Hands Off Another Person's Religion

Recently I watched a special on CNN in which some folks in Tennessee attempted to prevent the construction of a mosque in their community. I can understand that people who are used to their religion a certain way would be bothered by a strange religion flourishing in their midst. I can understand the feelings of the people who watched the twin towers being destroyed by terrorists who happened to be the same religion. Having said this, I believe that there is a greater issue here that is being ignored. The issue is a simple one. We live in a world with hundreds if not thousands of religions and there are many who have no religion at all. All of these people are Children of God. All roads lead to God. Those who believe that their religion is preferred by God are wrong. Nobody understands God so fully that he or she can claim to know God's mind. No religion has the final answer no matter what the adherents of that religion might say or think about the matter. We know far more about the universe today than did the folks who founded the various religions of the world. That doesn't make them wrong. As I said, all roads lead to God, and no matter which road you travel upon, you will eventually end up in the Kingdom of God. As Christ said, it is within each of us. We need only seek it out. If the number of religions in the world is not staggering, think upon the fact that there are billions of planets like ours just in this Galaxy alone. There are billions of Galaxies besides ours. It is likely that each planet has the potential of life, and if so, the possible religions in the universe would be numberless from our perspective. Is God going to ignore them all and just concentrate on the religion of a small part of America. The Golden Rule guides us. You want others to respect your religion. Following the Golden Rule you should respect theirs. It is not only sensible, it is what God expects of us. Getting back to the theme of this posting. Keep your hands off of another man's religion, and expect him to do the same. Only by this means can we walk into the Kingdom of God, hand in hand, together.

A GNOSTIC LOOKS AT LIBYA

Why on earth would a gnostic find Libya a suitable subject? The answer may surprise you. Because the gnostic seeks God in metaphor rather than literally, any subject is suitable for interpretation. I submit, that Libya is a key argument for the proposition that politics and religion are obverse sides of the same coin. So far as I know, most if not all Libyans are Muslim. Americans should not gloat over Muslims killing Muslims. In our Civil War, more than a half million Americans died. Religion has not stopped human beings from killing one another for exclusively political reasons. While we empathize with the desire of the majority of the Libyan people to have a democratic government, we understand why Qaddafi is killing them to retain power. That is what despots have done in all of recorded history. When Julius Caesar was murdered, his adopted son, Octavian, waged a war against the faction that killed his father. The result was that the killers of Caesar ultimately lost their lives and their political power. At this point, you might ask where does religion fit in all of this. I wish that Pope John Paul II was still alive. He would have much to say on this subject and it would be worth listening to. This is what I think he would say. I think that he would start by suggesting that the base message of Jesus was freedom for all men. This freedom would be both political and religious. You cannot abridge one without abridging the other. I think that he would follow up this thought, by suggesting that Jesus showed us how to achieve this goal. It comes from the simple recognition that we are all children of God, no matter whether we believe in god, call God by another name, follow another religion, or attend church on Sunday morning. With this comes the ultimate connection to gnostic thought. The gnostic believes that you achieve union with God by learning to understand what God wants from us, and living your life accordingly. Jesus said the the "Kingdom of God" is within us all, and he went on to say that we are ignorant of this fact. He gave us several parables to assist us in the search. The "Good Samaritan" teaches us to regard our brothers, whoever they might be, as we regard ourselves. When we look closely at the people we hate or do not understand, our ignorance and hatred disappear. In another way of speaking, we are a "family of man." Every human being is our brother or sister. The "Prodigal Son" teaches us to forgive, even the sins that affect us the most. Only in forgiveness can we come together as a people. The parable about the wages given the workers teaches us that it is the result, and not the method of achieving that result that matters. The last person through the Gates of Heaven is just as important as the first person who enters. Finally, the statement about how hard it is to enter the Kingdom while retaining all of your riches should alert us to the fact that it is our heart and not our wealth that defines us. Pope John Paul II reached out to all men and all religions. He understood what Jesus wanted from us. He lived that principle in his own life.

With this in mind, it is not wrong to say that the struggle of the Libyan people for freedom is more important that our struggle to make up for our lost wealth in the current recession. As the Libyan People go, so go We. As John Donne so aptly put, "ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." When we reach the end of our lives, our wealth falls away and goes to other people. Our hearts go with us to the next stage of our lives, and help to define us in the eyes of God.

In searching for freedom, we are all Gnostics.

The Welded Universe

Welders are the unsung heroes of our society. Whenever metal starts to fatigue or tear apart, the welder can put it back together again. Welded joints allow ships to go to sea, planes to fly, and automobiles to take us around town on our errands. To be a welder is a dangerous job. Welders work with high heat and under severe restraints such as under water or in space. However, welders have other tasks as well. One of the most important of these tasks is to keep the universe together so we can go on living. An example: You cut your finger and it bleeds. You place a band aid on the wound and wait. The welders go to work and soon only a scar remains where the rip in your skin occurred. You do nothing to prompt this other than to cover and protect the wound. If the wound is severe enough, the doctor must sew it together. Why? So the welder can do its work. Ideas can be welded together and often are. Let us take just one example. People from two major religions claim one country. Palestine is one example. Kosovo is another. Kashmir is a third. How can we resolve these problems? Most people recognize that in any peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, there must be a weld between the to parties. Perhaps a one party state as the Palestinians want or a two party state as the Israelis want. If the Palestinians have just one state, they will be in the majority and hence able to run the state or have a major voice in how it is run. With two state, Israel will run its state, and the Palestinians will run theirs. To secure an agreement either way, both parties will have to compromise. A compromise means that the welder can do its job. In order for people to live together successfully, the welder must be free to do just that. Its job. The more successful the welder is, the better our society will be. Having said this, the reader can see that compromise is not a dirty word as some politcos would have it in today's toxic atmosphere. Indeed, it is arguably one of the most important concepts we possess to prevent war, genocide, and economic destruction. I suggest that we place a new department in every college in the United States. The Welding Department.

Who is Minding the Store?

Human beings desire to have security in their lives. We pay millions of dollars annually to install various kinds of security systems to keep us safe. Who is it that we are afraid of? Ourselves, actually. Other human beings who want to steal from us, or worse. This is an intolerable situation. There is no reason why any human being, rich or poor, smart or dumb, socially capable or incapable, should attempt to take advantage of another human being. There is enough of everything to go around. So why do we do it? Did the Devil make us do it? If you are a fundamentalist of some kind, you may very well blame the Devil. The fact is that the root of evil is located in all of us. On TV it is easy to find shows that showcase the murders committed by those of us who simply do not care whether our neighbor lives or dies. If it suits his or her purpose, they will commit murder. Husbands killing their wives rather than go through a divorce is all too common. We might ask if God cares. I think he does, but I can't prove it. Too many people commit murder and get away with it. However, we have yet to establish what happens when we die. If you commit murder and fail to pay for it during your lifetime, are you subject to a penalty upon death? I suspect that you are. Why? In the Hermetic Code, the Greek God Hermes, known as Thoth in the Egyptian pantheon, says that "AS ABOVE SO BELOW." In short, the rules are the same in the after life as they are here on earth. You can run but you can't hide. People who think they are above the law should, in my opinion, think again. If you pass over to the next world upon death, so to does your victim, and even more importantly, so to does the Sheriff, the prosecutor, and the Judge. So who is minding the store? I believe that the answer is that we all do. We are not only responsible for our own lives, but those of our neighbor as well. THE GOLDEN RULE IS NOT OPTIONAL.

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.