Isiah 55:8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.
9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
I believe that religion, religious groups and religious individuals do more damage to themselves and to the people of the world, given the universal nature of religion, religious groups and religious individuals insistence upon holding the
world in the dark tangled web of religious mysticism, myth, asceticism and religious governance!
Shall we continue to drink blood, or is it time that we either move on to perfection
ourselves, beyond archaic notions and outdated ideas, or that we set the world's inhabitants free, so that they can seek after what is true by engaging in post-modern efforts and verifiable evidence in order to get at what is real and true?
Rev. C. Solomon
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More and more, I am being, with certain expediency, moved into understanding the need for all of us to move beyond the shackles of religious primitivism.
All churches and denominations, beyond religious science organizations, should likely refer to themselves by the name of one American denomination that refers to itself as 'primitive'!
What is the failing of religion? Well, rather than referring to religion as a failure or to its failings per se, we should consider how religion did in fact meet a specific need at a certain epochal moment in time. Religion met the needs of individual human beings who required some explanation for the how, what, when, where and who!
The problem with religion today is that we have moved beyond the narrow confines, constructs and well intended interpretations and descriptions that religion came up with in its quest to explain the how, what, when, where and who questions to our predecessors.
Religion, in my opinion, and I am using religion in a more parochial sense, came to the proper conclusion that there is something that exists, that is superior to humans and to human intelligence. And from that understanding, religion helped to create an anthropomorphic super being that would account for the creation of the earth, its life-forms including humans, the faun, the flora and much more.
However, religion made the mistake of stopping in its limited tracks, refusing to do any research beyond its own narrow constructs and interpretations, its previously conceived and held conclusions and misinformed findings. Yet, the evidence is in front of us that there is something that exists that religion can not adequately discuss or define, and it never has never has been able to do beyond superstition.
For one to stop where religion stopped, and in this sense I mean all religions, would be tantamount to entering into elementary school and completing your education in the sixth grade. In Christianity, the preacher has preached the same messages from the same texts for so long, that the ones who sit under his or her voice can either parrot back what the minister says, or say it before he or she does. Some of these ministers are actually proud of their ability and their command of rehashing the same texts.
For if nothing else, preachers can enrich themselves by rehashing the same old stories. But what about those post-modern individuals who are more interested in gaining more knowledge of the truth, the ones who wish to move on?
Many religious individuals have what I will refer to as a sixth grade religious educational understanding, and some have graduated sum magna cum laude. It occurred to me that this higher level of consciousness, if you will, or whatever it is that is beyond the primitivism of modern man in terms of intelligence..., is or has evolved into a realm wherein it refuses to use primitive communication forms such as speech or sound in order to communicate.
Why is this so critical. Humans have wondered for years, why if there is a God, why won’t God speak to them? In order to be able to communicate with aliens, one is called upon to understand the other’s language. It is difficult for humans to comprehend that there are other intelligent life form,s that are so far developed beyond us, that by employing our primitive communication apparatus to communicate with them or it, would be tantamount to a human trying to communicate with an ant using our current communication apparatus.
We are on the way to understanding something that is bigger than ourselves, something that religion will not or cannot define. Let’s give kudos to religion for bringing us as far as it could, given its limitations, but let’s take the next step in discovery and exploration beyond where religion stalled.
I am reminded in Christianity, what Jesus said to the Pharisees on one occasion. He explained to them that along with the Lawyers of that day that they held the keys to the knowledge of the kingdom, however, that they also had the kingdom shut up.
Religion has a belief, one that is held by many humans that it has a monopoly on truth. In other words, only religion can explain the more ethereal and esoteric things about life, and other life forms including God. However, I believe that is simply not true! I believe as one unknown author once wrote that, if you seek the truth it will find you. How many notable icons who sought to advance truth were either persecuted or killed because their findings which turned out to disagree with religious dogma varied in some aspect.
As we advance to the next level, those of us who have chosen to place religion in its proper historical and contextual context; I suspect that we will be able to communicate with what we refer to as God, and it will be able to communicate with us! And if the case be so, the use of primitive languages will not fit into the equation from either the perspective of evolved man or what or who we often refer to as God!
And for those individuals in religion who are uncomfortable with the term evolution, I remind you, once again, particularly the Christians the next awaited stage in the divine evolutionary cycle, according to Christians themselves is, metamorphoses, transformation/transmogrification. In other words a time when Christians believe that they will be transformed into spiritual beings.
At that time, Christian believers expect to be transformed into a different state of being wherein they will be identical to what they believe to be God. And moreover Christians expect to be able to dwell with God in their new spiritual bodies and to have the ability to communicate with God and be like God on an eternal basis.
And to this extent I agree with them, that whatever IT is that existed before human life forms ... did, we will be able to communicate directly with whatever IT is (once lower life forms move into a higher state of conscious) and perhaps cohabit with it!
So when human life forms speak in an unknown tongue today, what language are they using in order to do so? The churches litmus test, those denominations who believe that the exclusive sign of one's salvation is his or her ability to speak in other tongues in my mind have missed a crucial degree of understanding. During Pentecost, thousands, of years ago, the disciples of Christ were enabled to 'speak in other languages'.
The ability to do so served a purpose at the time. The disciples and others apparently were enabled to minister to the many visitors who were in town to attend Pentecost. These individuals came from various places - and many of these individuals spake in foreign languages, languages that the 120 could not speak in.
Would it make any sense then that the exclusive sign of transformation even today would be one's ability to speak today, let's say in French, Swahili or Portuguese? Having the ability to speak in other tongues, not an unknown tongue, could suggest that a higher power has enabled one to do so, however, other than that what value would be rendered given one's ability to speak in say French, Swahili or Portuguese that would matter in such a highly ethereal sense?
Having said that, what is more important, the ability to speak in other languages/tongues, or the fact that the enabler has visited you? The fact of the matter if that if the enabler has visited you, then you have the ability to do more than speak in other tongues and that should not be lost as it has been on too many fundamentalist Christians.
The litmus test cannot be restricted then to speaking in another language! This is just another example of religious primitivism that we must move beyond. There is, I believe, and the evidence seems to point that way that there is far more for to grasp, if we can simply release ourselves from the old shackles that bind us, religious primitivsm - more than anything else!
Peace & Grace
Rev. C. Solomon
Addenda: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends upon the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw
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