well as within the history of Christianity.

That brings me to this point. Since the violent branch of Christianity, in the form of Imperial and Papal Rome won the battle of ideas, we have a very distorted view of the opposing forms of Christianity and Paganism, because many of the writings were destroyed. We have the classic example of the "winner gets to tell the story." What we do have left from these more mystical branches of Christianity is often only available from the writings of their orthodox enemies. And in presenting a case for the origin of Christianity it is often stated that pagan practices of the time were actually taking from Christianity and applying Christian beliefs heretically rather than the other way around. Many of these pagan practices and beliefs looked like Christianity. They include the virgin birth, a Savior who is the son of god, who is heralded by a star, born on Dec. 25th, baptized by a baptizer, is raised from the dead, is the light of the world, the lamb of god, etc. This is why the author D.M. Murdock of “Christ in Egypt” went to Egyptian sources of these shared myths, since these clearly predate Christianity. She has also been accused of not providing enough documentation for her claims. This book provides over 900 quality sources for the information provided including translations from scripts on tombs, monuments, writings by Christian Church fathers, the Egyptian book of the Dead, and many other ancient and modern scholars. The book is almost 600 pages long and is extensively foot noted with expanded descriptions and further sources.

I, along with many other Christians, was taught that Christianity was a completely new movement raised up by Jesus, the 12 disciples, and Paul. What D.M. Murdock does in the book “Christ in Egypt” is to show that most of the themes presented in Christianity were drawn from ancient pagan sources in a manner that was very common in the ancient world. She shows how Christianity was an evolution of religious belief, not a revolution. It came from and practiced many aspects of theology that had its roots in the worship of the sun. It was formed from a syncretism of Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, and various mystery religions.

This is important because, once we come to the awareness that these myths are not based on certainty and don’t involve eternal life and death issues, we might stop killing in the name of religion. Maybe we can explore the more rational and compassionate principles illustrated by various myths, rather than simply following textual and institutional authority formed from beliefs in iron age ethical systems. Maybe we can step back and develop some awareness of the people around us and learn how to interact in ways that encourage each person to grow using internal guides rather than external force, intimidation, and desires for control.

A more detailed summary of “Christ in Egypt – The Horus-Jesus Connection” by D.M. Murdock will follow in my next post.

My father, a beautiful human being.

2009-02-27T00:18:00.001-08:00

I haven’t done a blog post for a number of months. It has been because my father passed away suddenly before Thanksgiving. I was also in the midst of moving my office. Both of those events took all of my energy and during the first of this year, it has been hard to concentrate. I have to admit that I continue to grieve my father passing. It has been hard to put into words all the feelings that I have around this transition.

I admired my father. My father wasn’t the sort of father who would sit down and talk. He would often give insights into what he thought was important through sharing stories of his work and growing up, but these tended to be directed to a general audience. He much preferred actions and simply sharing an activity together. He was surely a product of his times and he stayed true to that ideal honestly. He had just turned 75.

Here are the stories as I remember them. In the stories he told of growing up he revealed a commitment to inclusiveness. His family gave a home to a Japanese boy while his parents were interned during World War II. This boy became one of his best friends. He told stories of refusing to take his car on outings for his friends unless everyone could go and this would often include the awkward and not so popular.

He also had a strong sense of justice and fairness. When he found out his sister was being mistreated by her husband he walked into their house and knocked her husband out even though my dad was 17 and her husband was a lot older. When he was asked to get something to be spanked with by his teacher, and he didn’t do what he was being accused of, he brought back a stalk of wild wheat. The teacher then asked him to get something more substantial and he came back with a 8 foot long two by four. By this time the teacher had to laugh. He was willing to give up his job as a principal to stand by a teacher that he thought was being treated unfairly.

He drove a Harley Davidson. He bought a T-bucket hot rod. He out ran the police. He got stuck in Lodi and traded his broken down car for a Vespa to get back home to Mountain View. He learned Judo and sparred with a national champion. He was hit in the head by a wrench thrown by a man stealing his battery. When the man rushed him, he broke his arm and made him put the battery back in. He played semi-pro baseball. He was the first in his family to graduate from college. And I sensed that he didn’t consider himself very smart. He had great intuition and often revealed much more insight through his choices than he let on. He didn’t do a lot of explaining, but spent his energy doing. He sold a million dollars worth of baby formula. He was a teacher and principal for over 30 years.

He was well liked and respected. You didn’t mess with him. He was very kind and had a big heart. He would be very troubled if he felt he was at fault and faced many difficult changes as the world moved into different times. Many times he was ahead of his time and this caused him a lot of pain. He was misunderstood at times and faced false accusations.

He was extremely loyal and held to his commitments as best he could. He struggled with his religion and concepts of God and remained loyal to his church. He was also very sensitive to anything he considered himself doing wrong and remained silent about a number of burdens he carried for himself and others in his family.

If any of you have been following my blog, you will know by now that I am an agnostic as far as God is concerned and an atheist in regard to the god described in the Bible. My father knew this and I believe judged himself around this. I believe this is the reason that so many people wait to reveal their unbelief to their family if they are Christian. In my case, the dishonesty on my part, began to make me ill. I risked sharing this with my parents.

My father never expressed any anger around this at all, but I could tell it caused him pain. In the end he came over to the house and we talked and I think we understood where each other was coming from. We weren’t able to put it into words, but the fact that he was there and reaching out to me was enough. He told me he didn’t care what I believed or didn’t believe. I know my father loved me very much.

I got to take my father sailing and the last time I talked with him he was on the golf course with the next door neighbor having a great time. He was very excited that I called and I invited him to Thanksgiving dinner. He expressed that he would really like to see my new office, once it was done. A few weeks later he was delivering a car for a dealership because he loved to drive cars. He stopped because he was thirsty and died suddenly while purchasing a soda.

His was a very human life. I don’t want to say godly, because I don’t believe in that god and god would never have expressed the life that my father did because god wouldn’t do some of the things my father did. And its those bold, impulsive, passionate actions that reveal who my father really was and are some of the things I love the most about my father. If my father was perfect, like god, these would never have been revealed.

His was a well-lived life and the earth has been made a better place because he was on it.

The "Ring of Truth?"

2008-08-16T17:32:00.000-07:00

In the last few weeks I have been having a conversation with a number of Christian apologists about the basis of Christian belief in the Divine inspiration of the Bible. This conversation has mainly been about the way in which the Bible was put together and the influences on this process. When we look at the history of this process we find violence, bribery, torture, and political maneuvering. It is very difficult to find anything spiritual within this history.

When the evidence is finally sifted through the “faith” appeal usually is the final appeal for believers. Basically it means that we need to have “faith” in those things that can’t be defended through reason. An interesting application of this “faith” approach is by quoting J. B. Phillips. He used the term “ring of truth” to refer to the Divine nature of the Bible. He noted, as he was translating the Bible, he felt a general “ring of truth” unique to the Bible as compared to his work translating other ancient documents. To be fair to J. B. Phillips, he didn’t believe in verbal inspiration, that Satan was real, nor in many of the “miracles” of Jesus. He would relegate them to either parables, alternate explanations, or myths.

In his autobiography he stated, “...I felt bound to abandon the `God-dictated-every-word- from-cover-to-cover' attitude, and won an attitude which commends itself to my intelligence as well as my faith..." (The Price of Success, Wheaton: Harold Shaw Pub., 1984, p. 150).

I want to look at, more specifically, the gospels. I think if there is a "ring of truth" around the gospels, its because of the profound wisdom of some of the teachings of Jesus. This does not mean that Jesus is divine or is the only source of true wisdom. Much like J. B. Phillips, I don't find a "ring of truth" around the historical account because it appears that there are accommodations for later orthodox beliefs and for several doctrinal problems encountered in the first few centuries of Christianity.

There are some contributions that Jesus makes that, I believe, go unrecognized because of all the emphasis on his death as a sacrifice, the claim of his divine nature, and the need for salvation, which I have come to believe have their source in the strong Greek, Pagan, and Roman influences on the early Christian church.

I would also note that many of us, who grew up in Christian cultures, are working under a fair amount of conditioning in regards to Christianity. And that conditioning has a fair amount of fear involved. This "faith based" reasoning has its counter parts in other traditions that most Christians would find unbelievable. One simply has to note the strong hold the Qur'an has on most Muslims as the final revelation of God or the Book of Morman as a historical record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas.

Christians dismiss the mythology of the Qur'an and the Book of Morman for reasons they are unwilling to apply to the Bible because they have "faith." When I look at what is typical of most religious beliefs systems I find the same types of myth building within Christianity. These are powerful cultural influences that are linked very deeply to a person's view of the world. They are not easy to change because they have such a strong momentum.

When I step back from my cultural momentum and view Christian history and belief from a rational perspective, I find the same problems as I find in other belief systems and if I am going to retain an intellectually honest perspective, I need to apply the same types of tests to all belief systems no matter how painful that process may be, because, ultimately, I have found that, as Jesus said, the truth does set one free.

And this brings me back to what may provide a “ring of truth” to the gospel account of Jesus and his teachings. There are a number of themes that Jesus addresses, but the one that is often the most recognizable is his statement that we love our neighbor as our self. This statement is not unique to Jesus since we find the same statement in the Torah. And this is not simply some wise saying, but it is one of the two statements that define the law of God in Jewish belief. The first one being the requirement to love God with all your heart.

In the Torah the statement reads like this

“You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:18 NKJ

In this context the idea of one’s neighbor is only within the children of one’s own people. What Jesus adds, through the story of the Good Samaritan, is the idea of one’s neighbor extends far beyond one’s own people. We empathize with the poor man beaten by robbers, abandoned by his countrymen and feel his relief at being taken care of by the Samaritan, who is considered an outcast. And when Jesus asks us who was this beaten man’s neighbor, we feel the injustice of excluding the kind Samaritan from our love simply because he is a Samaritan.

I think this is the key concept that Jesus brings to us. He takes an ethical principle (love your neighbor as yourself) that is based on empathy and uses that empathy to extend this principle to all people. He further links this idea to empathy when he states “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” This is quoted in both Luke 6:31 and in Matthew 7:12.

This idea of empathy, rather than authority, as the basis of ethical behavior puts a lot of confidence in the human heart. It puts confidence in the human capacity to imagine how it might feel to be in another’s place and experience. It also puts a lot of confidence in the ability of one to love one’s self. For me, love for one’s self is the ability to imagine how it might feel to see one’s self from another’s perspective of grace.

This idea, to be fully realized, requires elements of both eastern and western thought. Eastern religious practice has made an art form of the exploration of the inner self. Its practices have the ability to awaken the capabilities of the heart and the capabilities of awareness. Western religious practice has emphasized much of the practical application of belief. Empathy, to be fully developed needs a rich and full inner life and a clear awareness of the world around. Empathy, to be fully applied, needs to know how to turn the gifts of the inner life into connections with others.

Eastern practice tries to avoid dualistic types of thinking to find the middle path. In Western terms this would be a form of Grace, where one gives up the need to punish and refrains from judging. All of these were explored by Jesus within the context of Jewish law. Jesus stated that to judge others was to judge oneself and to be free from judgment one had to refrain from judging others. He was also very practical in his application of love. He references acts of kindness and love as the determining factor of one’s inner life. Acts of kindness done to others was doing them to God. This may have indicated how Jesus saw connections between all and the spirit of God within.

Paul, who claimed to be an apostle, said “Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.” 1st Corinthians 10:24 This is a major shift in ethical emphasis. I believe this created a competition for goodness within Christianity. If one takes away the love for one’s self, empathy is taken away as well. For I no longer have a self to reference other’s feelings. And if I don’t seek my own good at all, then my ability to sustain my own life will take my gifts away from others eventually and in the mean time reduce their effectiveness.

With the introduction of Jesus becoming a sacrifice for our sins, we no longer have a self sustaining philosophy of empathy, but a sacrificing god who we are now required to emulate. The focus is taken off our connection with others through empathy. It is now focused on how much we can sacrifice. The suffering of Jesus and its contemplation holds front and center rather than love for our fellow beings. Ultimately this becomes a practice of self contemplation. The contemplation of one’s worthiness or unworthiness as it may be.

If we can tease one more thing from Jesus, we might contemplate the possible intent of this statement.

'I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink'...Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?...'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' Matthew 25:35, 37, 40

If we see Jesus as human, then we could say that any kindness or harm we do is done to everyone. If we see Jesus as Divine, we could say that the Divine dwells in everyone. If we see him as both we could say that everyone is a member of the family and everyone is Divine. I’m sure there are infinite variations of how we might see the nature of humans and Jesus.

What I have observed within communities that I have participated in is that when a person is allowed to tell their story from their heart and is really heard within that community a bond develops and actions naturally come forth. It is clear that when these empathetic connections are established there is a natural desire and motivation to love one another. It comes from the stories of people’s lives told in honest and nonjudgmental ways. And it doesn’t matter what people believe or don’t believe in these moments. That empathetic connection communicates much more than ideals, doctrines, words, philosophies, theologies, or ethics could ever instruct.

So if there is a “ring of truth” in the gospels, for me, it is introduction of empathy as the basis for the expression of love toward each other. May we learn how to more fully feel and express our empathy. I think it would be a far better world if everyone knew how to do this well.

Shameless Promotion of Creativity...

2008-07-09T15:49:00.000-07:00

This post is about my sons and their creative expressions. Part of the vision I had for my family was to have lots of opportunity for creativity. Creativity and the creation of new ideas, music, and objects of beauty is, to me, a very core part of spirituality. These activities provide me connections that exclusively rational processes don't seem to address. My wife Karey and I have placed a lot of tools in the hands of our boys to create what ever they were interested in at various times in their growth. They have produced some works that I am very proud of.

My oldest son Greg has written a number of songs and performs, when he has time between school and work, at various places around San Francisco. I particularly like his latest song called "Henry Poole is Here" and his cover of "Hallelujah." You can hear his music and see some of his photos at his myspace page. He has chosen to be a professional musician and composer as his life's profession.

My youngest son Keith has really spent time creating his own movies and is now actively creating flash games to earn money for college.

His public safety video on seatbelt safety came in the top 10 of over 700 entries. You can view his movie "Flames or Flowers" at the Safety Scholars website at this link. His is the third video called "Flames or Flowers" by Keith Harty.

If you are interested in playing his game Galactic Dodgeball you can find it here. If you want to see his whole collection of games to play you can go to his home game page at KeithKong Games.

One of the books that changed how I viewed what was important in my life was the book, "The Artist Way" by Susan Cameron. Her work on the creative process is profound. She has many methods to break the blocks one might have in finding the source of creative insight. Her work in exposing the myths surrounding what it means to be an artist opens up the artistic way to more than simply the act of painting, writing, sculpting, composing, and other forms of creation. It shows that being an artist is the very expression of one's soul and that vein of gold is profoundly open to each person that seeks it.

It makes me very happy to see my sons find this within themselves and watch as it matures. To me, this is what Life is about, the birthing of one's inner expressions of creativity.

The World according to Wayne Bent

2008-06-07T02:52:00.000-07:00

According to Wayne Bent (Michael Travesser) on his most recent post on the Strong City web site he has stated...

"Today, I began a fast, as I did when I was in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. I will now abstain from eating until the child Willow is returned with no strings attached, or until God brings the deliverance that I seek from the present evil, or the answer to my inquiry of justice is clearly manifested, or I am gone from this life altogether."

Hopefully there are enough loopholes in this for Wayne Bent to end his fast before he kills himself by refusing to eat. I find it doubtful that Willow will be returning any time soon. And this announcement is probably one of the most manipulative moves that Wayne Bent has made. Unfortunately there are a number of his followers who have committed to this path, including Gabriel who has been dialoging with me denying that they would ever commit suicide. It appears that they are at least willing to state that they will take their own lives through starvation if Willow does not return or if Wayne dies there appears to be a much more disturbing commitment as stated by Esther in which she posts...

"Here I stand with you, Michael, I can do no other. I will not eat until you do again and should you pass on, I will be with you there also. To do any other I would have to go against my heart and soul."

What I fear is that these people are unreachable. They seem to be able to hold a number of contradictory beliefs all at the same time. Here are a few examples of their doublethink.

Jeff Bent states that Michael did not have sex with his wife and yet Wayne Bent posts in his Testimonies...

"Some said that I would have intimate sexual relations with the seven messengers. Some thought the vision concerned others. But I say unto you, every person must have sexual intercourse with me, or they will have no life in them. My Seed is the only life, for my Seed is life indeed, and my flesh is meat. Anyone who does not receive of my Seed, will be left desolate."

Or they state that they are following the Bible and yet clearly participate in adultery.

Or they state they are telling the truth, while at the same time telling blatant lies that are so transparent because they tell on themselves.

The coming case against Wayne Bent for illegal sexual contact with minors is partially due to this "double think" stated in the following...

"Why did the Father arrange for two of the messengers to be under age? If all of the messengers had been over age, then I would only be accused of sexual perversion, but sexual perversion of itself is not illegal. The country is full of it. What was being proposed by God was something illegal, because the girls had not yet reached the age of 18, and that lent force to Satan's arguments against it."

This tendency to hold opposite beliefs to be true, both at the same time, is dangerous, particularly when they can hold the belief that they are not going to commit suicide and then set forth on a course to do that very thing.

Is there a way out of this for any of them or has their commitment to Michael and their statements to the world placed them beyond reach?

Former members of Strong City have stated that the reason they could leave was due to some traumatic event.

"As I consider what it was that helped many of us break free from Wayne’s mind control, it comes to mind that it was usually a traumatic event that woke us up to the fact that something was way out of line with God’s word. It was a crisis event that shocked us into the realization that we were off track."

We will see how this plays out. Hopefully the crisis of Michael's conviction will break the spell without anyone losing their life. If he is convicted he has basically stated that he will not live in jail. This sounds serious to me. While it is easy to see Wayne Bent as the bad guy, I think he really believes what he is saying and is probably just as vulnerable to harm as the others. The emotions and the fears are running so high among the group, I hope there are no drastic actions to follow. Its apparent that former member Prudence Welch is seen as playing the role of Judas Iscariot. But, hopefully the former members have been able to maintain their contacts in a positive way.

To me this graphically illustrates the extreme dangers of religious belief that has no accountability and uses shame as the motivational tool to find "spirituality."

Watch out for newspeak about doublethink...

2008-05-28T20:43:00.000-07:00

In the novel 1984 George Orwell used the term "doublethink" to refer to a form of self hypnosis required to hold two contradictory ideas at the same time. In the novel he states...

"The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them . . . . To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth."

Wayne Bent or Michael Travessor, as he is know by his followers, has been skillfully using this technique to claim that he tells the truth, while lying. He claims to be moral while practicing immorality. The reason I am covering this topic again is that I have been reading some disturbing statements by Wayne Bent and his followers that show signs of the possibility of self destruction.

In my brief discussions with Wayne Bent's followers they have emphatically denied that they are currently considering the option of suicide. If this commitment extended into the future unconditionally then there wouldn't really be an issue. In my discussions with a TerryCzap who's homepage is the Strong City homepage there is one sticking point that involves doublethink.

When asked "If Wayne Bent or Michael as you call him asked you to commit suicide, would you? Yes or No," this is answered by the statement..

"To your second ridiculous question (suicide). I will not be committing suicide at any time, as you yourself are probably doing right now.

Notice how this is worded. TerryCzap can deny any current plans of committing suicide and yet not answer the question. When further pressed about whether or not he would commit suicide if asked by Michael or Wayne Bent TerryCzap replied...

Now your question that you have asked so many times has been answered. “Following the Bible” means to do everything God tells that person to do. Abraham obeyed God and proceeded to kill his own son (as the heathen were doing) until an angel stopped him."

Or in my discussion with Liberty I got the final statement...

"I will not be talking to the devil in a human body."

And Grace stated within the comment section of my earlier post..

"We are, of ourselves and without God. Every man is, and you included. We were born in sin, born evil. Our human nature, yours and mine, is only evil continually without God giving us His very own heart (a new heart, Ezekiel 36) that doesn't sin. The Bible says all have sinned, and that every imagination and thoughts of man's heart are evil continually, that all are under sin, and that there is no one that does good, not one."

This pretty much negates anything that anyone other than Wayne tells them, no matter how illogical or immoral and explains why I will never get a direct NO answer in regard to any command that Wayne gives them, hypothetical or not.

Wayne Bent or Michael explains the problem of adultery in this way in his blog post called "The Heart Of The Events in The Land"...

"The first great weight was when the Father separated two women from their husbands. They would later be known as my Two Witnesses. When they left their husbands it was not something I would have expected at the time. I had not even imagined it. Weeks later, when the Father drew them to me, I was thrust back and forth between a heavenly acknowledgment of how the Father was markedly directing His will, and the natural, human, earthly view of impending “adultery.” This was the hardest time of my life."

Note the switch. Adultery is no longer defined by God or the bible. It is a natural, human, earthly view as apposed to a "spiritual" one. More doublethink and newspeak. Brilliant in a sick way. It makes things very hard to keep track of.

If they consider Wayne Bent to be the messiah or God then, just as Abraham was asked to kill his own son, then they would be obligated to follow what ever Wayne Bent asked, even if that request appeared to be immoral, much like Abraham being asked to kill his own son. Wayne applies this explanation to his apparent adultery or a phrase that is used, "God's strange act." So in a hypothetical situation where Wayne asked his followers to commit suicide, they possibly would "voluntarily." The costs of not obeying Michael or Wayne Bent would be so high in their belief, any sense of voluntary is essentially lost. This request could also be worded in a spiritual way, rather than a literal request, much like pressure to have sexual contact was worded within texts from the Song of Solomon with the situation set up carefully so that a "spiritual" form of deniability could be maintained.

On a side note they refer to Wayne Bent as the Son of God and yet there are denials that he is Jesus, but he has the spirit of Jesus in the form of Michael. This is important to note because it allows them to deny things in a literal sense and yet claim them in a spiritual sense. And we have seen where spiritual nakedness has been transformed into literal nakedness and spiritual consummation has become literal sexual consummation.

In another example of doublethink they deny that adultery has been committed because the women were technically, according to them, divorced, while it clearly is adultery according to biblical statements about any man sleeping with another man's wife and God's hatred of divorce for any reason. In an odd twist they appeal to a secular definition of divorce in this case, not a biblical one. I am assuming this because I can't get anyone to answer my questions in regard to their beliefs on the biblical definition of divorce which is due to infidelity only.

Now, up to now, there haven't appeared to be any indications that there are suicidal tendencies other than refusals to eat by the two children who were taken in the documentary on Strong City by Ben Anthony and Wayne Bent himself, while in prison. The term they use for this hunger strike is fasting. As is typical, they redefine their actions using a form of what George Orwell refers to as Newspeak. Instead of refusing to eat they term it as fasting. This changes their actions into a religious practice, rather than a threat of self destruction or protest.

With all this switching back and forth between spiritual and literal applications of various ideas the following statements by Wayne Bent in his post called "Modern Day Witch's Brew are possible warning signs...

"I would rather die than live any longer in this wicked world of lying, prejudice, persecution, and dark vile sensuality."

What is troubling is that Wayne has been promising that they would not see death before they would be taken to heaven.

"I am ready to be offered, and ready to go. I am so homesick for the songs of the angels and the consciousness of only my Father and those who are in love with Him, and I want to take all of my children with me. We must leave this world behind, or we would spiritually die as the wicked are spiritually dead."

And this recent explanation is particularly telling...

"The Father opened to me that He was taking His betrothed bride to Himself, and that the earthly marriages of human bondage and tension, where one human is over the soul of another human, were to be no more. This change is necessary now because the natural marriage that God intended does not exist any longer. The beast (State) now effectively owns the family, and this is especially observable when the State can simply kidnap the children of a family at will. Everyone is under the domination of the State and this is especially marked in the forced public education system. The Father was making me into a parable to show to His children, if I would yield to His instructions. He was going to set the believing soul free forever from the beast and his hypnotic forcefulness. I was greatly resistant of this change, because of how this would make me look and of how it would make God look, but He told me to let Him worry about how He would look, and I had no recourse but to die the death as to how I would be made to look in the process of following my instructions."

This last statement states that the kidnapping of the children is the reason that marriage doesn't exist anymore and that's why he [Wayne Bent] was forced by God to consummate his relationship with 7 women/virgins and implies that because marriage doesn't exist anymore, no adultery could be possible. Fortunately, in this statement, he is defining his death [crucifiction] with public humiliation. As long as this is what it means to die to the world then I think actual suicide is on the back burner. Unfortunately the previous statements refer to a literal death or "I am ready to be offered, and ready to go."

Because I couldn't get a Yes or No answer in regard to whether or not they would commit actual suicide when and if Michael asked them, I believe that there is still a possibility, depending on the mental state of Wayne Bent. And if Wayne Bent literally dies, then his statements about wanting to take all of his children with him might have a more fatal application. It could just as easily be "spiritualized" to take away the suicidal reality and suicide could simply become another of "God's strange acts."

The evolution of religion and its assumptions...

2008-05-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

In the following TED talk Daniel Dennett outlines his ideas on looking at religion as a natural phenomenon. He has said that he likes to look "under the hood" of religious technology. The reason I am putting this up is that this blog could be seen as something about the current evolution of religious thought in what is becoming what some call a post-christian world. Often images of beatniks and a society that embraces hedonism comes to mind when we are asked to contemplate a post-christian era. In the aftermath of the worship of self, I think we are seeing some shifts toward more positive alternatives. I believe we are seeing this evolve with somewhat obvious influences such as Oprah hosting Ekhart Tolle's 10 online classes on his new book A New Earth. This is not saying that Eckhart or Ophrah are starting a new religion, but I think we are seeing people blend many things from various traditions and asking new questions of their own that older religions haven't addressed. With more freedom of information I think we are seeing a transformation of what many of us have considered to be truth.

This process of evolution has not been without its fall out and the reactionary return to traditional religious practices from failed cults that are often amplifications of their guru's dysfunctions, which often move toward the very thing being avoided. This can be seen within cult like devotion in many parts of the spectrum of beliefs. Looking under the hood of religious belief is not for the feint of heart. This process can cause one to question parts of themselves that have no replacement. If one is unable to face such mysteries or doesn't have an alternative system of support, this awareness of uncertainty could be fatal. I think its important to have some type of stop gap or safety net psychologically. This may be the function of what is called denial, fanaticism, belief itself, certain types of fundamentalism, and even faith. For other people a guru or holy books can serve all or part of this function. I think that in the world today, the ability to live with uncertainty is very important.

When I have dialoged with people around their beliefs or their approach to life I have observed that all of us have a set of assumptions present within our world view that are unprovable or taken for granted and in some cases, so real to that person, that to question those assumptions would seem ridiculous or unthinkable. One particular striking example of this was when I was viewing a documentary on Japanese culture in the mid 80's I saw the American interviewer ask some Japanese businessmen, who were living out the expectations of their families, what they would do if they could do what ever they wanted. This question was so foreign to their world view that most of them had never even thought of the question, let alone understand what it meant to want something for your own life. For the most part they laughed at the question. And probably equally unbelievable, to most Americans, is the notion that satisfaction is found in giving oneself for the group so totally that one's individuality is almost lost. These two cultural assumptions are present, each in its own culture, almost unconsciously.

One of the strengths of story telling is that by changing the adversaries within the story to characters we can identify with and then placing them in situations where they have to make decisions that might require them to act out of the cultural norm, one can suspend prejudice. A classic example of this is the story of the Good Samaritan. In this story the social outcast performs acts of mercy and generosity toward social insiders in dire straights. This would be the modern equivalent of a gay man helping Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist church, after he suffered a severe accident, by paying off the mortgage so he wouldn't loose his home, paying for his hospital care to get him back on his feet, and making sure his family was provided for in his absence.

Certain episodes of Star Trek were very good at this process of suspended prejudice. From the old series, with William Shatner as Captain Kirk, there was an episode called "Let That be Your Last Battlefield" in which the last two survivors of a planet were in a fight to the death. They had pursued each other all across the galaxy with the intent of killing the last of the other side. In the end it was discovered that the only difference between them was that one was dark skinned on the left, with the other side white, and the other was dark skinned on the right, with his other side being white. This was clearly an illustration of the insanity of racial discord in this country. The story was able to suspend prejudice by allowing us to see an irrational battle going on between others which we might easily judge without realizing that we were judging ourselves. In the United States at various times there were assumptions that black people, women, and others were not as qualified to vote or to even be human. These were so deeply ingrained that to consider that any of these weren't true was seen as immoral by many people in this country.

This brings me to the point of this post. Because each side doesn't understand the assumptions of the other, there is often a process of having two different dialogs. Each appeals to their own assumptions, expecting the other side to simply "get it." When this doesn't happen, the other side often demonizes their opponent, because what other reason would someone want to continue to practice or believe in harmful things? At least harmful according to one side's assumptions.

In the past the solution has too often been "might makes right." One solution that Daniel Dennett suggests is that if one religion is taught, why don't we teach about all systems of belief or unbelief? Let's put everything into the arena of ideas and let each person choose for themselves in an informed way. In many ways the internet has begun to provide this place of interchange and there is no doubt in my mind that religion, as it has done in the past, will continue to evolve.

I plan to continue this dialog in another post. I want to explore how assumptions can give the illusion of valid conclusions and can work out as being rationally right, but in practice mysteriously fail...

Cult Think: The abuse of spirituality?

2008-05-08T22:32:00.000-07:00

This post is probably the most personal post that I have shared because it resonates with my own experience in many ways. It borders on many of the delusions that I grew up with in regards to sin, salvation, and punishment. These were not only delusions, for they created a state of being that few people understand, unless they have gone through religious indoctrination. When most people see cults they tend to write them off as a bunch of crazies or people who aren't too bright. In reality cultic teaching is a form of "meme" that does not respond either to reason or intelligence. When people break away from such groups it is very remarkable.

Most people see a very simplified exterior and are not aware of the extreme suffering that goes on inside the type of believer who takes their religion very seriously and engages the demands of that religion under the deception that not only is their present life at stake, but the quality of their life for all eternity. The stakes are high and the responsibilities are unachievable.

Until now, I hadn't come across anything that could capture the experience of this type of indoctrination. A world view that creates a constant fear of doing the wrong thing; a constant self monitoring of one's own thoughts and actions; a never ending vigilance to determine if one is worthy of God's love; a state of being where one is asked to think low of themselves and yet be good enough to be saved; a continual state of emergency because at any moment Jesus could come and through one mistake one might not be ready; an infection of ideas that creates a hell of obsessive painful introspection.

I came across this film because I was sent an email from a Timothy Benjamin, who is a member of The Lord Our Righteousness Church, a commune located near the Colorado border in New Mexico in a place they call Strong City. He sent me the link to this film and the Strong City web site. The following film is an inside look at an end of the world cult at Strong City, New Mexico, by Film-maker Ben Anthony of Firefly Film and Television Productions. He was allowed inside access to the cult for 7 months in early 2007. The film looks at the members and their leader Michael Travesser, a 66-year-old former Seventh Day Adventist pastor previously known as Wayne Bent, who separated from that church in 1987, who modestly calls himself the Son of God. He has been preparing his followers for doomsday for the last 20 years. The film starts in the months before Michael Travesser predicted the end of the world on Oct 31, 2007.

Because of my personal experience with years of painful introspection based on what I was taught, this film resonates with me in a very personal way. It may be hard to make the connections because of the sexual abuse issues within this cult and the extreme dysfunction of the people seen in the film. It should be noted that another major cult that we know of as the Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh was also composed of former members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and involved a leader who practiced similar sexual abuses with his members.

I am not saying that Seventh Day Adventist teachings promote any of these clearly immoral practices, but I believe there are some common elements in how people are taught to believe. Seventh Day Adventism and Christianity in general are not alone in these types of instruction. I have observed these same types of cultural controls in other religious organizations. I think it is important that we look at these types of indoctrinational practices so that we can "inoculate" ourselves from coming under the spell of the "inside track" to God. I will comment more after the film.

What is most striking to me is the obvious grief that Jeff Bent (son of Wayne Bent) is going through as the interviewer is talking to his father about sleeping with his (Jeff's) wife. And yet Jeff continues to believe that he is in a privileged position as the right hand of God. The other moment is how a man who has given his wife to Wayne explains how Wayne helped him through that hard time. One has to ask the question, "What causes this type of complete disconnect with one's own internal moral compass?"

I think the key is how some religions tend to ask the believer to give up their own sense of what is the best path for them to either a leader or a book. I have come to believe that the best spiritual instruction is the instruction that helps people develop their own independent awareness based on reason and empathy.

Some key teachings of Adventism that, I believe, set up these people to fall under the spell of Wayne Bent and in many respects caused Wayne Bent to fall under his own spell, are teachings that have as their basis fear, shame, or both. When I grew up in the Adventist church there was a strong apocalyptic emphasis, with teachings based on the prophetess Ellen White, that saw the United States as eventually becoming an evil power used by Satan to kill and persecute "true" Seventh Day Adventists. In the film you will see a ceremony where the 7 virgins have these bowls and these bowls are poured out.

What is being ritualized and possibly seen as a reality is Wayne Bent as the incarnation of Christ pouring out God's wrath in the form of the Last Plagues on the earth. At the end of these plagues, at the darkest hour for the "true" church, Jesus will come and rescue his followers and take them to heaven while destroying the earth and leaving the wicked behind destroyed. This was seen as a soon coming reality when I grew up and the purpose of religious practice was to perfect one's character so that when probation closed, just before the 7 plagues were poured out, one would be protected from the plagues. The teaching was that if a person had one un-repented sin they would be lost and subject to God's wrath.

The original purpose of the break away group that eventually became The Lord Our Righteousness Church, was to go someplace where they could perfect their characters in preparation for the soon coming of Jesus. This is an extremely high pressure gig. You will notice that when the interviewer asks Jeff Bent if he is a good person, he replies that he is an evil person. This is all part of the trap of this type of teaching. The goal is to perfect your character and yet you can never know if you have because you are always evil or not good enough. This is an extremely painful place to be and unless one can let go of their beliefs, they will be stuck there. I would say that suicide risk would be very high.

It is possible that Wayne Bent found a possible solution to this by becoming God. And it would be in the interest of his followers to commit to this because they would have the inside track. And you would have a guarantee of salvation if you became one of the 7 virgins. This would remove the shame load and engage an ego high. This would manifest more like an addiction, which by its very nature, does not respond to reason. One of the girls threatened to commit suicide if she could not "consummate" her relationship with Wayne Bent. You will see this same shame cycle manifest in the video Strong City did to answer the Firefly documentary.

In one of the girl's stories she says that she was not aroused by Wayne and couldn't "consummate" the relationship. Using language from the book of the Bible called, "The Song of Solomon," a very erotic poem often connected with the relationship between God and the church, she describes how she took 11 months of intense training with Wayne Bent before she could "open her gates" to him. The reason Wayne Bent said that she couldn't be aroused was because she was chosen by God to live out the message of those who are not "aroused" by the truth.

The complete mystification of this group is evident by the complete openness in which they share what they believe to be true. There is a child like nature to their obliviousness of any accountability to common ethical considerations. There is even a childish cluelessness to Wayne Bent evident in the apologetic way in which he answers the questions of the interviewer during the film. I believe this is due to years of being taught that no good thing can come from any human person, even oneself, and tortured by perfectionistic belief systems.

They are so mystified that even when the end of the world does not come on Oct 31, 2007, they are ready to set another date for the end of the world and jump through the next set of hoops Wayne sets before them. This seems to further verify the addictive nature of this process. It also may indicate the extent in which their psychological commitment requires them to protect their egos and the danger of coming to a full realization of what is real, too fast.

If there is a way out of this, it will not be without a lot of pain. This is a train wreck waiting to happen. Hopefully this will be managed more skillfully than Waco and we can learn from these people, and their openness, how to prevent harmful belief systems from creating these types of tragedies. One hopeful note is that Prudence Welch is one cult member who has been able to break away and was responsible for reporting the abuses going on at Strong City.

The 4 Horsemen

2008-03-30T22:26:00.000-07:00

"On the 30th of September 2007, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens sat down for a first-of-its-kind, unmoderated 2-hour discussion." I have included both hours of the discussion below and there are many interesting topics that they cover. The one topic that was of particular interest to me was a part of the discussion that Sam Harris brought up when he talked about the types of experiences, that any of us can have, that have typically only been discussed within the realm of religion. The transcendental experiences of dreams, feelings of connectedness, feelings of awe and wonder, and other possibly life changing encounters with the great mystery of being.

Often these are brought out by certain theologians as "proof" of a god, particularly the Christian god. And since this is often the case the experiences themselves tend to be minimized or explained away by rationalists as some type of illusion, brain malfunction, wishful thinking, or simply not substantial enough to be included in a reasonable conversation.

Now if we don't include these experiences as proof of any particular god or assign any specific conclusion about said god, or enforce and claim that only one experience is valid, maybe there is a context in which we can explore the spiritual side of the human being that could be seen as valuable.

In my experience with religion it was often the arts which connected me the most deeply to a sense of something greater than myself. For some this might seem the most unlikely place, but in my study of science, particularly human anatomy and astronomy, I have felt a deep awe of having the gift of being present to witness such beauty. And in other contexts the love of a community brought me a greater sense of well being. And in the most personal the love of a woman and more specifically the love of my wife has brought to me experiences that defy description.

And then there are the times of awakening that a person can feel as they learn to hear and see beyond what is simply a rational motivation, but a deeply felt motivation to create, love, serve others, and find clarity for their lives. These have traditionally only been domains of religious teachers.

While I deeply respect and support what these men are bringing to the table, I am concerned that when religions begin to collapse under their own exaggerated claims, what structures and teaching will we have to serve as guides for the best of what humanity manifests in its own ability to love, create, and care, that is understandable by even the most simple minded? Because these tools don't seem to exist within a scientific model. And when we do describe them in scientific terms they seem to become something much smaller.

And so I leave you with questions and something to watch and listen to.

Here is the first hour of the discussion...

And here is the second hour...

Wars & Rumors of Wars

2008-03-07T09:20:00.000-08:00

My son has been creating flash based video games and has discovered a new way to create and share this creativity. One of his games is called Galactic Dodge Ball and involves moving the Earth out of the way of incoming asteroids. If you move the earth too quickly you see people falling off the planet. If you move correctly you not only can dodge the asteroids, but you can capture them in the Earth's gravity and a laser beam shoots out from the Earth's surface and destroys the asteroid. If the Earth gets hit three times it breaks into pieces and is destroyed. One gets to view the end of the world. In the game the difficulty gradually increases so that the destruction of world is inevitable. Some seem to think this is true of this world as well.

One of the classical signs of the end of the world has been the increase of violence. Today we hear reported many horrible incidents of violence including wars, domestic violence, crime related, and violence from mental/emotional problems. There are also claims that violence in the entertainment we engage in, including video games, movies, books, and television, increases violence. All these "signs" have been pointed out in various degrees as evidence that we are getting more evil and the world is less safe.

In the following video Steven Pinker shares with us how violence has changed through out various periods of time...

In the documentary Bowling for Columbine Michael Moore postulates that one reason violence is greater in the US than Canada is that through our reporting we are increasing the amount of fear within society. It is the fear of violence that contributes to the increase in violence.

There has been a very popular book and movie series called Left Behind by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye. These books have fictionalized a battle between good and evil that will eventually lead to the destruction of the earth by fire. The implication is that evil has been steadily increasing on the planet to the point where God has to come down and destroy everything so that things can start over. One assumption in this story is that these events are inevitable and that there is nothing that can be done other than to make sure you are on the right side of the conflict. The cost of not being on the right side is being sent to an eternal hell.

One of the trends that I like to see is the trend toward seeking out and implementing solutions. This provides, at least for me, a sense of vibrant purpose and hope. I find this a much better place to be than fearfully waiting for the end of the world, resigning myself to an eventual decline into absolute evil.

The "New" Scientology?

2008-01-24T00:08:00.000-08:00

L. Ron Hubbard created Scientology along with some interesting mythology and equipment. He created Scientology in 1952 as a successor of his earlier self-help system, Dianetics. His early influences included Freud, Aleister Crowley, Hinduism, Buddhism, Carl Jung, Tao Te Ching, the Dharma, and the Vedas. His writings also show Gnostic Christian influences as well. It has come out that Scientology has some rather interesting belief systems that for many years only the higher level followers knew about. This included some rather creative mythology.

This mythology includes some rather creative science fiction that is sometimes recreated in a pseudo "Christmas" pageant. There are bad guys, good guys, heroes, victims, and saviors. It has all the ingredients for a modern day myth. According to Hubbard, there are extraterrestrial dictatorships such as Helatrobus that used "implants" to brainwash and control the human population. L. Ron Hubbard's lectures and writings include accounts of complex extraterrestrial civilizations and alien interventions in human history. One finds it difficult to believe that anyone could actually believe this to be true. And yet we can observe a deep commitment of energy, money, and time to these beliefs by a reported 50 thousand or more people.

One of the "scientific" aspects to Scientology is its use of "scientific" instruments. This includes a device which is a skin galvanometer called an E-meter (electropsychometer). It is said to allow an auditor (therapist) to observe the creation or destruction of "mental mass'' by reading the needle movement. Supposedly this harmful mass is released through a particular therapeutic process unique to Scientology and this release can be measured by the electropsychometer.

One wonders what causes intelligent people to get caught up in ideologies so deeply that they can't see the contradictions that present themselves in any ideology. In the video below you will see how Tom Cruise is used to promote Scientology within the inner circle. This video was not meant to be seen outside the church. You can read in more detail about their beliefs here.

Beliefs of Scientology

It is obvious that Tom Cruise is passionate about living a life of meaning and sees Scientology as the answer for all the world's problems. If one believed that they had THE answer I could see how this would produce a particular high.

What is particularly disturbing about this video is Tom Cruise's treatment of the idea of the SP. When one begins to understand what is meant by the letters SP or Subversive Person, quite a different picture emerges. Here is what L. Ron Hubbard the creator of Scientology says about the SP

A truly Suppressive Person or group has no rights of any kind as Scientologists and actions taken against them are not punishable under Scientology Ethics Codes. — L. Ron Hubbard, HCOPL of 23 December 1965, "Ethics, Suppressive Acts, Suppression of Scientology and Scientologists"

SP Order. Fair game. May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed. — L. Ron Hubbard, HCOPL of 18 October 1967, "PENALTIES FOR LOWER CONDITIONS"

Suppressive acts are clearly those covert or overt acts knowingly calculated to reduce or destroy the influence or activities of Scientology or prevent case gains or continued Scientology success and activity on the part of a Scientologist. As persons or groups that would do such a thing act out of self-interest only to the detriment of others, they cannot be granted the rights ordinarily accorded rational beings." — L. Ron Hubbard, HCOPL of 5 April 1965, "HANDLING THE SUPPRESSIVE PERSON"

Looking at the development of Scientology one can get a window into how many religious organizations developed over time. Any group that develops a doctrine of outsiders eventually, when given enough power, takes the belief that the outsider is no longer subject to human rights and uses it to treat these outsiders in any manner they want. This result was seen in certain forms of Christianity and Islam, the Third Reich, Stalinists, and others throughout history.

This has got me to thinking about what types of things would we consider to be deal killers when looking at various belief systems available. What teachings would simply negate anything else the belief system or organization had to offer?

My list of deal killers are the following...

Any teaching system that uses fear or violence to justify its belief or to convince people of its being true.

Any teaching system that appeals to the ego to convince people of its being true.

Any teaching that abandons self examination and accountability.

Any teaching system that is unwilling to grow and change.

Any teaching that creates criteria for judging the relative worth of conscious beings.

I have one more video that I want to share. It made me laugh and I hope any of you reading don't take me or this video too seriously. It also won't be as funny unless you have seen the video above. This is actor Jerry O'Connell's interpretation of Tom Cruise's message...

What is our True Nature?

2008-01-06T13:50:00.001-08:00

When I was growing up I was taught that human nature was depraved and if left in its natural state would degenerate into total depravity. The only thing holding us from total chaos was the moral teachings of Christianity, going to church, accepting Jesus as my savior and the worship of the one true God in the form of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

As a child this created a fear in me of people who weren't Christians because supposedly they didn't have the restraints we Christians had and they could just degenerate into absolute evil at any moment. And even if they were Christians but didn't hold the specific beliefs of my particular denomination, they only had a tenuous hold on moral restraint at best.

This was explained in the doctrine of original sin. This doctrine solved the problem of why everyone on the planet needed salvation. Today some have even put a scientific spin on it and believe that original sin is within our DNA. Or you can take Eddie Izzard's approach when he talks about Original sin.

"Original sin! What a hellish idea that is. People have to go,

“Father, bless me for I have sinned, I – I did an original sin – I – I poked a badger with a spoon.”

“I’ve never heard of that one before! Five Hail Mary’s and two Hello, Dolly's.”

“Oh, all right…”

“Bless me, Father, for I have slept with my next door neighbor’s wife.”

“Heard it. I want an original sin.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry.”

In my observations of humanity I have suspected that the opposite is true. I find most people really want to be thought of as good people. In this short presentation by Daniel Goleman the author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, he presents evidence that we are hardwired to be helpful. We have this ability to empathize with other people through some type of common emotional connection. This is activated when we give our attention to the other person. Take a look at this presentation from him at TED.

There are a number of indications that we gain a lot of benefit from doing good deeds. This particular article called The Science of Good Deeds talks about 50 studies going on right now by The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, headed by Stephen G. Post, PhD, a professor of bioethics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

I think I prefer to see humanity as having great potential that is built in rather than see us set up to fail. There certainly is more and more evidence that we have some pretty wonderful things built in simply waiting to be awakened.

One example of this is the professional percussionist Evelyn Glennie. She is able to hear with her body. In fact she has to because she is deaf. I will close with this video of her presenting her motivational view of life to a very appreciative audience.

Our Last Christmas Pageant

2007-12-16T11:21:00.000-08:00

My wife and I have participated in a fairly large scale Christmas Pageant for the last 11 years. It involves building sets, rehearsals, writing scripts, writing music, sound effects, stage effects, lighting, audio engineering, costumes, and putting it all together. This year we will retire from this particular creative process. My wife Karey has written a new script every year and this year she wanted to connect the influence of the philosophy of Jesus to its influence on various world figures including Jesse Owens, Amelia Earhart, and Martin Luther King, Jr. as part of why one might celebrate the birth of Jesus.

In the Pageant there are various moments that bring about all kinds of different emotions including tears, joy, sadness, and laughter. Most times something unexpected happens in almost every performance. In this particular excerpt from 2 years ago you can see how my youngest son Keith dealt with a falling pillar...

Even though this could have been a potential disaster, Keith was able to take the moment and make it enhance the performance. He was questioned a number of times if the falling pillar was actually part of the act. I think there is something to be learned when one contemplates how this might apply to life in general. Things that may look like disasters might actually have some opportunities for enhancement.

A number of years ago I realized that I was not doing what I wanted to do. I was not only working out of obligation, but was in conflict with what I believed to be the right thing to do. With this awakening I decided to leave what I was doing and begin doing what I found joy in doing.

What I realized was when I did what I found joy in, the quality of my work went up and instead of attracting clients and business to something I found little joy in, I attracted clients and business to what I liked doing. This seems so simple when I state it this way, but I think we as humans have a tendency to get trapped in single minded ways of seeing the world.

There is a great web site called TED: Ideas Worth Spreading that has a number of videos on different ways of seeing things. This particular video presents some ideas that show how our current educational system often robs us of our ability to think creatively.

This video really hit home for me as I have learned to remodel how I experience life. No longer is a mistake the horrible thing to be avoided at all costs and no longer is a falling pillar the end of the play.

Special Projects, Story Telling, and Myofascial Release

2007-11-07T21:20:00.000-08:00

I talked about a project I was working on in my last post and it is finally finished! As I talked about my work in my last post I mentioned John Barnes, a physical therapist who has profoundly influenced my life. I have taken seminars that presented his version of myofascial release for almost 15 years. In that time I have learned many things about the mind/body connection and how we can provide a way for both of these to go through profound changes within a unique healing environment. Going through school we talked a lot about how the mind and the body were connected and true healing had to include both the mind and the body. Unfortunately we didn't learn any methods to treat both.

What John Barnes has done, through his own experience, intuition and experimentation, is to create the unique treatment method called Myofascial Release. There are older forms of myofascial release, that some of you may have heard about, that often force the body system. Myofascial release, as John teaches it, is not always pain free, but the force used is always gentle and never forces its way through. It also addresses the mind as it dwells in the body through unique methods called unwinding and rebounding. While these are difficult to explain in words, the experience can be quite profound. It also allows the treatment to go deeper and provides more permanent results.

A therapist, using myofascial release, can treat many problems that often require surgery or other more invasive treatments that are often less than ideal solutions. I have helped clients avoid rotator cuff repairs, back surgery, neck surgery, carpal tunnel surgery, and surgical releases to tight areas such as the plantar fascia, lateral patellar tightness, and frozen shoulders. You can read more about this treatment by reading the articles at the myofascial release web site.

Through the years I have asked John about how he came up with many of the ideas contained in his treatment methods. In his story I gained not only answers, but I got to observe the process that John went through. Its not a linear path. It has many branches and some dead ends. The essential ideas that interested me were how he integrated these experiences into useful treatment methods.

John uses a teaching style that allows a person to develop an awareness that allows a great deal of creativity and intuition to play a larger role in treating these complex problems that people present. So much of this understanding, for me, came through hearing John tell his own story. I wanted this to be available to not only other therapists, but to clients as well.

On March 2, 2007 my brother Stew and a crew we assembled were allowed to come to John's house and interview him. As he sat in front of his fireplace, his story unfolded in his own voice, in his unique way. My plan was to make this interview available to everyone. This interview is now available as a DVD for anyone to hear and experience.

Even if you don't fully know what myofascial release is, this is a fascinating story. There are many things to resonate with. In the professional world myofascial release is becoming more and more known because the results are powerful and even more so with a skilled therapist. John has been asked to give 8 hour presentations to the American Back society a number of times and there is standing room only. This is attended by physicians, therapists, and chiropractors from all over the world. But, I believe that it is important to now educate a wider audience to this treatment method. This was one of my goals for this project. I wanted to make myofascial release more accessible to the general population. I believe story telling is an effective way to do this.

In terms of satisfaction, this work has been something that I have gained great enjoyment from. It continues to challenge, inspire, and change me. When I decided to go into physical therapy in high school, the work I do now is what I envisioned myself doing then. It has provided me some of the deepest spiritual connections that I have experienced in my life. It still surprises me and provides a lot of joy.

I encourage you to read the articles and if you are a visual learner or want to hear it from John himself, get the DVD.

Is there such a thing as a healer?

2007-10-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

I have been very busy this last month so time to blog has been limited. It has been a very productive month. I have been able to nearly complete a project I have been working on for a number of years. I am very happy about the way it has come out. I will be able to talk more about it as soon as its released.

Much of my internal dialog and what I share on this blog comes from my work. Some of you may know that I work as a Physical Therapist among other work that I do. I have been doing this work for over 25 years. I have worked in many different settings. I have worked with most ages and socio/ethnic backgrounds. This includes those that suffer from spinal injuries, strokes, back problems, surgery, sports injuries, and so many other problems that present themselves within the human condition. It is very rewarding work because I often go with people from their lowest point to the highest point in their lives. It also has times when I become aware of the futility of life and its tragedies.

Some of the most amazing experiences I have had is seeing how people work though some of these most difficult challenges. There is no possible way to convey this learning process in words. It truly requires someone to "be there." I didn't really know why I chose this profession. When I look back it seems more like this profession chose me. When I look more deeply in my awareness I believe that healing has come to me through this work. There really is no healer or therapist at that level.

John F. Barnes, PT has developed a treatment method called Myofascial Release. I have trained in this method of treatment and it has become the primary method of treatment I use today. He talks about the term healer in this way. He feels that no one is really a healer and when we begin to think in those terms our ego tends to get in the way of the healing process. This view of someone bringing the healing power to another brings with it a whole set of performance anxieties. How will it look if I don't heal this person or how will I think of myself if this doesn't work. In John's view, beliefs like this absolutely shut down the wonderful natural healing abilities each person has built in to their being. I'm not talking about the therapist's abilities, but the innate self healing ability we each have to not only heal, but to transform and grow in ways that are unknown until they happen.

I believe that one day health and well being will not be the exclusive domain of the "experts," but will become something that each person will develop as a life skill and be able to facilitate in others. When I look at what I do as a therapist and how many of my clients take what happens to them in a session and share it with their family with great success, it helped me realize that being able to skillfully touch people is something everyone really needs.

It communicates so powerfully what words often fail to do. When we touch another person it opens up a two way channel in a very vulnerable way. In many cultures touching has become so taboo that this connection is often absent for the most part, depriving people of this natural awareness of love and compassion. It is one of the ways that we can feel like we are all one. To demonstrate this you might feel in your body right now how uncomfortable even reading this dialog might be for you.

It is true that the powerful nature of touch can be used abusively and harmfully, but I believe that our bodies will tell us readily what is harmful. There seems to be an emphasis on the sexual nature of touch which gives the view that touch is all or none when in reality there are so many ways to touch each other that can provide a sense of belonging that is absent in so many lives.

I have found that with myself and my clients that early experiences of life taught many of us that most things are unsafe and our instinct, when threatened, is to isolate. Much of the healing process is bringing back our sense of safety and wonder and this does not happen with words alone.

My hope is that we can begin to see the world become one, one person at a time, one touch at a time. For healing doesn't happen unless that sense of safety is restored. And beyond that the awakening of love for one to another until a large enough community of people can effect the whole world. Maybe we can transcend so many of the things that we use to destroy ourselves.

This may not happen in my lifetime or in another lifetime, but unless we can bridge this isolation I believe we will continue to see the scale of suffering on this planet escalate until the earth itself purges us much like a virus is eliminated from the body. It has certainly happened in the past and the earth started over with a new order of life.

So, maybe healing happens only when we come together in ways that help us feel safe, at peace, and awaken in us, what I believe, is our deepest desire to love and be loved.

The Mystery of Evil...

2007-09-02T02:33:00.000-07:00

Scott Peck in his book "People of the Lie" suggests that the cause of evil is laziness or a form of laziness called cowardice. It exhibits itself in the lives of people who are unwilling to face the truth and are willing to believe or create a lie instead. When reading the book I asked myself, "What would motivate a person to choose such a painful and foolish path?"

Some religious views on evil have suggested that people are by default evil and unless there is intervention, their lives will exhibit evil. Or evil originated with Lucifer and began a war between good and evil that has spilled over to this planet. One Gnostic view suggests that the god of the Old Testament is an aberration that created a world that is evil.

If one were to ask "What would motivate any being to create evil?" I doubt any answer would make sense. I think the mystery of evil, if evil actually exists, is even more difficult than proving that God exists. It has become apparent that the results of evil actions not only destroy the victim, but also destroy the creator. In the Christian tradition Lucifer was the most advanced being in the universe and yet great power and intelligence seemed rather powerless to bring insight into the futility of evil.

One of the ideas that has been moving into my awareness is that people do evil things out of ignorance and/or the instinct for survival that often emerges in times of fear. If this is true, how do people come to these states of being? And how would one come out of these states? Is there a point where any attempt is hopeless?

In the doctors trials as a part of the Nuremberg trials, after World War II, some of the German scientists were so oblivious to the effect their experiments had on their subjects that they were wondering if they could complete their work. Many justified their actions as war time actions needed to help their soldiers survive. Or they saw nothing wrong with the painful experiments since their subjects were going to be executed anyway. These men didn't look evil, nor did they set out to be evil. Even at the moment of execution some of them still held to ideologies which convinced them of their innocence.

The one thing that really stands out for me in these rationalizations, is the lack of empathy for another person. Its evident that they didn't see their victims as human persons. It was evident, that for some, their ideology bent their ability to feel for another person. I can observe this same power of ideology to create suffering in radical Islamic suicide bombers or Christian crusaders or Stalin's revolutionaries. Or even closer to home, Abu Ghraib.

One of the dangers of rationalism is that once one makes a conclusion about the lack of value and humanity of an enemy or "other," most moral and empathetic restraints go away. Whether that rationalism is based on a holy book, spurious science, or a charismatic leader, it can still lead to terrible actions. The witch hunters of the middle ages saw their methods as the best that science and reason had to offer as contained in the Malleus Maleficarum.

I have come to believe that it is important to personally learn and to teach people how to feel skillfully. I believe that there is far more information and awareness in feeling than there is in thinking. Certain forms of rational debate can point out the absurdity of different beliefs, but this fails if the person lacks the intelligence to understand the argument. And yet even the most simple can recognize when they have been insulted. And it seems the most simple often understand when they are being loved and how to return love more skillfully than their "intelligent" counterparts. What I believe that is common to all definitions of evil is its evil because of its ability to cause suffering and destruction.

At the deepest level pain makes us aware that something harmful is happening. An awareness of the world around us makes us aware of pain in others. When we ignore this and rely only on that which appears to be logical or authoritative we have the potential of creating great harm. At the very least one should wait to discover why something is painful before proceeding to inflict it on someone. But if one isn't even aware of the feeling of pain, one wouldn't even pause to consider this information. As I have mentioned before in the philosophy of Jesus he refers to the awareness of pain in oneself as one basis of ethical behavior. The idea that we should do unto others as we would have them do to us. To me this is clearly a reference to the personal experiential feeling of being in the world. And yet so little is taught or encouraged in this realm of human awareness. The awareness of what it feels like to live in the world.

I think one of the dangers of our culture is our lack of appreciation for feelings. I can't think of an instance where having feelings ever harmed anyone. Actions certainly can harm people, but I don't believe that feelings can. Maybe a belief that feelings can harm may create a feeling of harm, but that is rooted in a cognitive process not a feeling one.

A couple examples of how we can teach that ideology is more important than our own sense of what is harmful can be found in the following videos. The first is a children's cartoon made by supporters of Hamas. This video shows a Hamas style lion King vanquishing rats characterized as Fatah. Or in this video they use a child's natural sense of injustice to implant an ideology. It is a video of the martyrdom of a Mickey Mouse like character.

Another example from a strict Calvinistic theology can be seen in this video. A little way into the video you can see a child singing a song about how God hates the world to the tune of Michael Jackson's We are the World.

These may seem extreme to some of you, but until recently, within a historical perspective, these would not seem unreasonable to large groups of people. Islamic extremists certainly are communicating to a large audience that agrees with them. You can see this revealed in some of the comments on these videos. On a smaller scale sayings within our culture reveal our condemnation of feelings. "Only babies cry." "You need to get over it." "I need to handle it." "I need to be strong." "He or she fell apart." Or someone had an emotional breakdown which simply means they cried. All these imply that having feelings is either a sign of weakness, mental instability, or irresponsibility. Often these feelings are the very vehicles of "getting over it." And they become blocked by judgements and cognitive "interventions" which have nothing to do with how the other person feels, but with our own discomfort with feeling.

So if there is evil present in the world, I believe it is simply another label for fear. When humanity is not valued maybe evil is based on the fear of being human.

Healing as a spiritual walk... literally!

2007-08-15T18:52:00.000-07:00

Erica Davis is a patient that my wife has treated that suffered a spinal cord injury due to a vascular defect that bled and put pressure on her spinal cord, taking away her ability to walk. She had been a healthy competitive tri-athlete and suddenly became unable to walk. She soon found out that health insurance doesn't pay to help you walk. It only pays to teach you how to go from your chair to the bed and back.

Awakenings Health Institute and Project Walk are programs that believe most spinal cord injured patients can regain their ability to walk with the proper stimulation. It is an aggressive training program that uses exercise to stimulate the regrowth of spinal nerve function. There are a number of research studies that show that exercise is a major factor in maintaining the health and growth of the central nervous system. Many spinal cord injured persons have intact spinal cords that have been traumatized, but have a potential, under the right stimulation, to recover much of their function.

In my opinion, the lack of willingness by insurance companies to cover this rehabilitation is a major moral fault. In addition to not covering the rehab there is a lack of availability of information. Unless a person is aggressive, the medical system tends to guide you into less than ideal solutions that essentially give up on the possibility of recovery. Because many medical insurance companies are publicly traded the advantages of pooling funds to help people are lost because these funds are taken away to pay shareholders, CEOs, and a whole groups of employees hired to dole out as little care as possible. The care that is given tend to be therapies that the insurance company can invest in such as pharmaceuticals. This way money is sent into investments that emphasize the desire of the insurance company to retain profits rather than help people get well.

The care that does require an actual person to treat has been made more and more difficult by such methods as capitation, which requires a caregiver to take care of all the patients in their area for one flat fee. This rewards caregivers for not giving care because the more care they give the less money they make. This is why many doctors are overloaded with patients and to survive have to choose those medical solutions that move people through the system by treating symptoms rather than taking the time to look at the whole person. There is also less incentive to be innovative because innovation makes more people want to come in to get treated with even less returns and more work.

While we are waiting for this terrible system to get fixed there is a great need for the type of care that Awakenings Health Institute and Project Walk offer. There are many spinal cord patients that are willing to put in the work required to get back their ability to walk, but don't have the funds to get treated. Often their injury takes away their ability to make a living placing them even further behind.

Right now Erica has a Donation Site where you can purchase many different items that you normally buy and help her and others get the treatment they need. I would invite you to give as you are able to support programs like these that offer hope and practical solutions to spinal injured persons to gain their optimal potential.

Erica is now on staff at Awakenings Health Institute. One of the founders and many of the staff are not only health professionals but recovered spinal cord injured patients. Erica has been competing in handcycle races and has met many people including Robin Williams, champion triathletes, and others who have encouraged her in her work to make life flow. She is showing many encouraging signs and continues to make progress toward her goal of walking.

P.S. After being asked to take a picture with her, sitting on her lap, Robin told her, "This is the most fun I have had all day!" He and others were there to support all the members of the Challenged Athletes Foundation.

The Devil made me do it

2007-07-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

Flip Wilson while playing the character Geraldine and money laundering Reverend Leroy often used the phrase, "The Devil made me do it." as justification of various choices that were made by his characters. His catch phrase "What you see is what you get" was used to describe the new word processors that displayed text formatting exactly as it would appear on paper as opposed to early word processors that used formatting commands. This latter phrase is about a certain truth based on what one sees and the former is about a certain lie based on a fear of being held responsible.

When one reads the various debates about God's existence there is a decided lack of dialog about whether or not the Devil exists. On the one side God is the origin of all that is good and God's motivation is Love. On the other, the Devil is the origin of all that is evil and the Devil's motivation is rather unclear. Some say its jealousy and others say that hate motivates the Devil or others say it is power and control. The story goes that Satan was called Lucifer or light bearer and was the brightest and most powerful of all the angels God created. One wonders how brilliant this angel could be if death and destruction was all that he could come up with.

There’s an ancient myth that says, “If you have the name of the demon you have power over the demon and, if asked, the demon has to give you its name.”

I don’t believe in the idea of evil, but I do believe there are lies and fear. And, in religious terms, the counter points of lies and fear are truth and faith.

I read in the book The Zen Teachings of Jesus by Kenneth S. Leong that in the ancient language of Aramaic there is no word for evil. The word translated as evil is really the word for immature. Tradition has said that Jesus spoke Aramaic and I have done an interesting experiment by reading sayings where Jesus uses the word evil and substituting the word immature.

It creates a whole different feel to many of Jesus’ statements. The ideas presented take on a directive to see the world as one who is becoming mature rather than a directive to be “good.” Rather than condemnation, by labeling someone or something as evil, it becomes an observation that immaturity is the cause of a lot of suffering.

Evil is this mysterious irrational force that has only wants to destroy for no reason. I believe that to be a lie. I don’t believe that evil exists, only ignorance, lies, and fear. Evil is a lie that allows demons to hide and remain nameless, but fear and deception are names we can understand. They are things we can overcome once we name them.

And too often, when someone labels something as evil, we fail to ask the demon its name.

May the MOST humble win!!!

2007-07-11T00:13:00.000-07:00

The picture to the right is the posture for a humble heart in Hula. The topic of humility as virtue can be an oxymoron in itself. This might be illustrated by the following story.

A priest goes before the altar and prostrates himself before it and says, "I am nothing before you God." A rich man comes in after him, prostrates himself before the altar and says, "I am nothing before you God." A beggar comes off the street and prostrates himself before the altar and says, "I am nothing before you God."

The rich man then whispers to the priest, "Look who thinks HE'S nothing."

There is another saying that might be helpful in understanding humility. Humility is not thinking low of oneself, its not thinking of oneself at all.

Sometimes there is a sense that we build hierarchies of humility. To help in this endeavor the Christian Righteousness Advanced Performance Company has developed the following Humility Seminar program.

May the Most Humble Win.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5

We understand the need to develop a humble nature within the Christian church and we have provided a seminar to help you do that very thing. We want to help you humbly inherit the earth and all the wonderful prosperity that comes with that.

Here is a sampling of seminar topics...

How to deflect compliments.

The latest humble fashions.

Humble is as humble does.

How to help others to not feel "less than" in your presence. (This is a particularly helpful course for those of you who are advanced in humility. We know it's a hard burden to bear.)

These and many others will be offered in our 4 day seminar.

To guarantee that one inherits the earth, one needs to know how to rate high on the humble scale. So, we have developed a humble assessment test that you will take before and after our seminar. We have a ratio that we call the decihum or dh.

One decihum (dh) is equal to your height (ht) divided by the time it takes you to drop to your knees.(dt or drop time) This will be calculated on the first day of the seminar. (You will get extra credit if you don't use knee pads.) Or

1 dh = ht/dt

Each question in our Humble Assessment Measure or HAM has an equivalent decihum value, making this the most accurate humble assessment tool available. We have documented an average increase of 66 decihums on our HAM scale after taking our seminar.

We have a small sample exam that you can take to see how humble you are. Please answer the following questions

1. If someone compliments your clothing you would say

a. "Thank you I picked them out myself."
b. "The Lord has blessed me with good taste."
c. "I guess I got lucky."
d. "I would not have known how to dress this way unless I read my Bible every day. I must give all the credit to God."

2. If someone asks you, "What is your best trait?" you answer

a. "It's a toss up between my brilliant mind, my good looks, and my great athletic ability."
b. "I don't have a best trait."
c. "My Bible is my best trait."
d. by pointing to the sky with one finger.

3. If someone asks you, "Are you a proud person?" you answer

a. "No, I have never had a proud moment in my life."
b. "Sometimes."
c. "Only when I win. So I try to be a loser"
d. by silently pointing to the sky with one finger while closing your eyes.

4. If someone sees you walking around with your Bible and says, "Wow you must be a dedicated Christian" you

a. get a smaller brightly colored Bible.
b. answer, "Yes, this Bible is my sword and I plan to use it."
c. answer, "Yes this was the most expensive Bible I could find."
d. point to the sky with one finger while closing your eyes and bowing your head.

5. If someone sees you give a big offering and says "Wow, you are a very generous person!" you answer

a. "I want a gold plate on the church with my name on it."
b. "I'm just returning almost all I own to the Lord."
c. "Oh, this little ol' check."
d. by pointing to the sky with one finger, dropping to one knee, bowing your head, closing your eyes and saying quickly, "Thank you very much."

To score the test, just give yourself how many decihums you think you deserve for each question. If you scored

0 - 50 You really need to work on your humility. This seminar would be the perfect thing for you. Did we mention you get a certificate?

50 - 100 This is a little better. This seminar would still be perfect for you.

100 - 200 This is an average score, but if you wanted to become a truly exceptional humble person this seminar would be just the thing to do it for you.

200 - 300 This is an above average score. Subtract 100 points if you told someone your score. You know you have told, or are going to tell, someone. So, this seminar is exactly what you need.

300 - 400 Now your just bragging and overestimating your humility. You really need this seminar.

Some other features of our seminar that you will find most humble are

We are very careful to publish only the lowest scores allowing those of advanced humility to maintain their anonymous humble status.

We allow you to retake our seminar at double the price so that those of true humility can maintain their humble means.

We have a very unique certificate system based on our Humble Assessment Measure (HAM) that many church leaders have found useful. If you go through our seminar you receive a certificate that verifies you are a truly humble person. We certainly don't want non-certified HAMs leading out up front.

Our certificates are printed in black and white, not color, so you will not draw too much attention to yourself. We have saved an old Corona portable typewriter to type these out with. We then copy them with an old mimeograph machine. It has a truly vintage humble look to it. (Make sure you don't leave it laying around. Some one might throw it away.) And we don't even capitalize the first letter of your name. (This comes in handy since the shift key on the Corona is broken.)

If you would like to take your Christian humble experience to the next level, then this seminar is exactly what you are looking for.

So, maybe humility isn't a virtue. Maybe it's seeing ourselves and the world around us in a way that gives us a clear perspective, so we can avoid living a life of comparisons and live in grace.

Ruling a nation God's way?

2007-07-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

I like to dialog in many different settings. I have been participating in a couple of dialogs lately. In one particular dialog I have been talking about the basis of morality and ethics. For the most part it has been interesting. Sometimes, when a religious dialog gets to a point where there doesn't seem to be any common ground I will get a response like the one I received recently. I've included a link to the dialog at the request of Wes, who I was dialoging with. Wes is probably a really nice person. He has a nice looking family with three boys. There are some very nice pictures of his family on his blog and they look like fun people. Now I would like to contrast that with his response to my idea that ethics doesn't need God to order us to be good but can be based on doing no harm or that which causes pain. I even referred to Jesus who said to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, pointing out that even Jesus used a self-referenced ethical saying. Here is his response...

"BOTTOM LINE. You want to love your sin and the things you want to do then bend the knee to God. But unfortunately for you Richard if you don't bend the knee before you die you will be bending your knee in hell and praising Jesus Christ anyways."

For those of you who are not familiar with hell, it is a place created by God for sinners to be burned alive for all eternity. Now the picture that Wes presents here is one where not only am I burning alive, but I am forced down on my knees to sing praises to Jesus. I'm not perfect, but I have a hard time coming up with anything I could possibly do that would deserve this type of punishment for all eternity and still be considered just and loving. Its also hard to conceive of any possible motivation for a God who claims to value justice and love to maintain this sort of place for all eternity. What is disturbing is that this type of solution is considered to be moral and ethical behavior by God.

I do have some concerns about the possibility of people, who believe this way, taking over the justice system in the United States. As I have read about various Christian organizations and their goals to reform the justice system in this country I have wondered how far they really wanted to go.

There has been a resurgence of Calvinism in recent years among young Christians according to the blog Church Matters. While I doubt any of these young people would endorse many of the things that Calvin did, I think it might be important to observe how Calvin applied his beliefs.

From this article "John Calvin: His Life in Geneva" we find the following summary...

"(The following information can be found in the book CALVIN: A BIOGRAPHY, by Bernard Cottret, published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, Michigan, copyright 2000. Page numbers are included for each entry.)

1. (page 128) 1536 - CALVIN PROPOSES "a confession of faith" for the Genevans

2. (page 128) November 10, 1536 - Confession of faith presented, entitled "Confession of Faith, which all bourgeois and inhabitants of Geneva and subjects in its territories should swear to keep to and hold." - This document granted the right of the government to excommunicate offenders and protect the innocent by chastising the guilty.

3. (page 128) January 16, 1537 - Geneva authorities approve the Confession of Faith and the separate articles PRESENTED BY CALVIN.

4. (page 129) 1537 - One provision of the Confession of Faith and its articles included that pious images kept in people's private homes must be destroyed.

5. (page 129) March 1537 - Anabaptists were banished. (Anabaptists were primarily defined by their rejection of infant baptism.)

6. (page129) April 1537 - At CALVIN'S INSTIGATION city officials including captains and district wardens were commanded to go from house to house to ensure that the inhabitants subscribe to the Confession of faith.

7. (page 129) October 30,1537 - There was a final attempt to obtain a confession of faith from all who had been hesitating.

8. (page 129) November 12, 1537 - District by district, all those who had not made the confession of faith were ordered to leave the city.

9. (page 180) February 1545 - "Freckles" Dunant dies under torture without admitting to the crime of spreading the plague. His body was then dragged to the middle of town and burned.

10. (page 180) 1545 - Following the incident with Dunant, several more men and women were apprehended including a barber and a hospital supervisor who had "made a pact with the devil."

11. (page 180) March 7, 1545 - Two women executed by burning at the stake (presumably for the crime of sorcery, i.e. spreading the plague). CALVIN INTERCEDED apparently to have them executed sooner rather than later after additional time in prison. The Council followed his directive happily and urged the executioner to "be more diligent in cutting off the hands of malefactors."

12. (page 180) 1545 - more executions, tortures carefully watched to prevent death. Most of the tortured refused to confess. Means of death varied a little to include decapitation. All under the crime of spreading the plague. Some committed suicide in their cells to avoid torture, afterward the rest were handcuffed. One woman then through herself through a window.

13. (page 208) 1545 - CALVIN HAD the magistrates seize Belot, an Anabaptist (against infant baptism) for stating that the Old Testament was abolished by the New. Belot was chained and tortured.

14. (page 180) May 16, 1545 - The last execution concerning the plague outbreak, bringing the total dead to 7 men and 24 women. A letter from CALVIN attests to 15 of these women being burned at the stake. CALVIN'S only concern was that the plague had not come to his house.

15. (page 189) April 1546 - Ami Perrin put on trial for refusing to testify against several friends who were guilty of having danced. She was incarcerated for refusal to testify.

16. (page 190) July 1546 - Jacques Gruet was accused of writing a poster against Calvin. He was arrested and tortured until he admitted to the crime. He was then executed.

17. (page 177) November 22, 1546 - CALVIN DRAWS up a list of names inappropriate for baptism (i.e. inappropriate for naming children). CALVIN'S position insisted that a name appear in the Bible, or it was inappropriate.

18. (page 217) February 13, 1547 - CALVIN WRITES to the man who would preside over the burning of Michael Servetus. In the letter CALVIN WRITES, "For if he [Michael Servetus] came, as far as my authority goes, I would not let him leave alive."

19. (page 189) Thursday, June 23, 1547 - Several women tried for having danced, this time including Ami Perrin.

20. (page 192) September 23, 1547 - Francois Favre was prosecuted for having said that Calvin had proclaimed himself bishop of Geneva. Favre, Perrin, and his wife were again imprisoned.

21. (page 184) September 27, 1548 - CALVIN REPORTS his brother's wife to the consistory on suspicion of adultery.

22. (page 184) October 16-18, 1548 - Anne, CALVIN'S SISTER-IN-LAW is freed and had to kneel and ask forgiveness from both her husband and CALVIN (for apparently damaging his reputation.)

23. (page 210) October, 1551 - Hierome Bolsec imprisoned for his opposition to predestination. There he was immediately interrogated.

24. (page 211) December 23, 1551 - Bolsec sentenced to banishment on penalty of public whipping if he returned.

25. (page 223) Spring, 1553 - Proofs against the heretic Michael Servetus were gathered in Geneva in CALVIN'S ENTOURAGE.

26. (page 223) April, 1553 - Catholics were provided the evidence. Servetus is interrogated but escapes.

27. (page 223) August 13, 1553 - Servetus arrives in Geneva and is arrested and imprisoned.

28. (page 223) September 15, 1553 - From prison, Servetus writes a letter to the Council complaining that Calvin was deliberately prolonging his stay in the worst prison conditions. He complains of being eaten alive by insects and having no suitable clean or mended clothes to wear. The official charges, 1) denial of the Trinity 2) rejection of infant baptism.

29. (page 223) October 27, 1553 - After refusing to confess, Servetus is burned alive at the stake. Calvin apparently tried to change the manner of death to something other than burning at the stake, but he was unsuccessful.

30. (page 198) February, 1555 - Elections favorable to Calvin.

31. (page 198) May 16, 1555 - A riot ensues after the elections. Perrin (a leader of the opposing faction) seized the baton, which symbolized the office of Syndic giving the appearance of a coup d'etat. Perrin flees along with his associate Philibert Berthelier.

32. (page 198) After May 16, 1555 - CALVIN CALLS for repression.

33. (page 198) Monday, June 3, 1555 - The guilty are judged in absentia. Perrin is condemned to have the hand of his right arm cut off (the hand with which he grabbed the baton.) He and his accomplices were condemned to decapitation, then the heads and Perrin's hand were to be nailed up in public and their bodies cut into four quarters. The brothers Comparet received the sentence of decapitation and their bodies are to be quartered. All who didn't flee were executed. Two other men, Claude Galloys and Girard Thomas were put in a sort of pillory in two different parts of town. Galloys also received the sentence of having to carry a torch and ask for mercy. Berthelier's brother Francois-Daniel is among the victims of the repression. CALVIN JUSTIFIES the severity of their sentences.

34. (page 253) March, 1556 - Those who broke measures barring the mixing of men and women were subjected to public humiliation in the collar (a sort of pillary).

35. (page 253) December 31, 1556 - Jacques Lampereur was imprisoned for having made strong statements against the edicts last proposed on fornications, saying that we are under the law of grace and that is would be judaizing to condemn adulterers to death.

36. (page 184) January, 1557 - CALVIN'S SISTER-IN-LAW was imprisoned again for having committed adultery.

37. (page 180-181) October, 1568 - A pair of men were executed for sorcery after CALVIN EXHORTED his contemporaries to pursue sorcerers in order to remove all of them from the earth.

38. (page 181) 1568 - Another sorcerer admits his guilt under the torture of having his feet burned. He later recants his admission and is banished forever from Geneva.

From this survey of the life of John Calvin, we find that 38 people were executed during his time in Geneva. Some were burned alive. Others were decapitated and quartered afterward. Most were tortured first. Many more were imprisoned and tortured. The great majority of these people were accused of sorcery for spreading the Plague. For at least two men, the crime was little more than a public denunciation of Calvin himself. And in cases such a Michael Servetus, Calvin's premeditated determination to kill was made readily apparent by a letter written six years before Servetus had ever been brought to trial."

I think it is important to remember the history of religious intolerance. Calvin would be considered mild compared to other Christian theocracies of the time. What is bordering on insanity is the application of these types of measures to insure a "good" society. This might bring some insight into why Christian culture finds sexual sins far more disturbing than violence. The other insanity is the ability of Christianity to condemn radical Islam without condemning its own radical history of violence.

A picture of a god who tortures people for all eternity in a most horrific way is obviously a myth made up by men to manipulate and control other people. What is puzzling, as in many understandings about the nature of humans, is the ability of such an insane belief to propagate itself over so many generations.

I can understand why a tyrant would want to use fear, absolute obedience, restriction of information, and the threat of violence to maintain control of a nation. What is baffling is why, in a country defined by freedom, we would want to worship one.

We like happy endings...

2007-06-23T00:21:00.000-07:00

Paul Potts, the manager from Carphone Warehouse sings Opera?

Before you read futher, if you haven't seen the video above before, watch it.

When I grew up one of the explanations offered for the existence of evil was that the natural tendency of humans was toward evil and one had to be saved from this inevitable depravity.

I can't stop watching this video because it brings such emotion and a feeling of wishing this man well. Its obvious that his confidence is pretty low and its pretty painful for him to stand there in front of everyone. And then he sings and something almost magical takes over. You see the wonder wash over the audience and then you feel the reaching out toward him and the incredible happiness the audience and the judges have for him. Even mean ol' Simon.

I have a hard time believing that people are naturally depraved after seeing this. If this were true, everyone would be jealous of him. But, at least for this moment, I would guess that almost every person in that room was rooting for Paul Potts. Here is someone who looks like everyman that sings like Pavoratti. It's very moving to see someone realize their dream.

Life has these moments that remind me that there is real beauty in this world. This is one of the most beautiful moments that I have seen in a long time. We do like happy endings...

The Fear of the Unknown

2007-06-06T17:56:00.000-07:00

Fundamentalism seems, to me, to be an expression of fear. The fear of mystery. The idea that I have to know for sure. One expression of this idea was presented to me in the statement that, "One who believes they have the truth will stop searching for it." With the passing of Jerry Farwell, I am hoping that the fundamentalist movement might be able to shift away from the belief that they "know" the truth.

I have been reading the blog of naked pastor after being directed to it from the Think Christian blog. Being naked, one of the more powerful symbols of exposure and the risk of shame, is very appropriate for the thought experiment taking place on his blog. It is with great interest that I have read his willingness to be, sometimes brutally, honest about what he is thinking and feeling. It is encouraging to see something that appears to be an authentic and honest exploration for truth.

From comments on his blog there is a restrained discomfort with some of his "reveal" ations. To me this is evidence that he may be hitting pretty close to home. In my own personal experience I have found that the areas I most resist are often where I need to go. The point of pain is at the resistance. In that context the pain, from a certain view, is self inflicted. Freedom from that pain comes in the form of letting go of the resistance. In other words going into a new place of mystery.

There are some things in what I call the spiritual world that appear paradoxical in what most people call the "real" world. There is the idea that to gain control one needs to let go of control. Or as a paraphrase of a famous person, "Who ever tries to save their life will lose it and who ever loses their life will save it." Or trying to be authentic will prevent you from "being" authentic. In other words, activities that are too self-conscious block that which is already there.

What I have observed myself and others do, in our attempts to be "better," is what I call high pressure theatre. What others have referred to by saying that in trying to be more than human we become less than human. To me this is the great tragedy of fundamentalism. In its attempt to control truth it loses the truth and substitutes an image to the truth. An image that, to me, is more like an idol than any sculpted representation of a god. The difference is that the idol formed is a walking breathing human being that has learned to act out an illusion. It looks "nice" and appears "good" but at the cost of a real life. In trying to gain the perfect life one loses a real life.

To me, the great evidence this is something that is not real is that, at its core, its based on fear. What I have observed is that when one comes to the place where they believe they have the truth, all other opposition is suppressed with various forms of violence. It creates bigotry, prejudice, and other forms of fear reflecting its heart. If we are to truely know something by its fruits, then when I look at the fruits of fundamentalism, in history, I see a lot of violence.

To me, living in mystery is to be humbled. To deny mystery and claim absolute truth is to choose something far less complex than the what is observed. In fact one has to blind themselves to the complexity around them. In this context I see humbleness, not a virtue, but as a prevention of self deception.

In the story of the emperor who went without clothes, it took a child to point out the truth. What is interesting is that, in the story, people were more uncomfortable with the child who told the truth, than the fact the emperor was without clothes. In the story it took the might and authority of the emperor to force the illusion. Maybe we ought to pay attention to when "truth " needs force to maintain it.

So I hope the naked pastor stays naked because, to use the story of the garden, maybe we can, once again, walk naked without being ashamed.

Buddha, the Tao, and Grace

2007-05-19T01:42:00.000-07:00

I have read recently about a Chinese version of Christianity brought to China in the 7th century by a Persian priest called Alopen. There were some writings composed by this group of Christians unearthed in 1900 in the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang, in Gansu province China that contained what we call the Jesus Sutras. These writings were composed from 625 CE to 1005 CE when they were sealed up in the cave. After being found in 1900 they were stored in a Buddhist temple until they were rediscovered and then translated in 1998.

What they reveal is a blend of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and the Tao. In one section Jesus is portrayed as talking about karma. Thomas Moore asks, "I wonder if the Christian teaching might have a deeper understanding if we did associate it with the idea of karma for a moment."

Thomas Moore goes on to say, " A lot of people think of Christianity as a moral religion: what is right and wrong, what not to do, people in authority telling you how to live. The trouble with that is if you follow all these things, you may not really live a moral life. You may be following the rules, but not be deepening your ethical sense as you grow up and live a more complicated life. If you're thinking of karma, you don't have quite that same emphasis on morality. Instead, you realize that everything you do, every minute, has its impact and consequences. That leads to a moral way of living, but with a different quality than the one I described before."

When asked to compare Christianity with Buddhism Thomas Moore says, "But I think it goes deeper than that, because I think within Christianity-certainly in the way it's come down historically-people worry about being virtuous: Am I doing the right thing, am I a good person? In Buddhism as I know it, which is much less than I know Christianity, I would say people would be more interested in what sort of wisdom you have. Do you have some degree of enlightenment, are you in tune with the law of nature and of life? That's a different notion from being virtuous."

What often strikes me when I read Jesus is that his words and ideas often seem to act as bridges. This image is used to describe Christianity, which was called the Luminous Religion and The Way by the Chinese. The cross was seen as a bridge between yin and yang. According to the ancient Chinese philosophers, in the beginning was Tao. But then Tao separated into the two prime principles, yin and yang. And from the many combinations of yang and yin everything else that is in the world has emerged. This has its mythical twin in the story of the Fall in which sin comes from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Evil/Darkness being Yin and light/good being yang. And in some sense the knowlege of these forms the world of sin. The first symptoms of this being shame (Adam and Eve recognized their nakedness) and the other being blame. (Adam blamed God for giving him Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent.)

It is an intersting play of words if we state Genesis 1:3 in this way. And the Tao said, "Let there be light," and there was yang. Tao saw that the yang was good, and the Tao was separated, the yang from the yin.

Now if the cross is the bridge between light and dark and/or a bridge between good and evil then it could be seen as a rejoining of these opposites and a forming of the Tao. One way to see in this in a Christian context is in two ideas that Jesus emphasized. One was not judging others. Judging is the process of separating good from bad. The other is the concept of forgiveness, which is giving up the need to punish or pass judgment. These could certainly be seen as a path apart from good and evil. Buddha called his teaching the middle way and early Christianity was simply called The Way.

In a world that considered an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth as the highest form of justice, forgiveness and not passing judgment would seem like radical concepts. These concepts are almost incomprehensible for the Western mind coming from a Roman justice ethic. In many ways these are Eastern understandings of the underpinnings of ethical behavior or of beautiful behavior. Some have said that it is not goodness that defines the highest ethic, but beauty.

When we use the word Grace, it encompasses forgiveness, the giving up of judgment, and Grace itself is often seen as one definition of beauty.

Truth, Grace, and the American Way?

2007-05-02T15:38:00.000-07:00

I read Bart D. Ehrman's book "Misquoting Jesus" a few months ago and have been processing the information he presents in that book for a while. What is most interesting to me is his reasons for becoming a Biblical scholar in the first place. In the introduction he tells the story of becoming a "born again" Christian his sophomore year in high school.

He states, "There was a kind of loneliness associated with being a young teenager; but, of course, I didn't realize that it was part of being a teenager--I thought there must be something missing." He then began to attend Campus Life Youth for Christ club which met at member's houses.

"The leader of the group was a twenty-something-year-old named Bruce who did this sort of thing for a living--organized Youth for Christ clubs locally, tried to convert high school kids to be 'born again' and then get them involved in serious Bible studies, prayer meetings, and the like. Bruce was a completely winsome personality--younger than our parents but older and more experienced than we--with a powerful message, that the void we felt inside (We were TEENAGERS! All of us felt a void!) was from not having Christ in our hearts. If we would only ask Christ in, he would enter and fill us with the joy and happiness that only the 'saved' could know."

He tells of how he admired Bruce, who could quote the Bible and answer all kinds of questions. He became friends with Bruce and eventually was convinced that he should become a "serious" Christian and attend Moody Bible Institute. He refers to Moody Bible Institute as a "Christian Boot Camp...where Bible is our middle name." Each student and teacher had to sign an agreement to the effect that the Bible was the inerrant world of God and contains no mistakes.

While at the Moody Bible institute he committed to a life path of learning all he could about how the Bible was put together. He eventually learned how to read the ancient Greek and Hebrew languages as well as a number of modern languages to be able to read what other scholars had to say about how the Bible, particularly the New Testament, was put together.

While at Princeton he came to a realization that it was simply too difficult to maintain an inerrant view of the Bible in light of all the evidence he was confronted with. He states, "The Bible began to appear to me as a very human book. Just as human scribes had copied and changed, the texts of scripture, so too had human authors originally written the texts of scripture. Many of these authors no doubt felt they were inspired by God to say what they did, but they had their own perspectives, their own beliefs, their own views, their own needs, their own desires, their own understandings, their own theologies; and these perspectives, beliefs ,views, needs, desires, understandings, and theologies informed everything they said."

What does this all have to do with the title of this blog? The familiar saying, "Truth, Justice, and the American Way" plays out in many ways in our culture. What if it were "Truth, Grace, and the American Way?" The contrast of Grace and Justice have come to mean a different way of seeing the world to me. In a world view that sees the Bible as inerrant works in a certain way and can be difficult to maintain when confronted with the complexity of the world. It requires what I would call a "Justice" mind set.

This mind set believes that the world is orderly and predictable. It believes that God intervenes and has things under control. It believes that everyone will be rewarded for their choices. In cases where things don't work out, it becomes the fault of the person rather than God. It would be unthinkable to consider that God or the Bible could have errors. (In the early Christian Gnostic myths it was the creator God of the Old Testament that messed up and was at fault and Jesus came to save us from this messed up world and directed us to the true Father.)

In this world view things are ultimately true or untrue. And when things become too complex for us to understand then we need to have faith in God and his word to sort things out. So when we read in the Bible that God orders the Israelites to kill every man, woman, child, and animal of their enemies we must assume that God had a just reason for doing so. And that He also had a just reason for asking the Israelites to carry it out rather than killing them Himself.

One of the definitions of Grace that has caught my attention is that Grace is giving up the need to punish. Or that Grace gives up the need for justice. One saying that illustrates this contrast with Grace and Justice in a more pragmatic way is, "If we hold fast to the justice of an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth, then the whole world will eventually be blind and toothless." This would extend Grace to others as a means to preserve the benefits of seeing and eating. Imagine the threat to our survival and well being this justice system would create if executed without exception. "Le Miserable" is one such brilliant exploration of this world view by Victor Hugo.

In my exploration of the idea of Grace, I have found that it is very difficult for many people to extend Grace to themselves. Enlightened self-interest was a concept that Alexis de Tocqueville discussed in his work "Democracy in America." The idea was that self interest rightly understood would result in ethical behavior in a group setting. I think the same thing could be true on a personal level.

For example if Justice is my primary mode of motivation for being a "good" person then I may apply justice to my every act and motivation. If these are not in line with my ethical expectations then I "punish" myself. Jesus may have been referring to this when he stated that when one judges others they judge themselves. If Justice is my ethical standard for others then it becomes my own ethical mode whether I carry out the "punishment" on a literal basis or not. The other dangers of a Justice model is that I can be resentful when Justice is not done fairly to others and they "get away" with things that I perceive bring harm to me. Or I can be in fear that punishment is always waiting to come down on me as soon as I do something wrong.

In this description Grace could be seen as something I could apply as self interest rightly understood. It would not be so I could "get away" with something, but a completely different world view. It is interesting that Jesus referred to self interest in his statement that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. It appears that the assumption is that we love ourselves or we should love ourselves. If I were to apply this in a literal sense then if I hated myself, then I should hate others.

Another model of Grace versus Justice that I have explored is with idea of sailing. Lets say I had the 10 commandments of sailing and I was told that as long as I followed these 10 commandments I would never get into trouble and I would have a wonderful sailing experience. Sailing is a fairly complex skill and while most of the time its pretty relaxing, when you do get into trouble it can happen rather quickly and one has to make choices pretty quickly or you will end up on the rocks. There's not a lot of time to be looking things up in the book. And the book can't really give you the experience of sailing and how the timing works and how it feels.

Lets say one of the commandments is, "If you push the tiller to the right the boat will go left." This works most of the time, except when the current is going the other direction and you don't have any wind. The boat will point left, but the current is still going to put you into the rocks. Its generally a good time to start the engine. But if my sailing denomination is purist, then if I started the engine I would be demonstrating that I didn't have enough faith. Or if I do end up going into the rocks then I am at fault for being tempted to sail too close to the shore.

A Grace model still has the object of not going into the rocks, but doesn't waste energy on blame. If I go into the rocks even though I start the engine and do everything in my power and understanding, then punishing myself makes no sense. The rocks and the loss of my boat pretty much cover the lesson. I would rather put the energy into making sure it doesn't happen again. Beating myself up and telling myself that I am a lousy sailor only serve to lessen my ability to make a decision and takes away energy and time from learning how to sail more skillfully.

The other thing that I have noticed is that I can feel almost any emotion, even sadness, and not feel pain as long as shame is not mixed in. If I feel sad and judge that I shouldn't be feeling sad because that means that I am being weak, then sadness becomes painful for me. If I am angry and judge myself that I shouldn't be angry then anger becomes painful. But if I take a Grace approach and simply let myself feel the emotion and see what it has to tell me then most often the emotion goes through its cycle and shifts. Sadness can become a means to connect with others and anger can become a force for positive change and setting healthy boundaries.

Justice and Grace each have a different "story." Each creates different expectations and perceptions.

In an article titled "How Scholarship Affects Scholars Losing Faith 2 Who Did and 2 Who Didn't" in Biblical Archaeological Review there was a transcription of a discussion moderated by editor Hershel Shanks. In this discussion Bart Ehrman says this about his faith in Christianity. "Faith in the Judeo-Christian tradition has a God who intervenes. That's what the Exodus event is, that's what the crucifixion is: it's a God who intervenes, and when I look around this world, I don't see a God who intervenes."

This article is talking about Scholarship and yet the statement that Bart Ehrman makes is a very emotional one. There could be an element of disappointment or of relief and freedom in it, depending on how you feel about a God who intervenes. I would imagine that at some point Bart Ehraman was disappionted, based on what he was taught to believe. I can't determine how he feels now, but I can resonate with both disappointment and relief.

I can say at this point the pursuit of Grace has brought me farther than the pursuit of Justice. I have come to believe that Justice tries to bring a sense of balance, but I often think that equal punishment only differs in the order the pain is inflicted. If we really are all one, then Grace extended to others is really Grace extended to myself and punishment extended to others is punishment extended to myself.

Its my religion, I can cry if I want to.

2007-04-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

Zach Johnson said something in his interview after winning the Masters that got the attention of the Christian Blogging commuity. At Think Christian there is some dialog about how Zach Johnson briefly mentioned his Christian faith. They were referring to the blog called Redeeming Prufrock where Ben Humphries suggests that when Zach Johnson said "I was not alone out there. Jesus was with me every step of the way." that CBS cut him off and did not ask any more follow up questions. He also noted that "His voice broke, and he cried."

You can see the actual interview here and a longer interview at his Jacket presentation here. You can judge for yourself if CBS cut him off or discounted his expressions about his faith. And a more humerous look at Zach Johnson reading the top 10 things I can say now that I have won the masters list on the Letterman Show

What I really wanted to look at is the emotions that bring about tears. Tears are often associated with deep spiritual experiences or transformations. There are tears of sorrow, tears of relief and tears of joy. There are probably all kinds of connections with tears.

When I was younger there seemed to always be this question when we had Bible quiz competitions or Bible baseball games at church school. The question was, "What is the shortest verse in the Bible?" The answer generally given is John 11:35 in which the verse says, "Jesus wept." (On a side note Job 3:2 is technically shorter in English and says, "He said,") This verse is associated with the story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

In this story Jesus is sent word that Lazarus is sick and asked if He would come quickly to heal him. The message said, "Lord, the one you love is sick." The narrative says that instead of going right away, Jesus stayed where he was for 2 more days before traveling to where his friends were. When He arrived Lazarus had been dead for 4 days and eventually Lazarus' sister Mary came to meet him and she was weeping. When Jesus saw this, He was deeply moved in His spirit. It is at this point that "Jesus wept."

Now, there are all kinds of theological reflections on this point and why Jesus was weeping. In some he was weeping because of their lack of faith and they didn't understand that He had the power to raise the dead. In some this proved that Jesus was a man with bodily functions. In others He is weeping for Lazarus because he has to come back from Paradise.

While there is no way to prove if this story actually happened there are a number of things to draw from this narrative. It certainly addresses the fear and loss that come from death. What hits me on a more personal level is that from the book of John its clear that Jesus knows that he is going to raise Lazarus from the dead. He doesn't seem to be in a hurry to point this out when He arrives. In fact, He takes time to weep with Mary and the others with her. The author of the book of John seems anxious to point out the lack of faith on the part of the Jews who were there.

And yet it seems that it was important for Jesus to weep with Mary, even though He knows that He will bring back her brother to her in a few moments. Maybe there is something to be gained from grief that is important. Maybe weeping is part of what comes before being raised from the dead. Maybe something far more complex and profound happens in that moment that Jesus connects with Mary than all the theological explanations that follow. Its seems clear that Jesus was moved to act, not from a need to explain, but from his connection with Mary and her sorrow.

In this world today, I believe that if we would connect with each others sorrows we would act quite differently. We might be able to raise ourselves and others from the dead.

Dobson, Wittenburg Door, and April Fools

2007-04-03T00:44:00.000-07:00

You have probably realized by now that the letter to the Wittenburg Door is an April Fools joke. When I first got the letter I had to read it a couple times to get that it was an April Fools prank by the folks at the Wittenburg Door. When I went to the Focus on the Family website, it was closed down. (possibly due to the amount of traffic) I was hoping, on the far chance that I got the email on March 31, that it was true. I was hoping that James Dobson had done a turn around. I was hoping that I could send a letter of encouragement to him offering my support for his tremendous courage and honesty. As I read the various blogs about this I noted that this same hope came up a number of times. And for those who were fooled, they were fooled because, they too, were hoping that James Dobson had done this turn around.

Maybe enough people actually sent James Dobson letters of encouragement for this April Fools letter that he might actually shift his course a little. It has been said that it only takes a 2 degree shift to go in a different direction. It is unfortunate that he has taken such a severe stance on a number of issues. As I looked around I came across these interesting pieces on the reaction various researchers had when James Dobson quoted them in a Time magazine interview.

With suicide attempt rates going up for teen lesbians (as high as 1 in 4) and 31 percent of gay teens being threatened or injured at school it seems like there should be some Christian response besides condemnation. I remember when I was in college and I talked with a gay friend that was going to Pastoral counseling. It was suggested by the Pastor that he buy a Playboy magazine. Even at 19 this suggestion seemed pretty ignorant and contradictory.

Well, one can still hope...

James Dobson makes amends

2007-04-01T00:30:00.000-07:00

I received an email from Bob Darden, senior editor for the Wittenburg Door. This is what it said...

"We have tweaked our friend the Rev. James Dobson pretty regularly in the past, particular for his involvement in politics. And when Dr. Dobson called for the resignation of the Rev. Richard Cizik, president for the National Association of Evangelicals because he believed that Cizik was spending too much time worrying about global warming and not enough time spent on “core” Religious Right issues, such as abortion and same-sex marriages, we gigged him pretty hard then, too.

However, we received this e-mail this morning from Dobson’s Focus on the Family ministry and we think it is a remarkable document. It is probably the most honest, most revealing statement ever made by the normally carefully controlled Dobson.

So, in the spirit of Christian reconciliation, we’re making available Dr. Dobson’s complete statement, without editorial comment. Perhaps he should rename it FICUS on the Family
– Robert Darden, Senior Editor"

And here is James Dobson's statement...

"Colorado Springs, CO – Dear friends and supporters:
Since my ill-advised attack on my dear friend Dick Cizik a few days ago, I have had an extraordinary week of reflection and spiritual enlightenment.

Through the counsel of godly men, such as the Rev. Dr. Jack Hayford, the Rev. Rick Warren, Richard Stearns (President, World Vision), David Neff (Editor, Christianity Today) and other members of The Evangelical Climate Initiative (www.Christiansandclimate.org), I’ve come to see that my assessment of Dick’s motives and, in fact, “global warming,” have been in error as well.

I have been guilty of a particularly pernicious form of short-sighted Dispensationalism, believing that since the earth has no future with the blessed Second Coming nigh, we, as Christians, have no responsibility to care for Creation.

Through loving testimony, instruction and careful study of the Bible with these and other mentors, I no longer believe that Dick is – as I said earlier, much to my regret -- guilty of a “relentless campaign” to save the planet at the expense of what I called more “serious” issues, such as same-sex marriage. I see now that I have strictly exploited those issues and others like them to manipulate my audience and as a calculated and callous form of fund-raising.

As part of my penance for my unmerited attacks on a courageous, godly man, I have initiated contact with both the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Don Wildmon, with the earnest desire to convince them of the error of their ways as well. While both continue to condemn what they call “earthism worship,” I will continue to pray that this revelation will be made available to them as well.

As for the rest of my penance, I will devote the rest of my career – however long the Lord sees fit to continue in this capacity – to working with my Christian brothers and sisters to insure that all life on the planet, God’s first and greatest gift to us, is protected and cherished.

God bless you all,

Jim Dobson"

James Dobson has been known to have said that same-sex marriage will destroy the earth. James Dobson's statement, "I see now that I have strictly exploited those issues [same-sex marriage] and others like them to manipulate my audience and as a calculated and callous form of fund-raising." is particularly revealing. I have come to believe that many of these "serious" issues taken up by mainline Christian organizations have been used to create fears so that they can raise money. I have noted that issues like child abuse, mistreatment of women and minorities, helping the poor, and other "liberal" issues have had far less emphasis. I believe there has been little emphasis on these because they are prevalent in the church and/or they don't have the money draw like fighting gay people who are supposedly taking over the government.

I haven't heard of or found any gay organizations trying to take over the government, but I know that the stated objective of a number of Christian organizations is to take over the government. This article from the public eye does a nice job of looking at the history of the Christian Right and the development of its objectives. Also at Theocracy Watch you can find a number of articles about leaders of Christian movements that have as one of their objectives the desire to take over the government. You can find some rather dramatic organizations such as Christian Exodus who has the objective of setting up an independent Christian government in South Carolina.

If this change for James Dobson is for real, the coming months may offer some interesting changes in the public persona of Christianity. One might want to note the date of this news release...

Spirituality in the face of suffering

2007-03-11T12:13:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation with an up and coming writer this weekend named Morgan Chinnock. She told me about a movie called Water by director Deepa Mehta. It is the last made of her trilogy of movies based on "Elements" that celebrates the lives of women who resist marginalization in Indian society. The movie tells the stories of women who become widows in Indian society in the 1930s. One is an 8 year old girl and the other is a beautiful widow who falls for a Gandhian idealist.

What this movie revealed to Morgan was that these women are marginalized in their society by their religious beliefs. It is estimated that there are over 33 million of these women, almost 10% of the women living in India. Over 50% of them are over 50. And this does not include women who have been raped. Their plight is on a scale of suffering that brings feelings of powerlessness to many people. Many other Hindi movies link a woman's personhood to their sexual purity. Often beautiful widows are "hired out" by the older widows to pay for the survival of the group. It is also common to believe that the death of their husband was their fault. While men are free from these social stigmas and tend to support the status quo, women have been exposed to a life time of these movies that promote a popular culture that teaches them that "rape is, in addition to an assault, a matter of everlasting shame in the eyes of society and the woman herself."

The idea in this country is that if only we could bring them Christian values, then all these problems would go away. It is true that ideas and beliefs form the core block to changing Indian culture. And similar core beliefs formed the poor treatment of women in the Western world for many years. One simply has to look at the various witch trials in Europe and this country to see the power of belief in action.

In my spiritual journey I have had to shift many of the beliefs that my culture at large and my religious culture has taught me. These shifts are difficult at times and when combined with shame are almost too fearful to face. So, in some ways, I can understand the difficulties for Indian culture. The belief that they are of little value and that they are to blame is very strong in the suffering women themselves. Imagine the power of 33 million women, if their beliefs could change all at once.

There have been significant individuals in history that seemed to have the ability to transform the beliefs of large groups of people, all at once. In my country Martin Luther King was one such individual and he was killed for it. In India Gandhi was one such individual and he was eventually killed for his influence. In my tradition Jesus was one such individual and he also was killed for his ability to influence large groups of people.

Jesus is often presented as a solution or salvation if we only accept him as our Saviour and because of this emphasis I think we often miss what he actually was teaching. Maybe we are afraid to look at what he was teaching because it might transform us as a culture. Jesus addressed suffering and injustice in some unique ways. I think injustice and suffering are only the symptoms of something much deeper.

In my journey I was taught that I was born a sinner and that my instinct and desire was naturally drawn toward evil. This created an internal environment where I was taught to never trust my own feelings or thoughts. Because these thoughts came from a sinful nature and would always be tainted with sin, they could never be trusted. I was to look toward Jesus and the Bible for my answers. I never stopped to think that when reading the Bible and looking toward Jesus these interactions went through the same sin tainted mind and emotional filter. This, obviously created an impossible situation, for in reality there was nothing to trust or have faith in. The side effects of this created a lot of suffering for me growing up.

One of the brilliant aspects of the ethical guides that Jesus taught was that they drew upon an appeal to our own suffering. In the saying, "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:31. Jesus draws on our own ideals of treatment. If our ideal of treatment is that we should be punished then our belief would cause us to punish others. If we believe that we don't deserve to be treated well then we would not believe that others should be treated well. But if my instinct for a life free from suffering is not evil then may I not give in a way that relieves the suffering of others?

Later in that same chapter Jesus states, "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

If these ideas were taken in and lived out in our culture, I believe there would be a transformation. I also believe there would be far less suffering. In this context, suffering on a scale that we see in India, I believe, is a symptom of blocks to individual transformation. Ideas that are based on shame and condemnation. Ideas that are based on fear and hording. And ideas that judge some as less worthy. Maybe these are the true causes of suffering.

One of the lines heard in the movie trailer for Water is, "Do not lose your faith." If this world is going to change, maybe its not our faith in God, but maybe our faith in the ability and the possiblity for humans to love each other. Maybe its our faith that when confronted with the great suffering in the world, we might find our compassion for ourselves and others. Maybe we can have the courage to feel those connections and stop being afraid to love one another.

Some more wonder...

2007-03-07T15:18:00.000-08:00

This continues the idea of a litany of the Universe, only it is in the visual form of pictures. I invite you to meditate on the feelings these images might bring up for you...

(click on each picture to enlarge)

The Spirituality of Science

2007-02-20T19:37:00.000-08:00

Matthew Fox in his book, "Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh - Lessons for Transforming Evil in Soul and Society" considers a postmodern litany called the Litany of the Universe. It is a collection of scientific facts placed in such a way that one can find a deep felt wonder. One example is

"The human body stores immense amounts of light: The 100 trillion atoms in each of our 100 trillion cells together store at least 10 to the 28th power photons. This is enough light to illuminate a baseball field for three hours with 1 million watts of floodlights."

One thing that brings wonder to me is how close the ancients came to entering into our age of knowlege long before the 20th century. One exmple of this, is the discovery, some time before Easter, in the year 1900 of what is called the Antikythera mechanism This device was found off the Greek island of Antikythera in a 2200 year old ship wreck. It was a device of such complexity that before its discovery devices like this would not have shown up until 1400 years later in the Middle ages.

The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, led by Tony Freeth, have used various imaging processes to begin reconstructing this device. It has approximately 30 gears that have between 15 and 223 triangular teeth. In this schematic you can see the complexity of this ancient astronomical analog computer. This team has recently used some innovative lighting techniques and 3-D X-ray computerized tomography to read some 2,160 greek letters that had previously been hidden. These contained markers and instructions on how to use the device. The device was probably contained in a wooden box and had a small hand crank to opperate it. It has become apparent that whoever constructed it was using calendrical and eclipse functions from Babylonian astronomy that had been absorbed into Greek astronomy by that time. It contained gears that represented the theory of the astronomer Hipparchus, who explained the moon's irregular movement across the sky by identifying its elliptical orbit.

There have been a number of reconstructions of what the device might have looked like. The Antikythera Mechanism Research Project is currently building a computer animated model to study what it may have been used for and compare it to the positions of the stars, planets, moon, and sun in the year 100 B.C. "The origins of the mechanism are unclear, as are the circumstances by which it came to be on the cargo ship. The ship was Roman, but there is no doubt that the mechanism itself was made in Greece. One hypothesis is that the device was constructed at an academy founded by the ancient Stoic philosopher Posidonius on the Greek island of Rhodes, which at the time was known as a centre of astronomy and mechanical engineering. Investigators have suggested that the ship could have been carrying it to Rome, together with other treasure looted from the island to support a triumphal parade being staged by Julius Caesar."

Other engineering mechanisms from the Greeks included the hydraulis or water organ. You can view and hear how it sounds in this modern reconstruction based on one found at Greek city of Dion, at the foot of Mt. Olympus. A water powered sound mechanism was used to create the awe inspiring voice of Memnon's statue at Thebes. "Solar heat was used to syphon water from one closed tank into another, thereby producing compressed air for sounding the pipes." In all of these we have but glimpses of ancient technology that, until the 19th and 20th century, didn't move much past individual achievements. Many were connected with religious practices and were seen as magical or physical representations of the spiritual.

Today, maybe we can reconnect with the wonder of the world we live in through our exploration of science. Maybe that is part of what is essentially spiritual. John Muir commented on this by referring to Adam...

"I used to envy the father of our race, dwelling as he did in contact with the new-made field and plants of Eden; but I do so no more, because I have discovered that I also live in "creations dawn." The morning stars still sing together, and the world not yet half made becomes more beautiful every day."

What is Salvation?

2007-02-09T15:09:00.000-08:00

The word salvation comes up in spiritual dialog quite often. What is interesting is we often convert that to saved, as in lifting someone out of the clutches of danger like a superhero would do. The root word in salvation is actually salve, which refers to a healing balm or lotion. In one image we have superman flying down and saving someone from harm, in the other we have someone offering or applying a healing balm to someone else in the pain of disease.

I remember finding Batman far more interesting than Superman. Batman did his "good" deeds in secret and anonymously, where as superman was very public, even though he had his humble side as Clark Kent. Batman had wealth and non superhuman athletic abilities that his passion for justice honed and he had his, not so humble, public persona millionaire Bruce Wayne. Superman was born both super strong and super good. He was Jesus like, except he was indestructible in a physical sense, but was vulnerable often because of his own "goodness." For example, he would come to save someone even though he knew he might die from exposure to kryptonite.

Each of the hero saviors had their own motivations for saving others. Batman came from loneliness and anger. Superman came from loneliness and empathy. Each isolated by their own "greatness" and by their own pain.

If we look to a salve or healing lotion, there is no hero. If there is a hero, its the salve itself. It takes no super human ability to give someone the healing lotion or to apply it. An individual can't apply salve to hundreds of people at the same time. (After I wrote that last sentence I had this vision of some guy with a fire hose filled with lotion. Somehow I think something would be lost in fire hose balm application.) It is most likely a person to person experience, or its something a person can apply to themselves after being given it. It is not an isolating experience, its a process that requires at least two people to be involved. In fact the healing might not be in the balm alone, but may require someone to touch.

Spiritual Communication

2007-01-28T13:27:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons I began this blog is that so often we get bogged down in the rhetoric of doctrine and dogma and we miss the spiritual experience. One illustration that has been helpful for me to tell the difference is the picture of someone pointing to the moon. The object is to be able to see the moon and so often I get stuck looking at the finger.

I remember having a history teacher who had the habit of pointing out things on the blackboard with his middle finger. In a religious school this was bigger deal than it should have been, but it became a distraction from learning history.

We had a Japanese exchange student send us pictures, before he came, so that we could get to know him. He came from a very conservative Japanese family and was studying to be an English teacher. He thought he knew American culture and was trying to fit in. If you have seen some typical Japanese friendship shots, they usually do the peace sign. As we were flipping through the pictures we came along one with him and his friends all giving us the middle finger falling all over themselves with big smiles. I thought is was pretty funny, but there was some doubt about what we were getting ourselves into.

Once we met him, it became apparent that he didn't know what it meant at all or he sent us the wrong picture. We actually had to explain it to him after which he was horrified. I thought it better that he knew, so if he decided to make another such picture, it might reach its intended audience.

In all these cases the "finger" or the method of communication became the message and the "moon" continued to be unobserved.

Gratitude

2007-01-19T23:22:00.000-08:00

I was reading Thich Nhat Hanh's book "Living Buddha, Living Christ" when I came across this short story...

"During a conference on religion and peace, a Protestant minister came up to me toward the end of one of our meals together and said, 'Are you a grateful person?' I was surprised. I was eating slowly, and I thought to myself, Yes, I am a grateful person. The minister continued, 'If you are really grateful, how can you not believe in God? God has created everything we enjoy, including the food we eat. Since you do not believe in God, you are not grateful for anything.' I thought to myself, I feel extremely grateful for everything. Every time I touch food, whenever I see a flower, when I breathe fresh air, I always feel grateful. Why would he say that I am not?"

This reminded me of the trick questions the lawyers would ask Jesus. For example when Jesus was teaching that we should love our neighbor as ourselves, He was asked who is our neighbor by an expert in the law. Jesus "answered" with the story of the good Samaritan who aided the beaten traveler when the Levite and the Priest passed him by while he lay on the road, followed by the question, "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?"

For those of you who aren't familiar with the story, the Samaritan was not to be associated with and was seen as an "undesirable." To consider a Samaritan as one's neighbor would be unthinkable. This story has always brought a smile to my face when I imagined the expert in the law trying to figure out how to answer Jesus. What's interesting is that his answer never said the word Samaritan. The lawyer answered, "The one who had mercy on him." Kind of an early example of spin.

Thich Nhat Hanh doesn't have a clever story, but reveals his source of gratitude in a very beautiful way.

"Contemplating our food before eating in mindfulness can be a real source of happiness. Every time I hold a bowl of rice, I know how fortunate I am. I know that forty thousand children die every day because of the lack of food and that many people are lonely, without friends or family. I visualize them and feel deep compassion."

My own gratitude has come from knowing the suffering of loneliness. When I remember what it was like to be alone, I find great joy and gratitude to be with my wife and sons. When I am able to be a part of another's healing process and I observe the suffering they have gone through, I am grateful for the ease of my pathway compared to what they have gone through.

My guess is that when Jesus told the expert in the law to "go and do likewise," it wasn't only for the benefit of those he might help, but it may have been more for the lawyer himself. For, the gift of gratitude is happiness.

What does a Gnostic know?

2007-01-07T10:46:00.000-08:00

"The word gnosis (from the Greek word for knowledge, γνώσις) refers to a form of spiritual knowledge that is more commonly familiar to people as enlightenment." As I have been reading about the gnostic traditions in the early formation of Christianity there is an amazing contemporary aspect to its development. In this article on Valentinus by Stephen A. Hoeller, first published in Gnosis: A Journal of Western Inner Traditions (Vol. 1), it presented something about a different type of ignorance that caught my eye.

Who was this Valentinus and where did he come from? Valentinus "was born in Africa, probably within the territory of the ancient city of Carthage, around or before 100 A.D. He was educated in Alexandria and in the prime of his years transferred his residence to Rome, where he achieved a high degree of prominence in the Christian community between 135 and 160 A.D. Tertullian wrote that Valentinus was a candidate for the office of bishop of Rome and that he lost the election by a rather narrow margin."

In the view of Valentinus, it wasn't intellectual ignorance that created "wrongness" in the world, it was ignorance of the spirit. The great difference in the gnostic view of the world and the view of what we now call the orthodox view was in WHERE "wrongness" dwelled. They both agreed that "somewhere, somehow, the fabric of being at the existential level of human functioning has lost its integrity." The orthodox view came to believe that the "wrongness" was due to Adam's disobedience and sin in the human being. "This means, that all evil, discomfort, and terror in our lives and in history are somehow our fault."

"Valentinus, in opposition to this guilt-ridden view of life, held that the above-noted defect is not the result of our wrongdoing, but is inherent in the system of existence wherein we live and move and have our being. Moreover, by postulating that creation itself is lacking in integrity, Valentinus not only removes the weight of personal and collective guilt from our shoulders but also points to the redemptive potential resident in the soul of every human being."

In my experience, guilt has not been very effective in changing who I am. It may temporarily alter my behavior, most times against my desire, but I have never sensed any true transformation. Clues to how Valentinus viewed this process can be found in the quote from Valnetinus in Irenaeus' work against heresies.

"Perfect redemption is the cognition itself of the ineffable greatness: for since through ignorance came about the defect . . . the whole system springing from ignorance is dissolved in Gnosis. Therefore Gnosis is the redemption of the inner man; and it is not of the body, for the body is corruptible; nor is it psychical, for even the soul is a product of the defect and it is a lodging to the spirit: pneumatic (spiritual) therefore also must be redemption itself. Through Gnosis, then, is redeemed the inner, spiritual man: so that to us suffices the Gnosis of universal being: and this is the true redemption." (Adv. Haer. I. 21,4)

Another way to put the idea of salvation is that we can be saved from the illusion of this world through the knowledge or gnosis or awakening of the spirit. "The ignorance of the agencies that create the false system is thus undone and rectified by the spiritual Gnosis of the human being. The defect can be removed from being by Gnosis. There is no need whatsoever for guilt, for repentance from so-called sin, neither is there a need for a blind belief in a vicarious salvation by way of the death of Jesus. We don't need to be saved; we need to be transformed by Gnosis. The wrong-headedness, perversity, obtuseness, and malignancy of the existential condition of humanity can be changed into a glorious image of the fullness of being. This is done not by guilt, shame, and an eternal saviour but by the activation of the redemptive potential of self-knowledge."

Parallels to this idea can be found in some of Jesus' words. In Luke 17:20,21 we can read...

"Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you."

Or in John 3:4-6

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit."

Or in Mark 12:33,34

"To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

What is this Kingdom of God that can come within us? What if Jesus was teaching a form of gnosis?

Stephen Hoeller continues...

"The Gnostic contention is that both the world and humanity are sick. The sickness of the world and its equivalent human illness both have one common root: ignorance. We ignore the authentic values of life and substitute unauthentic ones for them. The unauthentic values are for the most part either physical or of the mind. We believe that we need things (such as money, symbols of power and prestige, physical pleasures) in order to be happy or whole. Similarly we fall in love with the ideas and abstractions of our minds. (The rigidities and the hardness of our lives are always due to our excessive attachment to abstract concepts and precepts.) The sickness of materialism was called hyleticism (worship of matter) by the Gnostics, while the sickness of abstract intellectualism and moralizing was known as psychism (worship of the mind-emotional soul). The true role of the facilitators of wholeness in this world, among whom Jesus occupied the place of honor, is that they can exorcise these sicknesses by bringing knowledge of the pneuma (spirit) to the soul and mind."

Paul even reflects this in this quote from Romans 12:2 "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

So how do we transform the spirit? How do we renew the mind and the soul? How do we enter into the Kingdom of God? Gnostic beliefs and traditions seem to offer an alternate insight into this process. This is something that I believe is important to explore.

"What is this pneuma, this spirit, which alone brings Gnosis and healing to the sickness of human nature? We cannot truly say what it is, but we can indicate what it does. It has been said that the spirit bloweth where it listeth. It brings flexibility, existential courage of life. By way of the healing agency of pneuma, the soul ceases to be fascinated and confined by things and ideas and thus it can address itself to life. The obsession of the human psyche with the importance of the material world and/or of the abstract intellectual and moral world is the sickness from which the great saviours of humanity redeem us. The obsessive state of material and mental attachments is thus replaced by spiritual freedom; the unauthentic values of the former are made to give way to the authentic ones brought by the spirit."

It would interesting to know more about Valentinus and I will close with one last quote from Stephen Hoeller...

"Valentinus, the Gnostic who almost became pope, was thus the only man who could have succeeded in gaining a form of permanent positive recognition for the Gnostic approach to the message of Christ. The fact that circumstances and the increasing floodtide of a regressive pseudo-orthodoxy caused his efforts to fail must be reckoned among the greatest tragedies of the history of Christianity."

Source of Truth

2007-01-01T12:09:00.000-08:00

As I begin the new year I have been meditating on what is the source of my truth. What I have been following is contained in my own life experiences. What I have found is that, while the experiences of other people are valuable, I really don't understand something fully, until I go there. When I dialog with people and they tell me their stories I certainly can observe the results of their individual experiences.

I just read an article in the latest Scientific American where some researchers have hooked up a device that measures brain wave activity on two people. The first person is doing a particular activity and the second is observing the activity. The interesting result is that their brain patterns are identical, possibly indicating that we can feel what another person feels through sharing an experience.

I have been exploring the idea that God is expressed, in part, by every person on the planet. So, the reasoning goes, the more people I can connect with the larger picture of God I can see. Obviously its much more complex than that, but it does provide me a picture that I can start with.

The other idea that came to mind was that as we become more skilled at expressing that piece of God we each have and we support each other in that expression, the greater manifestation of God. And if one believes that God is Love, the greater expression of love.

I'm sure this is not a new idea, but I've had more of an emotional connection with it lately and am interested in putting it into practice and see what becomes of it.

If prayer doesn't work get the modern weaponry

2006-12-26T16:57:00.000-08:00

Here is a partial list of features for a newly released game based on the Left Behind series of books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.

· Lead the Tribulation Force from the book series , including Rayford, Chloe, Buck and Bruce against Nicolae Carpathia – the AntiChrist.

· Conduct physical & spiritual warfare : using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world.

· Play multiplayer games as Tribulation Force or the AntiChrist's Global Community Peacekeepers with up to eight players via LAN or over the internet!

I guess there is a small controversy regarding the game from articles pointing out that if one doesn't conquer the foe with prayer then you have a whole selection of modern military weaponry at your disposal. You can read their response in which they state that the purpose of the game is to "encourage gamers to think about matters of eternal significance, a topic largely ignored by modern games."

The company vision is noted as follows:

"Our Mission

The mission of Left Behind Games is to become the world’s leading independent developer and publisher of quality interactive entertainment products that perpetuate positive values and appeal to mainstream and faith-based audiences, while remaining committed to increasing shareholder value and pursuing the highest standards of integrity and professionalism in all business affairs.

New Genre

For the Year of 2003, the Gospel Music Association (GMA) reported sales of more than 47.1 million CDs.

Controversial as it has been, The Passion of the Christ has generated more than $500 million since it's release. Experts are expecting it to become one of the top ten financially successful movies of all-time.

To date, not one high-quality video game has been marketed to this same audience. It is management’s belief that LEFT BEHIND will be a catalyst for a new genre of video game entertainment; known, as stated by the Wall Street Journal, as 'God Games'."

When you look at the advisory board you have a who's who of the video game industry including top people from Activision, Microsoft, Warner and Fox television. When you read their market statistics it becomes obvious that there is a whole market for "Faith Based" products and there seems to be a large group of people who are willing to pay for products that have been "sanitized for their protection."

If someone wants to purchase these products they are certainly free to do so, but I would hope that the "faith based" community might not want their faith hi-jacked by something that has little to do with faith and more to do with the market.

I'm still having a little difficulty connecting how the use of modern weapons of war will increase my faith.

A Christmas Pageant for us all

2006-12-21T16:35:00.000-08:00

I thought I would share a little about what we have done as a family to find meaning this holiday season. This has come from a short dialog I had with good friends on an email list I enjoy. I have blended some of Garth Whitcombe's comments from our conversation. You can check out his music at therapymuse.com

Karey (my wife) and I have done work on the Christmas pageant for our local community for the last 12 years. (We like any story that supports the idea of peace on earth and good will to all mankind.) We have children and young people through high school age to do all the performing and much of the technical work. Karey writes and directs and I prepare the audio portion as well as play live transitional music to keep everything flowing emotionally. There's music for everything from mystical stars, exotic Wisemen, and scary King Herod.

We are very particular about the sound and the visuals because it takes everything to the next level. Not everyone is a Josh Groban or Beyonce, but with the right sound and visuals we have been able to produce something, using amateurs, that is very moving. We have been rewarded with seeing great transformations in the young performers as they have faced their fears and learned how to communicate with confidence and skill. Over 1500 people come to see the pageant to laugh, cry, and celebrate. It is a powerful feeling when we are in the back booth and we feel the audience begin to flow with us and join us on the journey we are taking them.

Dress rehearsal is pretty much a mess and yet when the actual time comes the performers rise to the occasion. They become transformed from goofing around teenagers and tired elementary students to Joseph, Mary, Wisemen, Herod, Shepherds, and Israelites for about an hour and a half. There is a magnitude to the story. Such is the power of myth.

This particular story involves risk, music, light, movement, and lots of emotion. The story involves ordinary people like Joseph and Mary in a grand mythical moment in time; a child that holds the promise of peace and healing; a great angry and jealous king; three curious seekers from the east. All great representations of deeply held desires, dreams, and fears.

"Each of us was born in a manger with no room in the inn and yet each of us was born under a bright star." Each of us has faced a King Herod, and yet been visited by Wisemen with gifts. "Part of the mythic journey is to retrace our stories to that moment of innocent promise and reclaim the gifts of peace, joy and love that we came to share." And that is what we wish to share with you with this brief narration of this particular Christmas Pageant.

Did I past the test? Because I want my spiritual certificate.

2006-12-16T16:04:00.000-08:00

I had this dream about taking a spiritual test. I was sitting in a row of desks waiting for someone to set the test booklet down so I could start filling in the little circles with my number 2 pencil on the answer sheet before the time was up. There was person sitting behind me whispering, "I have all the answers, just mark down what it says in this book." He then slips me a copy of the Bible Red letter edition. Sure enough, everything I need is in the book and I whip right through the test booklet.

This worked great until I came to the practical exam. There was this complicated machine before me that I was supposed to fix before it stopped working. There were all kinds of valves, pressure indicators, and pipes going all over the place. I realized that I had no idea what I was supposed to do and the machine sounded like it was going faster and vibrating all over the place. I had no idea what that meant since I didn't even know what the function of the machine was. It didn't know if it was going to blow up or what, but whatever was going on the machine was getting louder and vibrating more violently.

By that point I wasn't all that concerned about getting it to run properly. Shutting it off was more of a priority. And no one giving the test seemed all that concerned about what was happening. Tweaking a few valves didn't seem to have any effect at all. Predictably I wake up before machine blows up or shuts itself down.

This got me thinking about school and testing and what tests really mean. I knew a number of students who did great in the test taking phase of their training. They spent hours memorizing every possible fact from the text book and got straight A's. But, when they got to the real world and there was something that wasn't in the book or couldn't be solved by an answer, they had no tools to deal with that. In fact, there was hardly anything in the practical training phase that was directly in the book.

I went to school to learn how to solve problems in the real world, not to pass tests. But, when I was in school the focus was on passing the tests. I was fortunate that I was able to actually work at my profession while I was in school. This allowed me to have both perspectives, so that by the time I had to do the practical internships, I had already been working for quite a long time. I learned what was a good test and what were poor tests that often questioned things that had no practical application in the real world of my profession. In fact, some questions implied information that was flat wrong and in reality there was no way to answer them.

I'm not implying that life is a test or that testing isn't useful. What I have observed is that solutions often present themselves within the experience of life and not before. So the requirements for my "spiritual certificate" may not come from passing a test, but by simply engaging in life. Learning from other peoples journeys, trying out different experiences, and taking risks are all ways that I engage in life.

Now, where am I going to hang my new certificate?

Is spirituality found in responsibility?

2006-12-14T23:15:00.000-08:00

Garrison Keillor's reference to Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility in Lake Wobegon captures the feeling I had growing up. There was a Lady of Perpetual Responsibility that held great influence over what we should and shouldn't be doing. In her view life was a constant struggle against the evils of the world and we were responsible in every and act and word for the salvation of those we came in contact with. Even one careless word or deed could have terrible eternal consequences.

Since I didn't want to be held responsible for terrible eternal consequences I either didn't do anything at all or I denied the careless word or deed. And when the word or deed didn't fall in the careless category, but the premeditated one, there was no way out.

This type of responsibility was seen as the good fight of faith. I think, in my practice of it, it was the flight from shame. Ironically enough the thing that gave me relief was taking responsibility. When I said, "You know what, I did that." there was a great sense of relief. No more secrets, no more hiding. In the words of Popeye, "I am what I am."

So maybe there is a spiritual experience in taking responsibility and giving myself permission to join the human race.

The Aesetic life: One definition of spiritual?

2006-12-10T23:38:00.000-08:00

aesetic - an attempt to extricate oneself from any worldly ties

Does spirituality dwell in some other realm or is it tied to everyday life. Does one have to go to the mountain top to find out about spirituality or does one go within or does one have to go anywhere?

Bhudda, after being born into a royal family, decided to live the life of the aesetic for a number of years. You can see representations of Bhudda, during this period, as a thin and gaunt. Bhudda then came up with the middle way as described in this quote...

"One should not pursue sensual pleasure, which is low, vulgar, coarse, ignoble, and unbeneficial; and one should not pursue self-mortification, which is painful, ignoble, and unbeneficial. The Middle Way...avoids both extremes; giving vision, giving knowledge, it leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana."
Gautama Buddha from the Aranavibhanga Sutta

In early Christianity (370 AD) Saint Jerome began to endorse the aesetic life with an emphasis on female virginity. Jerome was educated in Rome and participated, as a young man, in a Roman hedonistic life style before becoming a monk. He is most known for his translation of the Old Testament into Latin from the Hebrew rather than from the Greek as was common at the time. He became the main contributor to what was called the Vulgate.

His letters reveal his ideas of what the aesetic life meant. Here is one example of his views when he wrote, years afterwards, to his friend Eustochium about his struggle to maintain his purity...

"In the remotest part of a wild and stony desert, burnt up with the heat of the sun, so scorching that it frightens even the monks who live there, I seemed to myself to be in the midst of the delights and crowds of Rome.... In this exile and prison to which through fear of Hell I had voluntarily condemned myself, with no other company but scorpions and wild beasts, I many times imagined myself watching the dancing of Roman maidens as if I had been in the midst of them. My face was pallid with fasting, yet my will felt the assaults of desire. In my cold body and my parched flesh, which seemed dead before its death, passion was still able to live. Alone with the enemy, I threw myself in spirit at the feet of Jesus, watering them with my tears, and tamed my flesh by fasting whole weeks. I am not ashamed to disclose my temptations, though I grieve that I am not now what I then was."

He appears to be obsessed with female virgins when he writes rather erotic explanations of what it means to be with God by quoting from the erotic poetry of the Song of Songs contained in the Old Testament.

“But do you, having once for all cast away the burden of the world, sit at the Lord’s feet and say: “I have found him whom my soul loves; I will hold him, I will not let him go.” Song of Songs 3:4 And He will answer: “My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her.” Song of Songs 6:9 Now the mother of whom this is said is the heavenly Jerusalem. Galatians 4:26

Ever let the privacy of your chamber guard you; ever let the Bridegroom sport with you within. Genesis 26:8 Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you. When sleep overtakes you He will come behind and put His hand through the hole of the door, and your heart shall be moved for Him; and you will awake and rise up and say: “I am sick of love.” Then He will reply: “A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.” Song of Songs 4:12”

He complains in this letter to the Virgins of Æmona that they are not returning his letters...

"Pardon, I beseech you, an aggrieved man: if I speak in tears and in anger it is because I have been injured. For in return for my regular letters you have not sent me a single syllable. Light, I know, has no communion with darkness, 2 Corinthians 6:14 and God's handmaidens no fellowship with a sinner, yet a harlot was allowed to wash the Lord's feet with her tears, and dogs are permitted to eat of their masters' crumbs. Matthew 15:27"

This aesetic teaching of Jerome led to a young girl dying from anorexia and Jerome taking her mother and her sister off to live a life of resisting sexual pleasures and denying anything that may suggest they have any pleasure or self beautification.

So the aesetic life didn't work for Bhudda and it appears to have created quite the opposite of the intended effect in Jerome. The aesetic life doesn't appear to bring one closer to the spiritual life and may, at times, bring about death and obsession.

Sexuality has been part of the practice of spirituality in the form of the sacred union in many cultural and religious practices and in the case of Jerome, avoiding sexuality, food, or any other sensation based life experience was thought to be the highest form of spirituality.

All of this teaching seems a little too self conscious for me. I don't know if spirituality is a primary practice. Maybe its a byproduct of something else?

What is Christian spirituality?

2006-12-05T00:09:00.000-08:00

Being in a post Christian world doesn't mean that the influence of Christian thought has gone away. In some ways Christianity has become viewed as a religion presenting the two main messages of anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality. I have gotten letters in the mail asking for money to stop the evil liberal agenda from degrading the morals of our young people with quotes from various educators, lawmakers, politicians, and women's rights advocates placed out of context followed by exaggerated commentary. It has all the earmarks of a scam. I have long suspected that as long as these various organizations keep inflaming polarizing issues, they will continue to have the means to raise a lot of money.

I have observed rallies to save the unborn by groups of Christian youth standing sheepishly at a major intersection weakly waving signs that seem rather more vitriolic than their posture. It reminds me of when I was "encouraged" to go door to door handing out tracks warning that Jesus was coming soon, come to these meetings, and you will avoid God's wrath in the form of the Mark of the Beast. It was not uncommon to get angry stares from people while walking through the neighborhood. We were informed that this was persecution and God was well pleased with our dedication to his cause. We would sing songs like, "Onward Christian Soldiers," or "Bringing in the Sheaves." It was very hard to feel spiritual. I felt more embarrassed and afraid. And yet we were told that this was the highest form of spirituality and a true Christian would not be afraid.

There was something painful about watching these Christian youth hanging out there. Even though I didn't really agree with the method, I could empathize with their predicament. Every once in a while someone would yell out something after which the adult member of the group would yell back some catch phrase. When a car had to stop and wait for a right turn, right in front of them, there was this awkward moment where the group sensed that big sign waving was a little too theatrical for someone 2 feet away.

I wondered if they felt more spiritual or more connected to God after waving angry signs.

What is Spiritual?

2006-12-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

In my own exploration of what it means to be here on this planet I came through life with Christian absolutes. Most of these were based on the assumption that the Bible was the inerrant word of God. This has many meanings to different people. For me it basically meant that if something in the Bible didn't make sense then I needed to have faith that it made sense to God and was above my understanding. As I have read about how the Bible was put together, the history of the Christian church, and explored other belief systems, there was been a growing sense of a great unknown. At least unknown in an intellectual thinking realm versus an emotional intuitive sense.

I have gone through great disappointments as my old beliefs became uncertain and that which I thought was unmovable proved to be less than absolute truth. I responded to this with anger at times, sadness at others, and even apathy. Along with these 'negative" emotions there have been moments of profound wonder, freedom, and joy.

Some have termed the current age as the post Christian age. I'm not sure what this means exactly, but it means to me that the assumptions that orthodox Christianity brought to the world don't hold the same authority that they used to. Some say that these assumptions are still there but they have been radically redefined by liberal theologians to the point where they have lost their meaning.

So, in this backdrop, I would like to explore with humor, insight, and curiosity what is considered to be spiritual today.