Dollars for Dogma

Whenever a salesperson attempts to sell us something, they will always state the benefits of why we need what it is they are selling, and with that, will often include numerous reasons why we would be fools to decline their offer.  Each “religious” person who feels strongly about their faith most often wishes to “convert” others to that faith, as we have discovered before.  They do this because they believe in their heart others “need” what it is they are selling.  Quite often, religious believers are sincere in their belief in the notion others need what they offer, but this is ignorantly presumptuous on their part, and is actually quite arrogant.  It is also a maker of mischief and violence since this desire to “convert” others is misguided and totally unnecessary when it is understood the True God is not an ego, nor one culture’s particular manifestation of what they believe God is, but is instead The Oneness of All. 

This belief one’s particular version of “reality” is true, with all others being false, inevitably leads to tragedies such as the Inquisition, the Crusades, suicide bombings, bigotry, anti-Semitism, Jihad, and numerous other negative consequences of such delusions.  The problem with all of this is that under such circumstances, peace is never a possibility.  So, we have on the one hand, people saying they want “peace on Earth,” while on the other hand they want to hang on to their delusions, their religious beliefs, their narrow, bigoted conceptions of who and what God supposedly “is.” You cannot have both.  Jesus was right in saying we cannot serve two masters.  There is only One Reality, and that is the realization of the Oneness of All, which has nothing whatsoever to do with ideological or dogmatic agendas which characterize religious beliefIf this fact was truly known by everyone, then wars, religious “sales pitches,” the exchange of dollars for dogma, and other mischievous nonsense would no longer exist. They exist because virtually all of humanity is not aware of the Oneness of All.   Most of the world is aware only of their egos, and their corresponding agendas to meet their needs.

Those who do not perceive the Oneness of All believe the only way to “solve” the problems of this world is to impose their worldview on everyone else.  Of course.  This is done because they believe they are “right,” with everyone else being “wrong.”  Both theistic and atheistic sides of this childish, absurd, futile game cannot see the Oneness of All, which is the whole problem.  To impose one’s will or worldview on someone else is by definition, war, which is why life as we know it, is war.  I heard a sermon this past Sunday in which the pastor stated we are in a “spiritual battle” between the demonic forces of Satan and the “good” forces of God.  Even in our so-called “sprituality,” we cannot let go of war, no matter which side we are on.  We cannot let go of our illusions of the ego, of duality, of contradiction and conflict.  There is not a war because there must be a war, nor because of any make-believe “spiritual forces” of the “underworld” or any other superstition.  All of these nonsensical notions exist simply because we choose not to look at ourselves honestly and take responsibility for the condition of the world in which we live.  It is much easier for us to “blame Satan,” to “blame so-called “evil” forces,” to “blame God,” or some other make-believe abstraction instead of taking accountability for our self-made conflicts.  We create our own struggles and mischief because we look at life from the incomplete, limited vision of the self-absorbed ego, without awareness of the Oneness of All. 

So now we ask the question of whether or not we, as a race, are any “better” as a result of our religious beliefs and observations than we would be without them.  There are those who would argue we are “better” because religion gives us commands for how we are to “best” live our lives, with words such as “thou shall not kill,” “thou shall not steal,” etc.  But have these commands really made us better? Have these laws made us a fundamentally different and vitally transformed people than we would otherwise be without them?  Laws do not make us “more loving,” kinder, or gentler.  Laws do not change us.  They only expose us for the hypocrites we are because actions done in response to laws are done to either receive a reward or avoid punishment, not because our hearts want to do what is loving.  The condition of our hearts is everything, not following laws hypocritically out of fear.  It is human nature to rebel against rules and regulations, as the human spirit longs to be free of tyranny from without and within.  It makes you wonder, why the “all-knowing,” “all-powerful” Creator of the Universe would make rules and regulations for humanity rather than simply make us “perfect” to begin with, without the need for all these rules and regulations.  This would have spared him the need to become a mass murderer by almost wiping out all of humanity and creation in a flood, then later having his son brutally tortured and crucified to satisfy his anger over our inability to do what he made us incapable of doing in the first place.  It makes no sense whatsoever, and is a remarkably inefficient, unintelligent, cruel way to go about the business of creating a “perfect species” for one’s own pleasure and self-glorification.   These are not the actions of an “intelligent god.”  These are the actions of a cruel, egotistical, self-aggrandizing, sadistic bungler who does not accept responsibility for his part in a botched Creation.

God, in his omniscience, knew the very human nature he designed would, as an aspect of that nature, rebel against rules, yet still gave humans rules to follow instead of simply making us perfect from the beginning, without a human nature which would require rules.  But what are among the first words God says to Adam and Eve?  He tells them what not to do.  Everyone knows when you tell children, and even most adults to not do something, they are more likely to do the very thing you tell them not to do.  It is human nature – a nature, according to the Bible, God Himself instilled within humanity since Christian theology claims God created everything – including our human nature.  Since this is the case, how then can humanity be blamed for naturally acting within their human nature, especially when they had no previous experience to act within that human nature?  Almost nobody does something perfectly on their first attempt at doing something.  Everyone makes mistakes.  But God gave Adam and Eve zero margin for error, with the punishment being death for disobedience.  That is as absurd as cursing a bird for flying or a fish for swimming.

What the Genesis story of the fall shows us, is a God who sets conditions and traps for humanity to fall into – traps which God, as the “all-knowing,” “all-powerful” Creator of the Universe knew they would fall into.  This behavior sounds more like that of a sadist and an egotistical manipulator, not the “all-knowing,” “all-loving” Creator of the Universe.  Setting someone up for failure by creating a nature within them which will act in accordance to that nature through baiting them, then punishing them for taking the bait, is crooked, dishonest, and underhanded.  Yet this is what God did to Adam and Eve.  And why did God supposedly need to do this? Apparently to have us prove our “love” and “obedience” to Him.  This makes you wonder just what kind of “love” this is, and why God would need us to prove our obedience, why “love” and “obedience” equals the denial of a God-given human nature.  If human nature is inherently evil and to be denied, then God is obviously the author of this evil nature since he instilled it within us.  Really?  A so-called “perfect” and “good” God instilling an evil human nature within his people, just for the sake of testing them to “prove” and ”choose” their love for God over their inherently God-given evil human nature?  This is a complete contradiction and makes absolutely no sense.  It is only a cruel sadist who would create people in this way.  If we were to describe any person in this fashion – the fact they set traps and baited others so they could obtain “proof” of their so-called “love” for them and obedience, would we call that action loving?  Or would we call it psychotic and manipulative?  We all know the answer, but most of us have unfortunately not applied our critical thinking skills to our religious faith.  If we ever did, we would see if for the paper mache, house of cards delusion it is.  To simply say “We cannot understand the mysteries of Our Lord,” and end our questioning at that, doesn’t cut it.  We don’t let anyone or anything else off the hook that easily, without thinking critically, when things do not make sense.  Why do we maintain a double-standard and not apply that same critical thinking to our conceptions of God?

This is why the plot of the Genesis story of the fall of Adam and Eve, and the notion of “original sin” makes no sense.  Here we have God, the “all-powerful,” “all-knowing” Creator of the Universe responding to “sin” by cursing humanity with crops yielding thorns, and increasing womens’ pain in childbirth.  Among the first interactions God has with humanity is cursing them for acting within their human nature He designed.  It makes no sense.  Even if we concede Adam and Eve’s actions were “sin,” God’s response to sin is not to teach and reform, but to hurt and torture as found in Genesis 3:17.

“To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

And from Genesis 3:16.

“To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.  Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” 

Would any fallible, human parent ever punish their child to such an absurd extent for simply not doing what they are told?  The common argument for why God “had to do this” is because God “hates sin,” and cannot abide with it since God is Light, and in Him there can be no darkness.  If God is only light, and is nothing of darkness, how then could he produce the fruits of darkness, such as punishing, cursing, and condemnation, as he does in Genesis?  Even if we say God is both darkness and light, is this way of behaving any kind of example to humanity, and how they should handle others when others make mistakes and sin against them?  If not, then God did a poor job of setting a good example of the “golden rule” Jesus later spoke of to do unto others as we would have them do unto us.  Either Jesus’ words were incorrect, or God is a hypocrite, since his son Jesus preached a way of relating to others which completely contradicts God’s actions in Genesis.

Later on in Genesis, God becomes so angry at humanity for their evil ways, he decides to wipe them off the face of the Earth with a flood.  Let’s think about this.  God sets the precedent for how humanity should handle those who sin against them – with judgment and condemnation, as he showed to Adam and Eve, after they committed the first sin by eating of the forbidden fruit.  God then becomes angry at humanity’s development in becoming overrun with evil and sin.  Why was he so surprised?  He set the example they followed.  If ever there was an example of poor parenting, this is it.  It makes you wonder if the course of humanity might have been different, and God spared the necessity of becoming a mass murderer, had he extended forgiveness and compassion to Adam and Eve instead of judgment and condemnation.  It is amazing to me so many Jews and Christians do not dare to question the utter absurdity and appalling qualities of God’s ignorant, unforgiving, and judgmental character as presented in the first book of his “inerrant, Divine Word.”

All of this is a complete contradiction, as is the notion of this “sinless god” creating any being capable of sin in the first place.  Like produces like.  A perfect God cannot create what is imperfect, nor anything which can possibly “fall away” or “ruin” things in the appalling way Christian theology portrays humanity.  If God is truly perfect, than he cannot possibly create any beings capable of sin, as sin is by definition, imperfection.  What is perfect cannot create what is capable of imperfection.  If God produces flawed beings, then God too must be flawed.  If human beings are capable of darkness and sin, then God too must be capable of darkness and sin. Even the Bible itself essentially convicts God of being responsible for both evil as well as good, from Isaiah 45:7.

“I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I the Lord, do all these things.”

In this passage God Himself admits what contradicts 1 John 1:5.

”God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” 

Which statement of this “inerrant Word of God” is correct?  Both of these statements cannot be simultaneously correct.

The author of Genesis exposes himself for how self-contradictory he is by stating the “non-dual God” of only light, can somehow create that which is capable of both light and darkness.  This defies natural law, and is impossible.  Like produces like.  What is One brings oneness.  What is dual and divided produces further duality.  There is no “god” as separate from creation because all is One.  Manifested creation is God’s “eyes,” “ears,” and “hands” – the mirror through which God looks at himself.  It is through the temporary manifested creation, the ever-changing seen, through which the timeless unseen experiences itself.  Therefore, to say God “created” anything is an illusion to begin with since ALL always is. What we call “creation,” is only the ever-changing manifestations of that same One, since in Truth, nothing is ever created nor destroyed. Since God is the Oneness of All, and not an ego, then God can do nothing.  God simply IS. 

Still, even if we say God is an ego, we have to again face the fact that like produces like, that one who is capable of sin can only come from another who is capable of sin.  But somehow, some way, Judeo-Christian theology manages to bypass all common sense, natural law, and logic, putting all of the blame for sin on humanity, and none on the very Creator who it says set the entire human drama in motion to begin with.  Either humanity and God are to blame, or nobody is to blame. We cannot have it both ways.  Double-standards do not work to “explain away” God’s part in a failed Creation.  If we are going to say God is an ego who creates, rewards, and punishes, then we cannot blame humanity without blaming God as well, since God made it possible for us to sin from the beginning.  Had God not created this “flaw” in humanity, sin would have never happened in the first place, as it would have never been possible.  To say the reason God made sin possible was to give us the power to choose him, to choose love, which opened the door to the entire dualistic human drama, does not negate the ultimate responsibility of the Creator for making sin possible to begin with.  Such an “explanation” by apologists is simply another excuse and rationalization for an ego-god’s “decisions” and “actions.”  It is nothing more than an attempt to rationalize and “explain” a contradictory, dualistic view of God.  I myself did this in my very first chapter of The Mystical Voice” book.

The bottom line is this – the only reasons Christians can come up with for why God “had” to give us the “free will” to choose, is to “prove” our love for God and to place “value” on our faith so it will “mean” something to us instead of taking His goodness for granted.  So, let’s just state the facts of this belief clearly – God created the possibility for evil only for the sake of validating his “goodness” and giving us a sense of “value.”  He allowed for all the misery, destruction, and unspeakable horrors humanity endures just so he could obtain “proof” of our love for him and to make us understand the “value” of a gift he was gracious enough to bestow upon us lowly creatures.  That means God cares more about being egotistically validated and “loved” by humanity, than not putting these same people he supposedly “loves” through every nightmare and miserable suffering imaginable.  Surely an “all-powerful God” could have accomplished these “goals” by coming up with a more positive set of possible outcomes instead of the horrific tragedies humanity endures on a daily basis.  To add insult to injury, the Church rationalizes all of this unspeakable anguish with the trite words, “We cannot understand the mysteries of the Lord,” and leaves it at that.  Somehow, some way, God gets a pass for this remarkable inhumanity because “God is God.”  And this is the “god” just under a third of the world population worships?  Why?  The absurdity is beyond mindblowing.

What it really comes down to is this – either we have to throw our hands in the air, and resign ourselves to the lame excuse, “We cannot understand the mysteries of the Lord,” or we have to concede our conceptions of God are false, since they contradict themselves and make no sense.  This fact exposes yet one more of the countless problems we encounter when we believe in the illusory notion of the reality of the self.  Under such an illusion, there is always someone or something to blame.  Without ego, there is nothing and nobody to blame, nothing and nobody to thank, nobody to “pass the buck” to.  Knowledge of the Reality of the Oneness of All ends ALL of this blame, double-standards, and endless contradictions because it is Truth, unlike dualistic, self-contradictory conceptions of God as reflected in Judeo-Christian thought.

Let us think about this rationally.  Would we punish our children and their descendants forever because of one mistake, and then send our most perfect child to Earth to be brutally humiliated, tortured, and crucified to satisfy our wrath, our need for “payment” for this infraction?  No sane, humane parent on Earth would ever think of something so absurd, cruel, and unfair, yet somehow, this kind of barbaric behavior is perfectly acceptable to the Almighty.  How is it flawed human beings can be more reasonable and humane than a so-called “loving” God?  If any person acted the way God does in much of the Bible, they would be either locked away in prison for life, or happily executed for their sociopathic insanity. 

On top of this, as if God’s diabolical tendencies weren’t enough, God shows himself to be sexist as well, telling Eve she is to be “ruled over” by her husband.  The author does not even refer to Eve by name, who in this verse of the “Divine Word of God,” is instead referred to as only “the woman.” The author at least addresses Adam by name.  “In the beginning” of the Bible, within just the first three chapters of God’s supposed “inerrant” and  “Divine” Word, God is shown to be egotistical, short-sighted, sexist, lacking in compassion, and not particularly smart.  This is hardly a flattering introduction to the Almighty Creator of the Universe who is supposedly “perfect,” “all-knowing,” “all powerful,” and “all-loving.”  If this story is factually correct, then God is ridiculous and a hypocritical contradiction to Himself.  And yet it is this “god” some approximately two billion people in the world believe in.  And what is the track record for this “belief?”  How has it really benefitted and advanced humanity? Has it really made us any “better?”  Let us review just some of the so-called “benefits” the Christian religion has brought to humanity, and see for ourselves…

– An ignorant belief that the self-concept, the ego is a permanent “eternal” reality, when it is not, and with that, the notion God is an ego, when God is not.

Religious intolerance

– Bigotry

– “Voting” on “truth” – on which texts were to be included and excluded from the “official” holy scriptures, and with that, murdering and torturing those who possessed copies of heretical manuscripts, or adhered to “heretical” beliefs.

– Endless lies and cover-ups of church scandals, molestation of boys by priests, and other untold atrocities. 

– An obsession with sexuality and its “sinfuless,” with absurd, limited notions of “right” and “wrong” ways to express oneself sexually.

– The persecution of homosexuals.

-The persecution of Jewish people.

– The Catholic Church’s incredible wealth acquired in part by the murdering of those who originally owned land so they could obtain it for themselves.  The church’s selfish greed, hoarding their wealth without sharing it with the starving, the needy, and the poor, is a direct and appalling contradiction to the directive of Christ. 

– The Inquisition and the burning of “heretics” – those who did not buy in to church dogma.

– The Crusades

– Perpetuating the delusionary notion God is an ego who eternally rewards or punishes his people based on whether or not they accept his son as Lord and Savior.

It is from the holy scriptures itself we find the words that “by their fruits, we shall know.”  The fruits of Christianity should show any rational human being the fact this is an ungodly and inhumane religion controlled by ”fear” and “wonder,” yet this is the nonsense Christians have peddled for thousands of years, and continue to peddle.  It is sad just under a third of the world population still finds itself under the spell of this extraordinary delusion, sadly confirming the truth of Hitler’s words, “The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.” 

In light of all this insanity and irrationality being accumulated over the past two-thousand years, let us clear the air, and get back to what really matters by asking ourselves some very simple questions.  “Why do we need religion?  What does religious belief have to do with sharing love, and being aware of the Oneness of All?  The short answer is – nothing.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with what matters – sharing love, and being aware of the Oneness of All.  Doing this does not require man-made “standards of behavior,” nor the belief in an imaginary being in the sky who “makes” these rules with eternal consequences if we do not obey them like a well-trained dog.  Humanity, when living within awareness of the Oneness of All, can indeed live loving lives whose actions are loving and life-supporting, not hypocritical and dishonest, as is the case when following “moral standards of behavior” with rewards and punishments in place to coerce people to adhere to these standards.  The two are not even close to the same thing.

In my studies of formal religions, I have found that Buddhism comes closest to reflecting the universal wisdom of sharing truth and living in the awareness of the Oneness of All.  Sadly, Christian theology has essentially nothing whatsoever to do with Truth.  What is traditional Christian dogma concerned with? Belief.  Period.  That is the whole problem.  Belief has nothing whatsoever to do with sharing love and being aware of the Oneness of All.  This is not about “atoning for sin,” which is an absurd notion since all actions bring their consequences anyways, making so-called “payment” for sin completely meaningless, irrelevant, and unnecessary.  When it is understood God is not an ego, and is instead the Oneness of All, then it is abundantly clear there is nobody to “pay,” nor any authority to “disobey.”  The Oneness of All is not an “authority.”  The very notion of authority itself is ego, nothing else 

The traditional Judeo-Christian conception of God is nothing more than a projection of our hopes and fears – our egosWithout the ego, religion has no purpose nor meaning, because without the ego, there is no hope, nor fear, nor time, nor any “thing” which exists to need religion.  It is our attachment to our egos which makes religion necessary in the first place.  Religion is made for the ego, by the ego.  Without this egotistical attachment, religion is completely unnecessary.  For those who have been able to identify the illusion of their egos, and end their attachment to it, they see religion not only as unnecessary, but also quite harmful since it is delusional. The problem with the entire Christian religion is that it is based on the fundamental fatal flaw of the belief in the permanent reality of the self.  This is why the whole of Christian theology is a delusion and a lie from top to bottom.  When it is known God is not an ego, and is instead the Oneness of All, then the house of cards which is Judeo-Christian belief, crumbles into dust, exposed for the delusion it is.  It ceases to exist when exposed in the Light of Truth since its foundation – ego, is an illusion.  Period.

Love is all, and the Oneness of All cannot be bought nor sold.  The fact Christians and those of other religious faiths try to “sell” their religion to others proves it is not Truth they are selling, since only the false, the untrue, the lie can be bought and sold.  Truth, God, the Oneness of All, is not a thing, nor a place, nor a concept, nor an idea.  It therefore cannot be corrupted, neither bought nor sold, nor contained within any religious belief system, dogma, ideology, superstition, or any other absurdity since it is beyond all limitations.  Only Love brings love.  Why do we need religion? Love is enough.  Awareness of the Oneness of All is enough.  Religion is the crutch humanity leans on in the absence of Love… in the absence of the awareness of the Oneness of All…

 

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