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The Power Of The People

Money

Money

MONEY! This is a topic that evokes a wide variety of thoughts and emotions. This site will contain a lot of information and discussion about money as time goes by. There is a lot to know and understand about it. A survey shows that most people are not very informed about money. There are many books available about it ranging from history to the future, and despite the immediacy of and the profound influence of money in the lives of the people, the vast majority of the people have invested little time in its study. We know what it looks like, in its many forms, and we know what we can do with it, but this is not enough. Something that has become the overwhelming driving force of the world warrants more. The people would help themselves greatly by taking the time to study the literature available about money. The information found there is indispensable, but there are some things about money that seem to be missing from the literature, vital things.

A fundamental fact about money that demands understanding seems obvious, but is mostly overlooked is the fact that money is what we use to access the products of society, and regardless of the form, money is a means to limit your access to the products of society. If there were no limits to your access, there would be no reason to have money at all. If you think this sounds like everything would be free in such a case, you are simply making a mistake, an understandable one, but still a profound mistake.

“Free,” like “freedom,“is something that has little or no meaning when analyzed deeply. There is no such thing as “free,” nor, as has already been written about on this site, “freedom.” These are just words that represent no physical object and as mental abstracts have only relative meaning within certain contexts. Nothing is all that is free. No object of human production is truly free since it must be “paid for” with time and energy/effort. The air you breathe in comes at the cost of time and effort inhaling. When the universe is considered, devoid of life, everything in it is a product of time and energy, and, therefore, not free. This train of thought has no end. The products of society that we currently buy with some form of money are certainly never free. They all require time and effort to produce. So, even if there were no limit to your access to the products, nothing would be free. The amount of time and energy required to produce the products and to gain unlimited access would be the cost, but money would have no place. You invest time and effort; in return you get access to all the products of society. You will not be given anything. You will have to purchase what you get by contributing to society. What makes this so desirable is the fact that your pay for your effort is everything you want as long as you live. That is pretty good pay, don’t you think?

Yes, your money will disappear. You will have to give up money entirely. There will be no money and there will be no need for money. There will be no savings, no stock market or stock, no banks, no financial institutions, no artificial value, and there will be virtually no need for lawyers. All these things exist only because we use money to conduct the operations of our society. Of course, such a system serves some, and very well.

In terms of everything that is produced in the USA, including services, the financial industry (a name it does not deserve) comprises nearly half. Things that are being done in the management and manipulation of money have become a huge portion of the total work people do. It also pays very well. In fact, it appears that the financial jobs are among the top paying in the country.

Banking is something that we all see. But do you realize that every penny that goes into the banking system is a needless expense for society. It is like paying someone to follow you around holding your money and taking care of your payments, but much worse. It is simply an unnecessary expense, and it is an expense that has taken the top tier in the pay scale. Can you see that if everyone worked in the financial sector there would be nothing to eat? Can you see that the more we spend dealing with the onerous burden of money the poorer we become? It is imperative that society use its time and effort wisely. Our work must help us as much as it possibly can, and the cost of money is too high and totally unnecessary.

Nothing we need and want requires money. We have just become so inured to it that we don’t understand what is happening. If you want to build a house or a factory, you can’t build it out of money. You build it out of tangible building materials. Money doesn’t fertilize crops. It doesn’t fix your leaky pipes. When you need building materials, go get them. In a society that pays you unlimited access to the products of society as compensation for your work, that is all you have to do; just go get the stuff you need. It seems insane to first have to convince someone that you are worthy of the money required to get the stuff you need. How did this happen? Open minded study easily answers that question, if you can get to that condition. It is not easy, perhaps even unlikely. Try it after reading this article. You may find it more likely.

There is a lot to fathom about money and how it has transformed the very essence of life in society. Consider crime. Money is the motive nearly every time. Show a hungry animal food and them put it out of reach. You will see the animal behave in ways similar to the way people behave after they become aware of what is available in the world that they are unable to obtain. Food is a prime example even amongst humans. Just look at the starvation statistics. The food is out there, but many cannot gain access to it; they don’t have the money. Who can be confused now about the frequency of crime? It is a natural occurrence in a society that limits access to it products.

It has already been suggested that there is not enough for unlimited access for everyone. This is an old response and it has no substance. It comes from the psychology created by the system that has dominated life on Earth as long as history is available. This system cannot abide abundance. This system requires for its very existence shortage, scarcity, and deprivation. We have been subjected to this so long we have unconsciously accepted it as a natural condition of life. Nothing could be further from the truth. The waste that goes on in the world today is essential to this inhumane inane system.

Here is the next fundamental fact about money that beats you down every day all the time and still goes unnoticed. Somehow, at some point in time, it became accepted by the people that their time and effort does not deserve as much as that of another. You get paid more or less than someone else. The people have accepted the judgments that value their contributions to society at different levels. These value judgments and their enforcement have become such that the most essential work of society are the least valued. The people who work to build and maintain everything are granted the least access to the products of the society they build, while those who contribute things that we could easily do without are granted the most access; movie stars, high end athletes, and those who deal in money and laws, though the list is longer still. Only a very few, percentage wise, have unlimited access and, guess what, those few have virtually unlimited access to you as well.

If you and I get stranded on a deserted tropical island and I quickly gather all the coconuts and put them where you cannot get them, I can get you to do things for me that you might not otherwise be willing to do in exchange for coconuts. I would have access to you. The hungrier you become the greater my power over you becomes. My behavior in that case would certainly be subject to criticism, but such things are going on every day all over the world while the people idly accept it. You see it all around you, but you may be unaware of it.

Society is overflowing with products and services. Production is a staggering abundance. Even food has become a commodity that is bought and sold, rather than something personally grown, hunted, or gathered. It is a product of society and to get access to it money must be obtained. Again, the person with the money has power over you. If you want something besides food, the same situation exists. In the world today, your desires for things other than food are being created by some of the greatest human effort ever done, which is another topic, but you will see what I mean by considering advertising, marketing, and invention, the last of which creates desires that previously did not exist, like laptop computers. Then there is medical care.

Medical care has become big business. You can get your heart replaced. Well, you can get it replaced if you have the money; otherwise you are likely to just perish. Medical services are not provided to those who have no money. Sure there are charities and some medical service provided to those who have no money, but people are suffering and dying all over the world, even in the USA, because they don’t have enough money to get available medical help. Now, how does this compare to the coconut story above? You might do many things for someone to relieve your hunger, but when you are in the grips of excruciating pain, or your body is badly broken, you are likely to be even more motivated. What a wonderful way to make money! Just refuse to grant access to a product of society known as “medical care” unless money is provided. In a system that bases price on the strength of demand, how could you ask for a better means to set prices high? “Does it hurt bad? We can fix it for the right price.” It sounds very much like the story of coconuts. All this is going on today, and worse, while the least amount of notice and effort reveals that medical care as we have it today is only because so many have contributed to society so long.

The cost of education is not just books and tuition. What university exists solely as an island in society? They all use the roads and every other system that society provides. Without the vast amounts of time and effort supplied by the people, there would be no hospital or medical equipment, and no university. People would not be able to devote their time to the study necessary to become medical professionals. No doctor acquired the requisite knowledge to be a doctor without vast help from society. What would a person eat while spending the necessary time in study if there were no people making food available? The more one goes to school, the more one owes society. Ah, but that is backwards. The more one goes to school the more one deserves more money. This current attitude is devoid of reason, and absolutely oozing the worst form of discrimination.

Somehow you have accepted that you are not worth as much as someone else. That is the cold hard fact of the matter. You have accepted this lie, this delusion. If this is not your attitude, why then do you accept the limited access you have to the products of society? Even the highest paid doctors are getting less than some. Even they have accepted that they are worth less than someone else, if not consciously then by behavior. We have, nearly every one of us, accepted the delusion that some are worth more than others. The proof is in your pay, your profit, your returns. While you work away, even contentedly, you accept that you are not going to get full access to the products of society when there is no physical organic reason for it. It is discrimination.

You are being judged. Your value is being determined. The quality of your life is being set upon you through the instrument of money. You contribute to society and your contribution is compensated with some amount of money, which is, again, simply your access to the products of society. You are granted some level of access, but limited access, as represented by your money. Your value is being set for you.

You live on a planet that has had humans working incredibly hard on it for centuries. Humans have been very busy. The amount of work that has been done is beyond comprehension. We see remnants from thousands of years ago in the form of pyramids and such of the work that has been going on continuously for all these thousands of years. Everyone alive has inherited the products of the work done by the ancestors. In the USA there are few roads left to build. Lakes have been created. The list goes on and on. Surely you can understand this. A lot has already been done. We have inherited a lot of stuff, and the new born even more. Yet the work must go on. We must be ever productive, more and more all the time. It gets harder and harder to do enough work to satisfy our survival needs. Many perish because they cannot keep up the pace, or they cannot get back into the pace after the system has let them fall out of sync. Where does it all go? When is it enough?

In the USA, and the world at large for the most part, the people are required to work all their lives to provide for themselves. You must have a job and work at it to get money to buy the things you want and need, because you are not going to get access to the products of society unless you have money. There is retirement, sure there is. For most of you it is after you are so old and worn out that you don’t even have long left to live, and your retirement is an austerity demonstration. The exceptions to this are too few to make the situation acceptable. The exceptions, of course, are the wealthy, and in truth they only have it a little better than the rest of the people. In fact, there are ample reasons to claim that they do not have it any better, but worse. They only have access to the products of society and to the people. They don’t have greater access to peace, happiness, fulfillment, or any of the products that humans can create in a better world. The wealthy also have the burden of responsibility for the prevention of the fulfillment of Life on Earth.

When I get all the coconuts and prevent you from gaining access to them on the desert island, I am holding you down, back, and out. Money is no different. If I get all the money and prevent you from accessing it, I hold you down in much the same way. One source stated that corporations in the USA are sitting on nearly two trillion dollars, the exact number being unnecessary, and the the exact form being equally unnecessary. This number is above and beyond what they call “illiquid assets,” like buildings, real estate, machinery, and such. It also does not include the inherited work already done by humans. Those corporations use the roads, the utilities, and everything else. They hold enough money to eliminate hunger here, to provide medical care to those without access, and so much more. But they have no intention of any such actions. They hold their money while they claim they need more confidence that any use they apply the money to will result in even more money coming back to them, a return. They are held in high esteem. They are successful. They are seen as paradigms of the hope we all have. There is no hint, other than from this writer that they are hording the coconuts.

There is only so much money. If money is a “store of value,” as they put it, it must represent tangible products or services. People who have wealth are keeping you from getting better access to the products of society and they are using you to do their bidding, which is all the essential work and the work of increasing and protecting their wealth. They know that people desire better access to the products of society, so they must be ever vigilant against the people. You may have noticed the law enforcement and military expense in today’s world. If you think they are there to protect you, consider the nuclear bomb. The wealthy have plenty of protection against the nuclear threat. Do you? Do you think the military of another country would invade to get more people? In this densely populated world more people means more mouths to feed. Invaders are after land and wealth, usually. Furthermore, would you require a military if everyone had unlimited access to the products of society? A society that successful would be the inspiration of rapid duplication around the globe. The kicker is; such a society is not only possible, but great effort is being applied to prevent its inevitable manifestation by completely natural organic means.

There was a man named Thomas Robert Malthus who wrote some books in the late seventeen hundreds that spun a bit of sophistry about over-population and scarcity that have been invaluable tools in the suppression of the human spirit ever since. Today the world is in apoplexy over the growing population and the depleting resources. Malthus was a reverend in the Christian faith and a philosopher economist. He studied societies both present and past, and then postulated their extensions. He went against many well know persons who postulated quite the opposite of his views believing that humans could and would perfect society even unto utopia. The fact that Malthus worked solely within the parameters of society that operates in the usual manner was a great flaw in his thinking. His views assumed that there would always be money regulating access to the products of society. He saw how prosperity caused more births until there was less prosperity that slowed the birth rate. It was a fine bit of sophistry, ingenious. It was totally devoid of any true vision and comprehensive comprehension of society. It appears to be just a way to protect the wealth of the wealthy and to continue the perpetration of a terrible social system, the one that has a king at the top and peasants below.

People began to dislike the idea of Kings and Queens and the social system was modified so that those royals could have their positions without causing the people to revolt again. It was a clever move, and it has everything to do with your money. They merely stepped out of the spot light and temporarily increased the people’s access to the products of society while they devised ways to control the people. For the people was their only threat.

A person was no threat to the wealthy. Killing a person was easy. Killing or imprisoning a lot of people, though more difficult, was easy enough. The real threat has always been The People. Large numbers of people united in a cause stormed the palaces and executed the royals many times in history. This fact was not lost on the wealthy or the royals and they have been at great endeavors to use their wealth to get people to devise ways to prevent such things. Yes, they got the people they wanted to control to devise the means to do so.

Today the people are so outgunned it is ridiculous. The wealthy can bring to bear the unimaginable force of the world’s military might in defense of their wealth. Or maybe you think the military is not at the disposal of the wealthy, like they want you to think. Are those in power wealthy? I rest my case. If you are unable to see that the wealthy can bring to bear the might of the armed, just try to do anything against their wishes. You can end up in prison even if you have lots of money if you go against the greater wealth, or you can end up dead. It has happened many times, whether you are aware of it or not.

It stands as fact that money can get people to do things that a sentient being would find unimaginably horrible. We all know this. There is only one reason this condition exists; access to the products of society is limited. Discrimination is being done that shows the people that there are some who get more and this keeps a false hope alive in the hearts of the people, the hope to rise up to a similar level. The wealthy realized early that hope was essential to the maintenance of a strong and peaceful population of servants, though now they feel crowded by too many servants; yet another topic for later.

People who can get everything they want and need are difficult to manage into doing horrible things. Theft is a rare occurrence in a society that provides unlimited access to the products of society in return for a short term of service. The very character of the people in such a society is something altogether different than that of people in society as it is today, worldwide. When basic needs are met and access to the means of attaining personal fulfillment are readily available, beautiful people occur. In such a society the products of society become beautiful things, works of art, utility, and durability. People become productive in pursuit of their own personal dreams, health, well-being, and community/family desires. A society that is that successful generates generations of ever greater quality and beauty. Vistas become visible that have been shrouded in darkness, invisible to the minds that struggle for survival. The vastness of outer space becomes a beckoning frontier, and that frontier is likely limitless, as are its resources.

On Earth today, resources are being used to operate society. The world over societies, together comprising the super family of our species, operate in such a state of inefficiency that people like Reverend Malthus seem lucid. But the availability of resources and space are only a concern within the systems that operate society as it is today, and there is no reason to continue to operate society as it is today. There is, in fact, overwhelming evidence that the super family of man is headed to its own destruction if the current systems are allowed to continue. Now, do you think you might like to break your mind free of its limits and at least try to envision a better way? Perhaps you could just consider the one you are reading about right now with a mind free of brainwashing that life has done to you since you came into this life.

Note:

This article is testing the waters, so to speak. I have quite a bit of fear around presenting it to the world. Change frightens some. Some would like to see thing continue as they are. So, if I suddenly commit suicide, I really didn’t. Some things are worth dying for, as some things are worth living for. I fear those who oppose egalitarian altruism. I fear those who argue against utopia. The psychology of those people is hard to fathom. The “it can’t be done” crowd, don’t remember Edison and many others. That something doesn’t seem possible to you is not proof of your opinion. Opinions are limited to the scope of the consciousness of the opinion holder. They see reasons why something can’t be done instead of the obstacles that must be surmounted to reach the goal, or they have darker more sinister psychology. I fear there are those who have very sinister desires and who do such things. That is a subject for another time. I do fear that though. I do not fear to fear. Fear is a good thing. It helps me survive.

Anyway, I debated this article for some time. I wrote it quite a while back. The fact that you are reading it tells you what I finally decided. I want world peace, but I want even more. I want everyone to be fulfilled, provided their fulfillment doesn’t require sinister stuff. I want to live in a world of people who love everyone and everything, of happy people who are enjoying the adventure. I want to live in a world of people united in Truth. I am sick of the multitude of arguments on every subject of any importance. I want to live in a world of infinite diversity and possibilities. I do, actually. It just needs to be unfettered.

The Power Of The People

The Power Of The People

Saving the world and making it utopia at last

Twenty Twenty-Five

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Religion

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.