Religion

All the religions focus on the same subject yet create division among the people so horrible history is hard to bear and life is filled with tragedy. Do you think we can consider a topic and come away with different opinions? How can it be more clearly demonstrated than by religion? By “religion” I do not mean your beliefs about God. I mean the powerful organizations that, in my opinion, rule religion. It may be that more people have been murdered, tortured, and grieved over the disagreement about religious matters than any other. God, profits, messiahs, death, and after-life have divided the human species for too long; despite the sparsity of concrete evidence. We devote ourselves to people from the past we consider messiahs or profits, and, in many historical and contemporary situations, take up arms in the dispute about which one is right. There is even a drive to kill all non-believers in some religions Even more often, though, we exert social pressure designed to bring others into our views; often to save someone from “eternal damnation” in the afterlife. Observation of human behavior and human history clearly reveals religion to be a source of undesirable division among people, while tendencies toward the matters of religion can be seen to be unavoidable.

Many want to know God. Others believe there is no God. It is said that many want to know the opponent of God. I am not the one who knows everyone, and I don’t know any “devil worshipers”, but I hear such things. I do know we have many common needs and desires. I don’t need to know everyone to know this. I know there is too much suffering and that it is not unavoidable. I know we must make peace among the individuals and groups – nations, races, etc. – of Earth and that means uniting the people in a way that fulfills religious tendencies and destroys the division created by religion.

Whatever the truth is regarding religious matters, including atheism, some matters of living demand our attention with expedience so great that none may ignore them. Living requires many actions. It requires many procedures and physical things. We can’t even consider God, death, or afterlife, without first taking care of the requirements of living. If we can unite in vast numbers and conduct massive amounts of work around religious matters, why can’t we do so around the expedients of living, of staying alive, of surviving? Let’s get that giant mountain ascended first.

People have needs and desires that are unfulfilled even today, after millennia of effort by unfathomable numbers of lives. We cannot effectively pursue religious matters because we must constantly negotiate the struggle for survival. But we could! We could put aside or differences and work together to achieve a level of survival that has only been dreamed and only have to work a short period of time during our lives. We can overcome the social pyramid that has pervaded throughout history by working together to bring everyone to the top of the pyramid; thereby making the social pyramid a relic of days gone by. Once that mountain is behind us, we can pursue religious matters, and many more, with more energy, with less pain, and we may come together in the truth. We can still have religious beliefs. We need but make it a personal matter.

Do you think it wise to congregate and empower someone with vast power of global proportions based solely on matters that too few can agree on and for which there is too little hard evidence? That is exactly what was going on in my world when I was born. It is still going on. People are and have been creating something that has no actual physical form, empowering it, perpetuating it, and setting it loose to do things to the world and to all forms of life even over vast expanses of time: religion, and – not be left out- the governments, and the corporations. This “something,” this non-entity has been and is the source of wars, murders, tortures, poverty, sadness, and all the other undesirable things that humans live with. There have been desirable things done too, no doubt, but it is time to reduce the cost of those desirable things. The horrors done and experienced are too much to pay for any good that can be attributed. Let’s disempower entities that do not serve all and to the greatest degree. Let’s holster our fear of God, death, and afterlife and stop shooting others with it.

Death. Dying is interwoven with religion. Fear of death and the wonder about what comes after death fuels religions. Religions comfort people’s fears. There was a time when religious personnel got money – indulgences – from the living for helping those who have already died. You may wonder what religion would be like if there was no death. I know I do. I think it is safe to think that religions get a lot of their members because of death; “no atheists in fox holes,” that sort of thing. [My thoughts on death would require another book. Let it suffice to say, I do not share the majority opinion.] Everyone is unique, and their reasons for being religious, their opinions about death, and their opinions about God are unique. What is not unique among people is the need to survive, to be comfortable, to be happy, to be healthy, to find fulfillment, to be safe, and even to know the truth. There are many things we have in common. We can unite around our common factors and let God and death be things that do not prevent us from satisfying our common goals.

We need only relegate the matters of religion and death to personal matters. Think what you want. Believe what you want. Have the purest strongest faith in the universe. It’s your life. Live it. Let others live theirs. How simple!

We must not let religious, spiritual, or atheist views cause us to hurt others or interfere with their freedom of choice. Consider this quote from Wikipedia:

Beginning in 1593, Bruno was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges including denial of the Trinity, denial of the divinity of Christ, denial of virginity of Mary, and denial of Transubstantiation. The Inquisition found him guilty, and in 1600 he was burned at the stake.

 

Giordano Bruno, the one referred to above, got into trouble for refusing to recant his statements to the effect that the sun is a star and so forth. Of course he was right, but they killed him. His freedom never existed and he was hurt by religion. This is but one of a multitude of similar offenses. This and less drastic manifestations are what we have to eliminate. We can do so by simply allowing everyone their right to freedom and being content with our own views, of course, knowing that we have it right and no one else does; if you want. Let your views, opinions, beliefs, or whatever be personal. It will cause peace.

The religious organizations of the world today derive power from the people. Let the people remove that power in light of history. We can learn from the past. When we discover that a person is killing children, do we simply change his clothes and do nothing else? You may not know the history of religion, so let me say it is rife with the stench of horrors committed. There is beauty there, to be sure, but one good apple does not save the whole bunch. A murderer of children is not excused by helping another. The fact that people have found comfort in religion, or become better people because of religion does not excuse the horrors or make the religion innocent. The comfort and improvement can be had by other means. Love can do far more of both than religion could ever do. Love is personal. Religious beliefs are personal. Religious organizations are impersonal.

It is hard to discuss things beyond consciousness. One can conceive things just beyond the reach of consciousness and pull them into the realm of consciousness. To speak cogently and coherently of these things is yet another matter. I have this problem when I want to speak of religious organizations, or any organization for that matter. These things are non-entities and yet they can be very powerful. People give them a kind of “life” of their own and set them loose to make the characteristics of our world. As creations of the people they should serve the will of the people. Unfortunately, that is often what is done. The power of the non-entities does things that those who empower them want them to do, even if the people creating them are stupid, ignorant, evil, or whatever and want them to do horrible things to others. This is not always the case, though. Often, maybe always, these non-entities do not do the things the people who empower them want them to do.

Long, long ago some people realized that the power of the people could be used for things that were not the will of the people. They took control of the power. All the leaders had to do was make it look as though the will of the people was being expressed and followed – of course, it was just taken by violence for a long time. It proved to be rather easy make the people think they were getting their wills followed. They also learned that they could influence the people by training them from childhood. More and more people came into the organization and the power grew, as did the ease with which to people could be deceived. Some mighty powerful organizations now exist and have the ability to perpetuate themselves, protect themselves, and control the very thoughts of people. Many in these organizations have people who live as kings and queens with the devotion and adoration of masses of people, while controlling the details of the matters religious, spiritual, and historical – why, they even control to a large extent what people like and dislike. Do you think the people gathered around the flames torturing Bruno to death came by their allegiance to the non-entity that executed him organically – right from their own experiences independent of the teachings and training of the church? Of course not! They were heavily trained by the church from birth and the training was enforced under penalty of death. The power to execute, imprison, impoverish, excommunicate, exile, and so on can make people follow, but the power to raise believers was far better. Ultimately, large amounts of the power of the people was totally in the control of those who lead the non-entities.

Today the people can better manage the power they create by combining their individual powers. We need to stand back and take a look at the organizations that exist in this world; all of them. We can decide whether or not they actually serve everyone, then act accordingly. They are nothing without the people.

Does it seem reasonable to you to empower a non-entity with the ability to preserve, defend, and perpetuate itself? How about the power to imprison, torture, and kill? How about the ability to extract money from you? Money is power in the world today. It seems that there is someone somewhere who will do anything conceivable for the right amount of money. How about this? Would you empower a non-entity with the ability to compel you to do things? Your answer to the question is rhetorical, because that is what is happening already. All we can do at this point is take away their power. The rewards available to everyone for doing so are far beyond anything that anyone can attain in the world as it is today. We can entice even the most powerful and richest to take part. Have faith in yourself, nothing else. Giving your power to another is extreme denial of the one thing you know: you.

The power of the non-entities is readily visible to even the most casual observer, even historically. By that power many have been compelled to kill, to die, to torture, and more. I say here and now: if your religion tells you to kill or hurt others, resist. Don’t do it. Consider the source of this influence. From a Christianity perspective, does such a thing seem more like something satan would want you to do? I’m just saying!

Stop the killing! If you think God chose you, your people, your profit, your messiah, or your book, that’s fine. Just don’t let that cause you to hurt or kill anyone else. That is paramount. Don’t even let it cause you to look down at others. If you are the one who has the truth, good for you. We all wish we could be so fortunate. Seriously! We want the truth too. Teach us, but don’t attack us. We are mere humans longing for the truth. You must choose what you do. If you do not agree with someone, don’t persecute or kill them. It’s that simple. If you think your God demands otherwise, question what you think. If you think your God demands that you do not question, why did you get born with that ability? As a baby, you had no options. Even if you think your life is nothing, you didn’t come to that until you were older. That you must think for yourself is obvious, so why would you throw that away believing your God requires it of you? There may be one, but there is no religion I know of that does not demand that you think for yourself. Obeying the Ten Commandments calls heavily upon your ability to reason. Understanding the Qur’an is an intellectual pursuit. Notice that the only things we are told not to question are the masters of the religions. Don’t question their opinions of God, afterlife, death, pain, etc. Don’t question their need for your money, especially, nor what they do with it. Don’t question their orders. And, by all means do not question their right to be at the top. If God created everything, God created your ability to think for yourself. Do you deny God’s gifts? Do you do so because some book or non-entity older than dirt requires it of you? Come on! How can you be sure that what happens after you die is what you think it will be? It is most likely that all you think of such things is simply what you were told during you childhood reinforced by people older who went through the same process and that process has been handed down generation after generation for millennia. If you have found some indication that clearly demonstrates what happens after death, we would all, probably, like to see it. If you get your conviction of what happens after death from some non-entity that provides for the top level individuals that populate it with all the essentials, luxuries, security, power, and all the other things that are purely of this world, doesn’t it seem to you that they have quite a bit of preference for living rather than the afterlife? We want to know what happens after we die, but we don’t want to kill anyone and die doing it because we think we know what happens. Again, I ask! How can you really be sure? Faith, you say!

Okay! So you have faith that what you think or believe – however you want to put it- is right and true. That is fine. Now do you want to kill people because you have faith that you are right? Faith is fine. Just let it be yours, and let it be personal. Consider the faith that people have had throughout history and notice how many have suffered horrible lives and deaths while their faith remained strong. It seems to have not served their most immediate situation. There are countless examples of faith being shown to have been for something that was not even close to the truth- i.e. the Earth is flat, to name one easy one. So, do you have faith in your faith? It really doesn’t matter. The things that matter are independent of your faith; hunger, thirst, breath, rest, and much more known by all. Have great faith in your knowledge about God, the afterlife, death, and everything you want, just don’t hurt or kill anyone else. Try the concept that there are more immediate concerns in life than what is beyond it.

I fear this may sound as though it is aimed at those of the Muslim faith. Believe me it is not. It is aimed at anyone who would hurt or kill another. There is an historical document recently found among the Dead Sea Scrolls called “The War Scroll” that is, to be terse, a plan to kill everyone that is not of the same faith. The Old Testament records the sacking of cities and the destruction of its inhabitants right down to the animals and trees. Christianity is infested with a history of killing non-believers. Let’s prevent the repetition of such grievous acts by having personal views and being harmless to others. This message is aimed at any who would hurt or kill anyone.

When you were born, the world was as it was at the time. You did not make it that way. In many cases, your training began immediately, in the arms of your mother and father. Living is training. Unbelievably ingenious systems had been invented, refined, and set in place to fill your mind with stuff. You were defenseless for a long time. By the time you began to be full grown, it was virtually too late. You were already so heavily influenced that freeing yourself and becoming your own person had become a virtual impossibility.  Virtually! Not impossible, just difficult. But you can do it. It is never too late. Love can make it pretty easy, but if that still eludes you, all you have to do is to examine everything you think and feel. Try to find out how much of it you actually found or discovered on your own.

A man named Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. Well, how do you know that? You do not know it. You simply were told it and accepted it. In that particular example you can examine the world and find evidence. In most matters of religion there is no such possibility. There is simply nothing, or very little, to find. Extensive research into the Bible can be a very unhappy experience. Evidence is sorely lacking. There are few who have actually discovered what happens after death, if any. Yet the world is populated by millions who are certain, have faith, that they know. Not surprisingly, these things known have many different versions. Thus the horrors. Become skeptical. Try to have faith in yourself. Try to become a person based upon what you have been able to build yourself. Don’t let some old system that has caused hell on Earth for thousands of year tell you what to believe.

The debate of religious matters is way too old already. Let’s shelve it. Let the truth come forward. Then, when it does, there will be none disillusioned and disproven. I think it will unite us. Meanwhile, let’s take care of the undeniable things. Let’s join together to help one another. Let’s see if love will work. It does seem to be the only things that hasn’t been tried already.