We Must "Bring to Light" What We Refer to As God" in a more progressive 21st Century and beyond Context - it is not forbidden!
Question: Does it really matter who hit a rock; if a herd of pigs ran down the side of the mountain; or if the Reed Sea turned red? Or, so what if you are referred to as 'the Walking Bible, and can flawlessly recite every term in a written text? Or, what does it matter if you are an excellent religious or biblical historian, can sing all of the hymn and standards with the voice of an angel, or if you have learned all religious ease?
How will that help humankind, or even you, in a 21st, or any preceding century context, by simply singing songs, remembering scriptures, rehashing metaphors from ancient texts? Not even the people who serve God, are in agreement on who, what and where God is. Isn't it still amazing, that the 3-major religious groups in the world, are all embattled and dug in over in the Middle-East, and yet each group claims to know and serve the one God. Hogwash!
Part I: Hold on to your seats: I attended a religious seminar this past weekend in San Jose California, where I asked the following question towards the end of the session, but not before prefacing my question with grace. My question was:"Is the God of the Bible, essentially the God of the Metaphor, and shouldn't we be pursuing God in a 21st century context"?
The gist of my question had to do with the apparent need for religious people from all persuasions, to regurgitate what was written by ancient writers, and to learn to speak Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Greek ... in order to understand the God phenomenon, and what IT, HE or SHE wants from us today. Otherwise, we abrogate our responsibility to utilize the knowledge that we have acquired in modern times, as well as our right to understand 'the God phenomenon' in the present, by using modern methods, instead of continuing to carry the baggage of the past.
Someone will respond, if you don't learn from history, you are bound to repeat it. My answer to that is exactly. Our predecessors, were so immersed in Jewish Law, the Tanakh ..., that they were unable to 'move on'. They were so immersed in tradition, that when Jesus attempted to help them to reach the next step, that they persecuted and eventually had him crucified. I have met many religious individuals today, some preachers and teachers, who are masters of early church ..., oral and written traditions. However, the knowing part is their religion. They are not in synch with the singularity, god equivalent or unifying principle.
The latter have to continue talking about the past, because they do not know what we refer to as God, in the present. I have suggested that we create a modern bible, if you will, the historical one is adequate for today's purposes. For example, we are loosing a whole generation. I find students that I preach to, even those at Stanford University, need to be preached to or taught in contemporary terms, along with a few references to the past. We must divest ourselves of the notion that we must ignore the knowledge and evidence that is here in the present. It would take the ancients, millions of years at the pace that they were going to meet or grasp the God phenomenon. We should have it wrapped up shortly, that is if we press on.
Blasphemy, heresy, an apostate..., yeah, I know! But moving right along, folks, there is so much that we could teach the people who lived before us, about what I will refer to as the God phenomenon, that our ancient predecessors admitted that they never saw or knew about, given that "their eyes had not seen, nor their ears heard, what you and I have discovered, learned, witnessed and heard using modern scholarship and espistlemology) to include the knowledge, experiences and technology that we have today. Folks, you and I have lived, what they have not yet seen.
If you were to listen to most ministers, clerics, imams ..., you would be hard-pressed to believe that you could know or even see God, without going through the grinding and tedious exercises of trying to understand what people, who lived thousands of years before you and I got here, understood and wrote about. They would have you to believe that you cannot know IT, God, if you did not learn from what ancient writers wrote, or if you did not hang your beliefs on what a minister today, who only recants ancient events and writings- from the past - anyone can do that. A pastoral friend was shocked, years ago, when he entered seminary, to learn that most of his professors at the seminary did not believe in God. Are you?
Many of today's teachers, preachers ..., would also have you to believe that you must come to know God, only as they know God, as an invisible, unfathomable, omniscient, omnipresent but shy God, that could only be known by faith, sacrificing sheep, drawing blood, recitations of texts, the Eucharist ... but never in a direct manner. Enoch, Abraham, Elijah ..., what would you have to say about what I have written, shouting out from antiquity? The latter were exceptions in their time, why? How is it that they excelled their counterparts in knowledge, understanding and connection to what we refer to today as God. Our predecessors even had a name for God. Thousands of years later, we still don't have a name for IT, we call it God.
We have to be careful that we do not rely solely on preachers and teachers ..., to help us to get to whatever IT is. We should not outsource our responsibility and right to know, because some other mediator between us and God, has claimed the right to be a mediator today between God and us. In John the 9th Chapter, good religious teachers back then decided that God, 'did not hear a sinner's prayer'. Now how many of you believe that is true, I don't, and most of you know that it is not true! Yet, we pretend that everything that comes from a religious text, or is derived from historical scholarship, is absolute. Nonsense!
The Pharisees created a system of stratification with members of their profession at the top of the hierarchy. Many of our ministers, clerics, imams ..., are doing the same thing today. Remember what the prophet Jeremiah said, '...they said that I said, and I never spoke to them'!
There are a lot of religious teachers, leaders ..., that I am certain that God has never spoken to, and yet they are excellent oracles and proclaimers of what someone else wrote down.
My position was and is that we ought to do the following:
1). Cut to the chase, and take advantage of the knowledge (some written), scholarship, contributions from the scientific community, current espistlemology, human encounters and experiences that we have today (some of which our predecessors neither had nor would likely understand, unless we taught them). Do you rely on your children to instruct you as an adult, or is it the other way around?
2). Attempt to reach, understand, relearn ... what we refer to as God, Allah, Jehovah, Horus, Osiris, Zeus ... in our own context, and in whatever form IT happens to be or not, with this assumption that IT CAN BE KNOWN, and if not, why not?
3). Simply, go to the source and 'ask God', or explore what we refer to as God, using modern methods and leave myth, mysticism, unclear and borrowed texts ... behind. We know what mystics, the ancients ... have had to and still have to say - let's employ a different method.
Apostle James, the head of the Jerusalem church and brother of Jesus wrote in the Protoevangelum of James, Chapter 1: If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask God? Wait, what did he write - he must have been before his time? He wrote: ask God, instead of grabbing the commentary, running cross-references, purchasing lexicons, turning on religious TV ...? What James wrote to dispersed Jews was not a metaphor, and it is something that you won't hear very often modern day religious monophysites ..., and again, what he said was not a metaphor - it made sense. Jews are you telling me that the Hebrew people who were dispersed all over the known world at the time, could talk to and get an answer from God wherever they were.
I suspect that the reason that we have lost so much time in terms of getting to be one with, what we call God, or integrating with, what we refer to as God - is because of the limitations that have been both imposed, and super-imposed upon us, by rote, dictate, fear or being taught that we need to live today, as if we were still living in a past century. We are past learning from religious mystics ... If I could go back in time, and drive my car up to one of our ancestors, they would believe that I was 'the god of the car'. My audience would likely toss palm leaves or garlands in my path, particularly, if I were to turn on the air conditioner, play some FM Radio, or take them for a 165 mph spin in the Negev.
Too much time has been lost as a result of an over-reliance on religion conditioning, and trying to live by misconception or rules that may have applied to the past, I believe. Our constant tours and detours through religion(s) of the past, in deference to any other of learning about, to locate, or understand the God phenomenon, has caused us to lose a significant amount of time in terms of our own progress in century 21. Most humans have lost so much time in terms of understanding what, why, who, what, IT, and where we are, or should be in the whole scheme of things in the present, that they don't believe much of anything anymore.
What are you saying, that the structure(s) of religion today, and the manner in which we have attempted to impose the past on more erudite and learned individuals, has caused them to lose their faith. Answer? Exactly! And can we blame them? Folks, religion is a mess, and is in a messy state to include greedy, libidinous church leaders, graft, scandals, religious monetization ... ! It is time to stop looking backwards, and instead to embrace the present (and the knowledge of the present, and to focus more on what is ahead of us. Lot's wife kept looking back, and was apparently covered by sulfuric deposits. Too many individuals today, are having a similar experience.
What would happen today, for example, if you went to a cleric, imam, teacher, priest, priestess ..., and told them that from now on you were going to ask or pursue God directly, for what you needed to know? Or, what if you told him or her, that you were more interested in pursuing God, than wasting too much time delving into religious conundrums, structures, double-speak, capitalistic church syndrome, metaphor ...? Well, they would likely tell you that you are breaking the rules, are crazy ..., and going to hell. The latter being a term that did not exist in Hebraic languages, Aramaic or Greek.
And in fact, they would be right in some instances, with respect to those 'delusional individuals' who claim that they already talk to God everyday anyway; and worse yet, that God talks back to them! Now having said that, it does not mean that sentient and sane beings may not be able to communicate with what we refer to as God, in a sane one-on-one fashion! I am sitting in a restaurant, just about a half-mile away from a church called 'The Bible Way Church'. And I will give it to the pastor and ministers of the church, they have built a church that is based by and large on the bible (on Constantine's canon), albeit in some ways, they are modernists as well.
However, knowing Constantine's motives for having, what we refer to as the Bible constructed, in the manner in which it was constructed is limiting. And, I am not so sure that a bible-way church is our best option, particularly, if one were to attempt to adhere to every jot and title contained within the bible. Blasphemy, yes, I know! There is an assumption, that everything contained within the Canon is the truth.
I know the pastor and many of the members at Bible-Way, and trust me, they are very sincere about what they are doing. However, churches like Bible-Way, and the Bible-Way Organization ... that attempts to relive in modern times a period that is past and gone, in my opinion refuses to grow - and what we refer to as God, is bigger I believe than Constantine's canon. What was taught in the common era, represented a step along the divine evolutionary cycle.
Religious organizations like this one, Christian and non, prevent other people from growing, given their, well-intended, attempt to restrict other people to the past, because they believe that is what God wants them to do. Well, if one truly believes as they do, that the bible way is the only way, then you have to give them credit for at least adhering to what they believe God wants.
So back to having a conversation with God, similar to the one that Elijah had in the caves. What language, patois ..., did God use to speak with Elijah. In modern times? Was it perhaps a conversation with the God-figure, using binary machine language, or via some other method, perhaps telepathy? Who knows? Elijah, apparently spoke and understood what God had to say. What is that Elijah and other prophets, knew, before and after, that the rank and file peasants cold not comprehend? Have you ever wondered why some individuals, even today, are able to tune in to the God channel, and become channelers, when others are unable to tune into the channel
The Apostle Paul even wrote in his letter to the church at Corinth, that there is an 'unknown language', by which humans can speak with God, not the customary glossolalia that evangelicals ..., often confuse with speaking in an unknown tongye. Has anyone since that time, tried to figure out or determine what that languages happens to be? Wouldn't it be nice if all humans could talk to the God-figure themselves?
Again, please differentiate the unknown language (undistributed apparently) that was used then to speak with God, from other literal languages that were spoken and understood, by visitors that were in Jerusalem for Passover - they were not one and the same!
Can we use the scientific method to determine what that language happened to be, and its idioms, patois and dialects? Can we determine whether or not that language is still available to communicate with the God-figure today. Or should we take advantage of SETI, and apply a channel set or translation device, that will permit us to communicate back and forth with the God phenomenon on a regular basis.
Keep in mind that thosee invisible waves, that are often used to send radio transmissions back and forth across the globe and into outter space, preceded Marconi and company by millions of years. Who used these radio waves and radio telemetry before we discovered them, and for what purpose? The former apparently occured before any of us arrived on the scene?
The technology, if not exclusively prayer, that might be required to communicate with the Almighty, may have been in place for millions of years, and we simply did not used it, because we stopped where our ancestors stopped. And as a result, today we prefer a more a more mystical, blood-letting or sacrificial approach to communicate with God, like the one that we learned from our religious predecessors. We are still practicing much of what they did then, when we partake of the symbols of blood and sacrifice, during Eucharist. I hope not because ,again, religioun is failing miserabley.
One has to ask then, is religion the only way to find the God phenomenon - I certainly hope not.
Most humans have attempted to speak directly with God, one time or another during their lives, I believe. And the channel that they used was prayer. And prayer, does not require the presence of members of any hierarchy. The ones who do, often 'get through to God, and receive a reply. Consider what happens when someone is about to lose a loved-one, say in a hospital room. It is not uncommon for one or more of them to pray to God, and oftentimes, they get the answer that they were seeking.
If prayer doesn't work, I am in trouble, because I do it all the time and I get answers too. I asked God, in a prayer once, why is the religious world so divided. The answer that I received was: Because they (religious people) seek an answer in theology, as opposed to in love!
Still among the billions of people who pray (possibly the highest activity that a human can engage in, i.e., to talk directly to IT, there is one subject that is rarely, broached with God in prayer, and it is simply this: who, what, where or how can I know you, in deference to relying on outdated and ancient texts, myths, scholarship, metaphor, a human mediator or speculation?I
A sane individual would, I believe, likely get an answer, if the question were properly posed, and if the enquirer utilized the proper language portal. For example one might ask: "God, or whatever you happen to be", how can I be in sync with you (or whatever you are) in terms of essence, wisdom, knowledge, understanding ... not just religiously or ethereally? Or, have you simply been waiting for me to get to a place where there can be a direct communication, but because I am stuck in ancient and outdated and unproven historical constructs that has its own set of rules, am I missing out on what was the right of every human in the first place, to communicate back and forth with you or whatever you happen to be?
Again, where do we get this idea, that we cannot communicate with this apparent force, for lack of a better term, that evidently exists in or outside of the Universe o perhaps inside of us..., formless or not? Answer, mostly from religion, religious teachers, or our parents who were taught by religious gurus in post-modern times. The former teache them that they must engage in the age old rules of engagement, typically by and through them, or by providing a sacrifice.
Must rely so heavily on the ancients, and information from the ancient texts, mostly error-prone texts I might add, in order to ever be one with God?
Para-psychologists, recognize that there is apparent overlap between the biological, and what we often refer to as a spiritual world; and some have apparently bridged the gap and learned to communicate back and forth between both words. There is evidence to show that what they claim to be able to do is true .
What if the texts that the self-appointed religious leaders and teachers today, who limit us, are simply in error, although they do an excellent job of preaching from and interpreting ancient error-prone texts? Many ancient texts that are typically used to teach us how to govern our lives, from culture to culture derived from thousand year old texts, are typically ancient, borrowed, mystical, mythical, poetical ... One has to wonder why, if they knew and communicated with God, why did pre-modern man remain so backwards for such a prlonged and profound period of time.
Many of our ancestors borrowed heavily from individuals and writers who preceded them by thousand of years, the Gilgamesh Epic, and other Babylonian and Sumerian texts that were used principally to construct some Hebrew and afterwards, Christian ideas. Some of what our predecessors passed on to us, happened to come from other discredited sources, by today's standards, even though they were considered sacred at the time. Jesus, in the common era, even debunked traditions that had leaked over in what at that time would have been considered modern times.
In the story of Eden, Adam had a choice to go to the 'mythical tree of life', instead he partook of the mythical tree of knowledge; the delight is believed to have been a quince. A metaphor perhaps? Answer: it very likely was a metaphor, one that was used to make a point. The message being that right choices can lead to long life, and the wrong choice can lead to death.
The metaphorical serpent convinced Eve, in this allegory, that she would obtain the wisdom of the God(s), if she partook of 'the fruit of the tree of knowledge'. Well, perhaps Adam and Even missed the meaning of the allegory, but we don't have to. We can pursue the tree of knowledge (gnosis) today, as well as wisdom (sophia), by utilizing what we have in the present, as opposed to relying too much on what was recorded in the past. And what is the religious community selling today? They still want the Adams and Eves of today, to pursue the quince in lieu of knowledge of the truth and wisdom.
For the more mystical among our ancient predecessors, God turned out to be 'a spirit', the Great Spirit in fact, a catchall term that used to explain something that had the wisdom of a human-being, but did not exist inside of a body. Our predecessors utilized terms like ruah and pneuma to describe what God happened to be? Did these folks ever know God? Or did they simply write about the God of their metaphors, something that we picked up today - instead of making an effort to determine, what, how, why, where and about what we refer to even as God.
The majority knew the God that was taught to them by their teachers, El, Elyon, Adonai, Yvwh ... They admitted, some of them, that they never actually saw God. And from school to school, they rarely agreed on what God or it's essence happened to be. So I ask again, why have we trusted primitive scholarship, and ignored what we have since learned, that makes far more sense than what our predecessors talked taught us.
We understand the methods that they used to create GOD. We even understand the limited methods, influences and discourse that they used to draw their conclusions from? Why do we, in post-modern times, continue to forfeit our right, to pursue God in a more knowledgable modern context (taking into consideration their research, be that as it may.
We elevate their status, because they were here long before we got here. We interpret that to mean that they knew more than we do today, because they lived closer to the time that God purportedly visited the Earth in Eden. And by doing so, we ignore the value of our own knowledge and experiences, particularly what we have learned over the past 2000 years.
In other words me give more credence to a myth from the past, than to modern day espistlemology and scientific discovery. The question being, should a myth carry more weight than evidence does? Therefore the knowledge, and the tools that we have at our disposal today are considered to be worthless, particularly when used to explain the God phenomenon. The old guys, have in short, put us in a box, locked it and threw away the key. Believers in ancient myths ..., simply, do not want their their long-held ideas and beliefs about God to be debunked.
I understand people who are concerned, or are actually afraid of having their sacred cows disabused. But on the other hand, have any of them ever considered that we might end up confirming, as opposed to disproving, their historical beliefs, that are based on faith in myth... and not necessarily in God.
Most religious individuals are looking forward to the day that they will be with God. I suspect that that they ought to be happy that we are helping them to hurry up and get there, as opposed to taking the long road, that religion has put most of us on. Are we actually waiting for God, or is God, waiting on us to get past religion, myth and romanticism?
I could go to a child and ask him or her to explain what God is. The answer would be a simple a regurgitation of what the child had been taught by some influential person or institution, particularly the one that the child wished to please. The child would very likely remember and mention fantastic stories of a time when 'giants, walked on the face of the earth'.
And, if I asked a teenager to explain the God phenomenon, in comparison to what a child or older religious adult would answer - I would likely receive a more erudite but skeptical answer such as, I don't believe that there is any such thing as God. If I headed down to the Seminary, I would receive a more philosophical answer and a lesson in ontology, to what explain what God is or was.
Finally, if I were to ask a secularist the same question, they would answer, "there is no God, humans contrived God"! If you asked me, I might answer, that there may not be a God at all, as explained by the metaphorist of the past, but there is definitely something there, that we call God, Yvwh, Allah, Horus, Osiris, Adonai, El, Elyon, El-Shaddi, the God of the Wind, Harvest ... And, it is our turn to pursue it, using modern methods to locate IT, something that might not be a spirit at all. Heresy, apostasy..., yea I know!
I would stake my life on the fact that there is something that we describe or refer to as God .... We have been simply taught to believe that IT is exists, but is unseen. The difference in me and most religious individuals who prefer a phantom God is, I am a pragmatist, one believes that we should take a hike up the mountain, similar to what Moses did, and meet and talk to it. Sacrilege, yes, I know! see, however, I do not believe that the God phenomenon chooses to be obscure. I believe that humans, and the lessons from antiquity believed that IT wanted to be obscure, because they couldn't find or comprehend it. What was a mystery to them, does not have to be a mystery to us today, I believe.
Let me repeat, just because a person or an idea has been around longer than or before you or I have been here, it does not mean that, it doesn't mean that our predecessors know more than we do, or that an ancient idea is right and that ours is wrong. Learning is dynamic.
All of us have set in classrooms with individuals who learned far less than we did while sitting in the same classroom, and were taught by the same teacher and read from the same texts. What the ancients, mostly unlearned and ignorant individuals understood and wrote - that which we refer to as sacred today, was based upon the (limited) understanding of the time that they lived in. Knowledge is dynamic, we have learned a lot more 2, 4 and 6,000 years later.
Some of the writers of the past were ignorant, which explains why so many of their works were rejected long before we got here. Having said that, they wrote the intention to educate, most of them, not to deceive.
We know far more, thousands of years or centuries later than they did, and we should know more, just as any individuals who are on earth 2,000 years from now, ought to know more than we do today, that is if we do not lock them into a practically inescapable framework - the one that we have been afraid to peer out from.
There is nothing to be ashamed, if someone debunks or perfects a finding that may have been in existence for years, scholarship continues to improve. Futurists might look back at us and laugh. For example, perhaps they will travel through worm or black holes ..., the fact that we were riding around in mechanical devices, and occasionally crashing into each other on highways, or falling from the sky, might be amusing to them.
Futurists might even find it comical, given that we limited ourselves, and failed to use the knowledge that was available during our time on earth, to engage in time-travel let's say, given that we were so immersed or locked into unsubstantiated religious ideas, that only held us back.
They might even laugh at us, given that we cannot solve the mystery of cold fusion.
Curious individuals, and people of scholarship, are typically open to learning. They seem to have an insatiable craving and desire to be fed with 'knowledge and understanding'. Erasmus, Socrates, Origen, Eusebius, Aquinas - only touched the surface during their time, and I suspect that they knew and would admit that before we would. I suspect that they recognized the limits of their understanding, and if they could leap forward into the 21st century, that they would spend more time getting answers from the scientific, rather than the religious community.
Going to the religious community would be a waste of time. Why? The religious community would produce the book, that the inquirers put together. I can see the shocked look on their faces now, when they discovered 2000 years later, that the religious community was still stuck in the past. I believe that we will never know IT, if we continue on the present religious path.
Religion is kind of like politics in America; it is at a standstill. Why? Could it have something to do with the religious-only dogmatic methods that we use to know or explain IT. That would certainly explain why we are still where we are today, in the same place of religious understanding, that our predecessors were hundreds and thousands of years ago?
What happened in the Period of Enlightenment, that resulted in humans making incredible leaps in knowledge? More was learned in a shorter period of time, than during the dark and middle-ages put together, with the exception of what may have been discovered in dark Africa, that is still being revealed. And what the difference(s), someone cracked open the box!
People have to have an interest in learning, Humans should not live their lives in fear of knowledge, instead they should embrace it. And in order to do so, oftentimes, humans have to overcome the institutions and individuals who hold them back. Consider what is going on in the Republic of China today, now that some of the old guard and their retrograde ideas and practices have been ignored.
We need more risk takers, if we ever going to get beyond the religious stalemate. We need individuals, who can step outside of the imposed boxes, that will ask new questions and speculate. If individuals like these had not existed before, you and I would still be living today, as if we were living in the dark ages. We wouldn't be driving cars, flying in airplanes, watching TV, or using computers. But some of our more erudite predecessors, put members of the avantgarde, religious and political, in their historical places.
We need more people who are willing to take their knowledge and understanding, especially when it comes to religion, to learn more from today's Tree of Knowledge. Political religious conservatives of today, still hold on to the past, because it empowers them and their causes. They do not want change, particularly the kind of change that will reduce their power over thought, wealth, systems and people! Constantine was smart enough to do that in this time, and he used religion, Christianity in this context, to accomplish his aims - just as the Constantine's of modern times have been doing.
The political and religious avantgard are afraid that they will loose their monopolies. They are afraid of what would happen, if someone were to explore and explain the unknown, or uncover the unknown.
I believe that what we refer to as God can be known, not just by faith, and that it wants to be known. Perhaps, someone will have to invent a modern day, Newtownian device, let's call is the God detector device. On the other hand, perhaps we already have, in our possession, what we need to know, but have been prevented from using it.
What we know already, may be sufficient to introduce us, beyond faith, to the God-figure (whatever it is)? Is it mechanical? Are the deists or theists correct? Is God, something different in other words from an angel or spirit, as we have been led to believe. I lean more to terms like 'the Singularity, the Unifying Principle and the God Equivalent. Blasphemy? Yea, I know!
But borrowing a phrase from an ancient historical text, "why, sit here until we die", why waiting for someone or some thing to return one day in the sky, and then the good people will fly up in into the sky and leave the bad people behind. Instead, we should get up and pursue all knowledge, leaving the religious conservatives behind, instead of it being the other way around.
Blasphemy? Yes, I know!
I repeat, we have been taught, for far too long, to go back and dig out ancient texts and manuscripts, and to old Matthew Henry or the Septuagint, Vaticanus, NagMadhi Scrolls ... and read, what may have been okay for a time past. Can one go forward, by walking backwards?
So, what if they were wrong? Just because something is old, doesn't make it right? It is not uncommon for past or current espistlemology to be debunked. Even the great Sir. Isaac Newton, to his dismay, was found to be wrong at times. So what happens when you spend years believing in an erroneous idea? It can prevent you from getting to what is real!
I discovered long ago, that there are history buffs in the world, who absolutely love delving into the past. They remind me of fighermen and hunters that like to hunt or fish, however, they always give away the catch. Why? They simply enjoy the hunt, or the art of fishing. Some of them won't eat fish, or red meat. And that is what is happening today. Seminaries are full of individuals who love to hunt and fish, but they do not believe in God. Churches are full of pastors, preachers and teachers who do not believe either, but they love the pageantry and to research and debate historical topics.
A friend of mind, learned that while attending Seminary in Southern Ohio. He told me once, my professors don't believe in God. And what's wrong with that? Motive, perhaps? Could it be that some of them simply refuse to live in the present, or to delve into the future, rather than continue their amorous relationship with the past.
Is that good enough in a modern context, a time when we have uncovered quantum physics, created fissal and nuclear bombs, sent probes into deep space, tracked the human genome, delved into bioscience, taken trips to the Moon and beyond (similar to something that Elijah reportedly did when he took off in 'a chariot of fire'? I suspect that what we refer to God is not hidden at all - we have simply been taught not to approach it's purported holiness or righteousness, and to remain retrograde and fearful dummies.
If there are to be mystics, that's okay I suppose: perhaps they are communicating telepathically. But on the other hand, is what the mystic's have and have had to say, always, or necessarily true? On the other hand, I can appreciate what historical 1st graders understood, and have written about or had to say in the past about God, however, we are not in first grade anymore, and the Law of the Primer doesn't work for me anymore.
Is anyone interested in going to the second, third or fourth grade in life, or beyond, besides me? If we remain stuck in religion, we will never graduate, we will keep repeating 1st grade learning, and likely will still be burning incense, and slaughtering sheep... drinking blood and eating crackers. Blasphemy? I know1
Had, Jesus not come along in the common era to say, what I am saying now - it's time to move on folks - there would be no such thing as Christianity! Blasphemy? I know! Jesus, didn't expect his followers to eat bread and crackers into perpetuity! He did not expect his disciples to avoid sticks on the ground on the Sabbath. Jesus expected there to be a reunion.
So who is waiting on who? Are we waiting on God, or is God waiting for us! This dumbing down of what we refer to as God, by religion, has got to stop!
If we were to create a tome, written in modern day language, to explain what has been learned over the past 2,000 years later, and someone took it back in time, a volume, on a CD, USB hard-drive ..., what do you suppose the ancients would say when they learned about thermodynamics, entropy, galaxies, the big bang, humans traveling at speeds of let's say 15,000 miles an hour ...?
First of all, assuming that they could decipher trigonometry, or had a CD Player ..., after bowing down to us, as some did to the Apostle Paul, 'believing that he and his entourage were gods come down from Jupiter or Mercury', someone would have to educate them. However, we are still taught to rely upon them to educate us. We don't have much of a use for learning about animal dung ... We pretty much have that sewn up!
We would also have to create and take back into time 21st century lexicons, reference books, translators ... and find a way to communicate. Perhaps, we could take a visual aid along with us, for example the movie, Jesus Christ Superstar - that would get a rise out of them.
Seriously, even if would, take back into time documents from today, it would take an inordinate amount of time our predecessors to understand what we know, well, we could employ the Vulcan Mind Grip. The fact is, they might have known already what we know today, (if they had not found themselves stuck in metaphors, myth, mysticism or what they previously learned from their and now our ancient ancestors).
The unknown writer of the book of Hebrews encouraged his or her audience, to 'move beyond the principles, and to go on to the perfection'. Haven't we gone around the same mountain long enough and dealt with the minutiae long enough. And why do we keep trying to step forward by by looking, exclusively, looking back?
Something to think about: According to the Canon,
1). Enoch, walked with God and God took him.
2). Elijah was taken up in a spacecraft (but was preserved in his humanity)
3). Elijah shows up again, ethereally, on the Mt. of Transfiguration, maybe
4). Jesus rises up from the planet
Did these gentlemen, actualize, teleport, reach fulfillment, figure out the riddle? What, weren't any females taken? That sounds like male bias to me, and I am a male. I know how we can be when it comes to females, even when we believe that we are gender-neutral.
Truth or metaphor? Let's assume that everything happened just as it was written in the Canon, for example. Then would this suggest that there is a point that a person can reach, where you understand, actualize, meld .. and as a result are elevated to the next level, apparently into a non-matter world or existence?
The next question is, how will a religious person move to higher knowledge or a higher plane, if they spend their lives looking backward and exploring metaphors ... as opposed to moving forward by pursuing the determinant source?
As I close, it seems that I am always around individuals who love the art of looking back. They are history buffs, and care only about the here and now. The future, as far as they are concerned is an ethereal construct - they really, don't believe what their own ...
They live their lives taking a step backwards, in order to move forward. religious science and a few other religious groups being the exception. Other religious groups, not just Christian, would have you to believe that God wants us to remain in our current religious purgatory. They believe in dispensational theology, and that we are destined to remain where we are now, we have been dispensed and predisposed to remain within the current time frame, without making leaps forward into or altogether out of time.
Eternal life, I suspect that we would have figured it out long ago, for example, how to move consciousness into other bodies, and to be TIME INDEPENDENT. And isn't that what the 'rapture people' are waiting for, to be placed inside another body, or to take the next step in the divine evolutionary life cycle? Ah, we could have done that a long time ago, only if someone would have taken their feet from the brake pedal.
jesus tried, and found himself hung on a cross. Individuals like Jesus, are being hung on the cross today, and are having wooden stakes driven through the palms of their hands. Some are being expelled from the priesthood, I was expelled once, after I had already resigned and moved on! I left because I outgrew intolerant religion, and leadership that were locked into a framework.
I'm still moving on, and have delighted in the criticisms that I have received. Ah, they did the same thing to Jesus and other historical luminaries didn't they. I believe that if Jesus showed up today, that he would be crucified again at the insistence of religious institutions. He would have to hang out with the Mary of Magdala's of the world again ... or do what his predecessors had to do thousands of years before, and hang out with the prostitues like Rahab - religious people today wouldn't tolerate him very long.
When I am taken up, like Enoch was, and moved over into the higher plane, I may teletransport back to the 21st century, and bring or send a message back saying, wake up dudes, take off the (religious brakes) and move into the future-present. Our predecessors, thousands of years before, found themselves stuck in religious dogma, just as the majority of our religious institutions find themselves today.
It is difficult for people to emerge from from long-held and entrenched frameworks. Look how long it took for some Americans to overcome racism, and an inculcated fear of blacks, and some still have not. I am black, but I am a sweety-pie, even though people still clutch their purses and lock their car doors when I walk across the intersection. However, I wouldn't dream of taking someone's purse or taking anything that doesn't belong to me.
Finally, consider this denominational conundrum of the Christian faith, just to make my point. Every denomination in the Christian faith reads from the same text(s), and often come up with different interpretations of the same text. And sadly, they build a praxis around what they understand about what they have read, which more often than not, differs on some doctrinal point from their counterparts in the same religious circle.
And even though they may agree on all other points, they conclude that their counterparts are in error too, and oftentimes, withdraw from them too, having discovered that their group exclusively, teaches the truth.
Can you see why it would be wiser then to err on the side of grace, and to SIMPLY ASK GOD if you want to know what is real, as opposed to relying on the God of the Metaphor, or the metaphorist's who have a monopoly on God, and write for him?
A God that that has been explained only by metaphor(s), is not one that I would rely upon, particularly, when you cannot parse the metaphors! It's time to move on, and to use the knowledge ..., that we have today, and will continue to acquire -interdisciplinary knowledge,
I will always remember the man who said: I love going to church, it's like going to a play each Sunday, one where I can look at the stained-glass windows, and partake of wine and crackers ..., but no, I don't believe that there is a God. He is not alone in that regard for too many of us, and the ones who preceded us have been and were taught to enjoy looking back, learning the scriptures, songs and poms, or to enjoy the camaraderie, pageantry and sacrifices as well, but never to pursue the truth when it takes us outside of religion. If you are waiting to go to heaven, we have already been there in spaceships, ask NASA!
Solomon
I'm not finished ... but I like what the proctor said in response to my query at the end of the conversation, during my visit to last week's workshop? He said: perhaps that is your path to follow. Okay, I warn you that if I experience apotheosis, am translated, or flown off into the ethereal, become 'time - independent' and meet Enoch, Elijah ... in a worm hole... remember, I TOLD YOU SO. In fact, BEAM ME UP SCOTTY!
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