Waiting by the Window

The beginnings of Christianity were based on the return of Jesus to implement the Kingdom of God. His return was expected sooner not later. Two Thousand years have gone by since the time of Jesus. He has not returned and I personally think we have waited long enough. I believe that no matter how difficult the days ahead may be, and they will be difficult, the resolution of our problems will not be coming to us from the sky. The Greeks ended their plays with something called Deus Ex Machina. (God from the machine) At the end of the play, no matter how severe the problem, God would come in and make changes to the satisfaction of the play goer. Hollywood follows suit, and the good guy usually defeats the bad guy. History tells us another story. Very bad men led very bad armies into the land of the beautiful people and left rack and ruin in their wake. In my own lifetime, Germany and Japan owned half of the world. For three to four years. Then they lost it all. Not because Jesus came, but because the good guys got stirred up and put an end to this outrage. Now Germany and Japan are part of the good guys. Let's put it bluntly. Jesus is not coming back. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. We are in up to our earlobes in trouble, but like always, we have to find our own way out of it. Like World War II, we have to make the sacrifices necessary to save ourselves. The universe that God created many billions of years ago is far more complex than our religion seems to realize. I suspect that there are gadzillions of sentient beings as smart as us, and many smarter than us, who face the same problems that we do. God is responsible for all of them. He has given them all the means to survive if they (and us) are willing to use them. Many, I suspect, have fallen and disappeared. We could do the same. Together we can get the job done. If we continue to fight over non-essentials like who has the best religion, we will certainly fail. We need to all get together and find a common set of rules to live by. We need to do it fast before all of the bad things that loom in our horizon come to pass. I'd like to make it easy for everybody. Whatever your religion may be, it is not the end all and be all of the universe. It may have good parts to it, and you may be proud of it, but ultimately it will not unite us all under one tent. We are too large and too diverse for that. I am not suggesting that we get rid of all religion. That is not a practical solution. Instead, I am suggesting that we ease up on the idea that we have all of the answers in our own basket. There is no reason why all of the people of the world, whatever their point of view might be, should not get along with each other. It does not diminish me if somebody disagrees with my view of God. None of us know the real answer to that one. Lets put aside our differences and get to work saving the world. We will all be better off for it. Those of you who are awaiting the return of Jesus, go ahead and wait. Just don't sit on your hands and do nothing about our problems while you are so doing. The end result of that strategy will be disaster.

We are One

The problems with Christianity stem from the philosophy of St. Augustine. He came up with the idea of "original sin." Original sin, the sin of Adam in eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, is not reality, it is a metaphor. Simply put, if we try to out-think God, we lose. From the concept of original sin, we are led naturally to the concept of salvation. The problem with salvation is one of exclusiveness. If my focus is on saving myself, I will be less motivated to saving others. This is why Christians are constantly telling other people that they must believe in the idea that Jesus saves us from original sin. To fail to do so, means either death or hellfire, or both. The Gnostic believes that the road to understanding God is a long and hard road. It may take many lifetimes, and a significant transformation for a soul to achieve union with God. It is not because we, through Adam, ate an apple. It is because we must both learn to approach God, and learn how to approach God at the same time. Once we learn that the responsibility to approach God rests with us individually, we must then learn how to do so collectively. This is inclusive as God is inclusive. No one ultimately will be left behind. We may arrive at the Kingdom of God at different times, but we will always get there. God will greet the last to arrive with the same passion as the first to arrive. Re-read the parable of the Prodigal Son with this in mind. It will tell you how you will be received by God when you get there, and you will get there. In God's world, we are all winners.

Our Relationship with God

Our relationship with God is personal. It is not dependent on third party intermediaries, such as theologians. Truth is the theologians know no more of the true nature of God than you do. Your knowledge is innate, and does not need embellishment. If you understand the need to use metaphor to see God, you may imagine God in any form you wish. It is not idolatry. God's true form is unknowable. As such, all you have to do is find the working hypothesis that fits your understanding. Prayer is the way to approach God. It should not be a selfish, please make me important, type of prayer. God is inclusive and loves all life forms. Pray for your friends, relatives, pets, and anyone else in need. For yourself, ask for wisdom, courage, and love for all of God's creation. God will respond. You are God's child and he loves you unconditionally. He will not let you down. No matter how rough life gets, God will always walk with you. Don't let a theologian tell you otherwise. God's love transcends church dogma.

Saving Humanity: Post Five

In the previous four posts, I have talked about some of the dangers that human beings face, both now and in the future. In this post, I want to discuss one of the things that we can do to save ourselves. The action that I have in mind is for us to become more "spiritual." By spiritual, I do not mean going to church. Church as its presently constituted is designed to assist you to save yourself personally. The spirituality that I am contemplating is that more akin to the ancient shaman, who worked to meld together his tribe and the world that the tribe lived in. ln that sense we live on three levels. One level is the micro world of the cell. This world works automatically, and it keeps us healthy and alive. When it goes awry, we get sick, and if its bad enough, we die. The second level is consciousness. We live in this world for the most part. We eat, sleep, work, and play in this level. It is this level that we take to church and work towards our own personal salvation. The third level is our planet earth. From this level, we get food, air, water, and warmth. All of these are necessary for life. It is this level that I have been talking about in the previous four post, because we have been neglecting this level to our detriment. It is the only level that can kill us all. It is the level in which we have to develop spirituality. Too many of us think that God will come from the sky and save us by instituting his own rule. I do not believe that this is a viable option. The universe that we live in, including our galaxy and our earth, willdie. Everything dies. Eternity if it exists, and I believe that it does, will have to be in our participation in subsequent entities, and our participation is clearly out of our hands. In my opinion it is in God's hands solely. In this context, spirituality is taking responsibility for all of creation as God would have us do; taking responsibility for our own bodies, for our own life, and for the world that we inhabit. Taking it seriously means taking it as it is, not as we wish it to be. That means we must learn what the body needs to be healthy, what we need to be sound in mind, and what the earth needs from us to be viable over the long term. This is spirituality, and we need to find it in ourselves. Some churches are attempting to deal with this issue. Unfortunately, too many are teaching only on the second level. It is not enough. It is time that we matured and took steps to save ourselves. Indeed, it is past time.

Saving Humanity: Post Four

The earth has had many extinction events. While some have been severe, none have resulted in the extinction of all forms of life. Single cell forms of life live in the depths of the ocean. They may also live in space. Evolution ultimately will result in the rebounding of the species after an extinction event. This does not mean, however, that individual forms of life can survive an extinction event. The history of life shows many forms dying off, the dinosaurs being the most discussed. Many things can result in extinctions. Volcanic activity is constant, and occasionally severely so. Asteroids and comets hit the earth from time to time, often with deadly effect. The occasional virus and microbe can be devastating. The black death of the middle ages was horrific. The only thing that we can say for certain is that all of the above problems will come again. In our lifetime? Probably not. If we create a heaven on earth, we can still be subject to one or all of the above problems. Most of us are familiar with the story of Atlantis. Fiction or fact? It doesn't really matter. We could be just as easily the victims of such an event. It doesn't have to be water. Noah's flood is probably the most recent of such events. I find it interesting that Stephen Hawking, one of our most intelligent scientists, has suggested recently that we must be able to move about the galaxy for no better reason then the earth may make it necessary that we do so for our own survival. This may be far off considering our short life span. However, we need to understand that by pulling together we make escape more probable when the time comes that escape becomes our only hope. Do we need a better reason to get together and learn to love and respect each other?

Saving Humanity: Post Three

Considering the fact that we as a species (homo sapiens sapiens) have only been around for about two to three hundred thousand years, a small amount of time compared to the more than 300 million years that life has existed on the earth, it should come as no surprise that we are not yet civilized. Why do I say this? I am seventy five years old this year, and during my lifetime, more than 100 million people have been killed by war, crime, genocide, and the like. This is enough people to form a large nation state. I am being conservative about the figure I just gave you. It is probably much larger. The ability to kill one's own kind is rife in nature. Two males fighting for the right to inherit the female herd will often fight to the death. Notice that I did not identify the species, since there are so many that employ this method. Our closest cousins, Chimpanzees, will go to war with neighboring groups and will kill each other in the process. In a civilization, the right to kill is abridged. The penalty for murder of a human being is generally severe, except where governments do it, or where the government is weak and ineffectual. In order for civilization to succeed, it must be found everywhere in the world, and the rules must be similar and rigorously enforced. Penalties for crime which are too weak or too harsh must be eliminated. In America today, mention of world government is taboo. Its a non starter for anyone running for office. However, anyone who thinks through the options that are there for us has to conclude that the rules cannot be the same without some form of world government to back them up. We are not free in this country when there are countries all around the world where the citizens are enslaved by their governments. Anyone following the news knows that many of these totalitarian states are either in possession of the atomic bomb or are seeking to have it in their arsenal. This is an intolerable situation that cannot be allowed to go on in a world rapidly becoming connected and possessed of a single economy. If civilization does not become viable for every nation state, and if the economy does not equalize for all peoples, we will continue to live in a dangerous world. If anything, it will get worse unless we take steps to make it better. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin created the United Nations because they had just experienced a war that left more than fifty million people dead, and the cities of Europe in ruins. The United Nations in its present form will not be able to do much to foster civilization. We must agree to do more and to do it soon. If you think that warfare was bad in the twentieth century, think again. The wars of the twenty first century will make it seem like paradise. Civilization itself is at stake. We need to do more, much more, to make it work. Our lives depend upon it.

Saving Humanity: Post Two

The use of atomic weapons, however dire, is the least of our worries. I shall give you a list of things that we are doing to the earth and then tell you what I think we need to do about it. This list is not complete. There is much that I could add, but each item is important by and of itself.

1. Overfishing the ocean;

2. Polluting the land, sea, and air with toxic chemicals;

3. Destroying the biota in order to establish places to live and work;

4. Putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere;

5. Filling our space with useless junk; and

6. Allowing the population of human beings to exceed the ability of the earth to provide for them without eliminating other species and their habitat.

These problems are caused by the fact that the voices of those who see them, write about them, and caution us to avoid them, are largely ignored. We move like juveniles into a world we neither respect nor understand. We make toys to play with, and we find means to employ our minds, all of which distract us from doing the things we need to do.

This is a failure on all levels. It is a failure of government; a failure of business and manufacturing; a failure of our food industry; a failure of our health industry; a failure of our institutions of learning; and a failure of our churches and organized religion. Most of all it is a failure of ourselves to adequately educate ourselves in the nature of reality.

In short, we are all at fault; every nation, every people, every race.

The day will come when the earth will lose the ability to sustain us. Already parts of the planet have become wastelands. There is an area of the Pacific Ocean that is full of the debris cast up by our societies. This kind of thing can only get worse.

What is the solution?

WE MUST ALL WAKE UP! SOONER RATHER THAN LATER! NOW!

Saving Humanity: Post One

What will it take to save humanity? My next few posts will be dedicated to this subject. I will take various challenges and comment on them. In Post One we will discuss the nuclear challenge. First let's be realistic. There is no way to prevent the bomb in some form from falling into the wrong hands. It already has. The question of its use is not whether but when. I never thought that I would agree with Fidel Castro on anything, but his recent warning of nuclear war should be heeded. Iran will get the bomb, because the world powers are not willing to stiffen up their combined stance and prevent it from happening. They sort of know its a problem, but cannot agree on how far they need to go to stop it. Israel already has the bomb, and will not sit back and let things mature to the point where their country is seriously in danger of a nuclear strike. Castro is right about that. Castro also points out that North Korea is a problem. He believes that the most likely event will be a preventative strike by the United States. If South Korea and Japan are seriously endangered, he might be right. Add to this the potential of Al Queda getting some form of the bomb and using it either in the U.S. or Europe. Not a pretty picture. What can we do about it? There is no substitute on the horizon other than the U.S., Europe, Russia, and China finding a way to amp up their anti-proliferation policies and make them enforceable. If they don't, Castro may be remembered as the first world leader to sound the alarm. Once the bombs start going off, it will be difficult to find a way to stop them from continuing until our world reaches a point where continued blasting will be prohibitive. A point where human beings may well be cast back into the stone age. If that happens, the current leadership of the major powers will carry the most blame. They are the only ones who can do something about it, and failure is not an option.

Secrets of the Desert

The huge desert that covers the lower United States and Upper Mexico is full of the bodies of young men and women who have tried and failed to enter the United States illegally. It's easy to say that they shouldn't have been out there, and hence, they have only themselves to blame. It is less easy to justify such a comment. Anyone who studies history knows that large rich countries attract immigration even if they don't want it. I don't plan to go into all of the many stories about such movement, except one. In the last years of the Roman Empire, the Goths came to the eastern frontier seeking shelter from the Huns who were pursuing them. The local authorities allowed them to enter if they would fight in the Roman Army. The Goths did in fact fight as requested and did a great service to the empire as a result. Despite this service the Romans failed to reward the Goths with permanent residence. As a result the Goths revolted and their campaign took them as far as the City of Rome itself, which they sacked. Ultimately, the Goths ended up with Spain and parts of North Africa which they held until the Mohammedans came along. Our current argument about illegal immigration is a political matter and is not germane to this blog. However, how we treat people and what we do with them as human beings is important. Had the Romans embraced the Goths they might well have salvaged their empire for several centuries more. Their actions were short sighted and the wounds were self inflicted. People are people regardless of where they were born and why they act as they do. Ignore their humanity at your peril. Immigration is not simply a political issue, it is also a moral issue. The desire of a poor man who was born in a poor country to want to better himself may be inconvenient to those who already have prosperity, but it is not unforeseeable. When he ends up dead in the desert, his death is not insignificant nor un-avoidable. God's eyes see much further than our eyes. Let's look at the immigration problem through God's eyes. No more bodies in the desert. There are enough of them there already.

Organized Religion

I have no problem with organized religion as an "idea." My problem rests in the application of organized religion. My experience has been that when you get a group of people together the tendency is for the least acceptable ideas to bob to the top. This is especially true now that the forces of social rather than spiritual concepts have infiltrated the Christian Church and made it into a political rather than a religious entity. To be a Christian today is to find yourself ranged against many social causes that you don't like. I could name them, but it is not necessary. You know them all very well without my stating them. Ann Rice did a better job than I could do in setting them out. To be spiritual does not require membership in a church. To understand God, it is necessary to use metaphor since God is beyond our understanding any other way. The Bible is not the final word of God. If it were so, trillions of human beings who are not Christian would be automatically doomed by its repressive dogma. I cannot and will not accept that God thinks in that fashion. This doesn't mean that the Bible has no value. It is probably one of the most important books in history. It is simply not the beginning and the end of all knowledge. God is inclusive, not the angry, hostile, being who wants to send most human beings to a lake of fire. His mantra is the Golden Rule, and the sooner we learn to apply it fully, the sooner our lives will improve and life will become far less stressful. The burden is on each of us individually to do so. We are our brother and sister's keeper. The Golden Rule is not optional. It is the law of the universe. Go to church if you must, but do not fall into the trap of letting the closed minds rule your thoughts. You are better than that.

Bad Acts

The discussion of human faults is one of the most lucrative subjects that you can engage in. Books, TV shows, newspaper articles, magazines, and internet gossip are all full of stories of people who have done something criminal or socially unacceptable. We have the false belief that God reads all of these articles, etc. and is directly involved in the punishment of bad behavior. Not so! The rules of the road are automatic. When you hurt somebody, small or large in extent, you will ultimately receive the same treatment back. This is called Karma. God is more interested in how you overcome the tendency to commit such acts. What God seeks in human affairs is balance. The Golden Rule is the ultimate rule in regard to balance. It is not optional. Karma sees to that. What does this mean to us? Everything! When you get angry at your neighbor over his misconduct, it is necessary to forgive him before you attempt to judge him. The Native Americans had no prisons. The same crimes were committed, but they lacked the means to punish people as we have now. This does not mean that their system was better than ours. They could be and were extremely cruel in some of their punishments. However, they could not afford to get rid of some of the most effective members of the tribe, so they had an elaborate system by which misdeeds could be acted upon, and in such a way that nobody was left out. Our prisons are currently full of inmates who are simply sitting there getting worse, and who are lost to our society. Is this the best system? Surely, we need to isolate the sick and the venal who cannot live in society without hurting and killing people, especially our children. These are a small percentage of our prison population. Many of the remaining could be handled effectively by other means. Perhaps we should check out the curing ceremonies of the Navajo. Also we might try doing better with the Golden Rule. Draconian punishment may make you feel better temporarily, but over the long haul, society is worse off for the most part.

Does all of the above make me one of those liberal do-gooders who everybody hates? Yes, and I'm proud to be one. Come on in, the water is fine.