Failure of By-The-Book Faith Systems
Genuine history shows that each of the three sister monotheistic faith systems of western cultures were launched as an insurrectionary movement against an established social order which had tended to honor a broad-based tolerance for diverse spiritual practices. The hard-line monotheistic faith systems which dominate western cultures today expanded and have maintained their power structures only by indoctrination practices which have included perceptible intimidation tactics and even terrorism (such as is brutally demonstrated in Muslim extremists to this day). The underlying fact is that the whole purpose of monotheistic practice was to establish a closed environment in which each person is doggedly conditioned to submit and obey an upper echelon of the system’s hierarchy.
The method of any by-the-book faith system’s empowerment is to inject subconscious fear of godly retribution by his withholding any promise of attaining a glorious afterlife if any seeker fails to obey the faith system’s representatives. With this improvable assertion of a paradisiacal afterlife for the alleged favorites of God , the “flock” is persuaded to sheepishly submit and obey. To keep faith system discipline the contention is put forth that the all-enfolding Life Principle (which is personified as “God”) favors them alone: however, this assertion is the very antithesis of spiritual freedom, inner peace, tolerance, compassion, fairness, justice, ethics, morality, and all other true qualities which elevate spirit into an evolved state of existence.
As a consequence the formalized by-the-book “religions” that are today presented to us as spiritual guidance are faith systems which are constructed and characterized by their constant arguments over artificial objectives, empty symbols, phony prophets, shallow judgments of others, prejudices over superficialities, and pompous ritualism which intentionally keep seekers blind to our personal interrelatedness to all the rest of the universe. What this shows is that man-made faith systems are essentially geared to regulate material greed and self-promotional events, not to actually guide seekers into personal attunement with Creation’s forces. When man-composed “holy word” texts are primarily assertions about godly nit-picking and jealousy, accounts of wars, invasions, killings and similar irreverent acts toward all interrelated intelligent beings something is tragically inappropriate for authentic spiritual counselling. Certainly the glorification of such provoked conflicts with life’s intended diversity and variety only encourage the practices of prejudice and self-indulgence, and should not be held as the foundation of ethical/moral attitude for social interchange.
Only in fairly recent times has the means been established to provide the capability to check the reliability and truthfulness of many “holy word” accounts. That painstaking science is biblical archaeology. For well over a century of digs throughout Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon there have been uncovered factual details of everyday life during the timeframes and events that make up the bulk of Hebrew Scriptures. The discoveries have often stunned and dismayed even the archaeologists, and the implications have horrified those who wish to believe that the books thought of as “holy word” are actually God’s revealed truth. The books known as the Old Testament were not actually codified until around the eighth/seventh centuries BCE–or generations after the alleged events. And the reason for that labor of systemizing such works was the political crisis which loomed over Judah in the timeframe following the fall of the kingdom of Israel to the north which had fallen to Assyria. Thus the origins and purpose for writing the stories of “God’s chosen ones” have to be reassessed with an eye kept upon the political crises that motivated them.
Likewise the New Testament composed within the Roman Empire timeframe should be reassessed with an eye on the political crisis that the Jewish fanatics in Palestine presented to the Empire. During the Roman occupation of Palestine the Jews pointed to their priest-written “Scriptures” as proof that they were answerable only to God and divine exclusivity, and not surprisingly this brought the Jews into constant friction with the Roman Empire.
In assessing the “holy book” of western culture faith systems it should also be remembered that the Arab region had no prophet or written work to unite the people until the timeframe of Mohammad (570?-632 CE). The fundamental tenets of Islam are: 1) There is one God (Allah): 2) Man must to submit and obey Allah: and 3) The world will end with a great judgment. These tenets have direct and undeniable association with Judaic and Christian systems of belief–which Mohammad just happened to have heard and built upon during his many caravan merchant travels.
Lost in these by-the-book faith systems’ contrived rituals, unfortunately, is any means of perceiving one’s own personal spiritual alignment with the highest essences which are the foundation of our real self. The exploration of our inner self with the motivation to establish meaningful balance with nature and the universe is not a feature of any of the three regimented faith systems of the western world. Everything remains focused upon the faith system itself which subconsciously tells the seekers that the individual is not of any particular importance to the all-too-human-like deity. Nothing in this form of faith system commerce is even suggestive of addressing the actual spiritual qualities which are inherent within every being. Instead every seeker is instructed to submit and obey their man-written holy book instructions but are not really shown any means of opening themselves for the experience of spiritual evolving. The difference between practicing a religion and making oneself open to spiritual vitality is a different as taking or receiving. If emphasis is upon ideology and ritualism, then it is religion, for religious practice can only take its authority from those who relinquish their spiritual energy to it. On the other hand, that essential spiritual quality which is the essence of each personal identity can align with Cosmic Conscience only by achieving a reflective state of consciousness, for what we term spirit within our self is a reflective component of that higher Creative Conscience. If personal attention is grounded in what is only a theatrical perfomance then the path into the higher state of spiritual awareness remains blocked.
Bluntly, A person’s genuine spiritual evolution begins to malfunction as soon as exterior authority is imposed upon it.
These website posts have often referred to ancient lessons which concerned Creation/cosmology and life purpose, and those lessons were once illustrated by using the universe itself as background–the use of groups of stars (constellations) to illustrate the lessons. That prehistory means of instruction was not corrupted with any pretentious claims that universal truths were accessible only through some regimented, club-like membership-only faith system. There was then no merchandising of our spiritual connection into that higher power; there were no claims of a monopoly on universal truths as made by the by-the-book faith systems today–systems that distinguish themselves primarily by their hostility toward each other for their own material gain. Mankind must awaken to the fact that there can be no expansion or attainment of spiritual enlightenment from such corporate-style by-the-book faith systems, for they are demonstratively superficial in the universe as a whole and, on the smaller scale, too implausible and unnatural to technological cultures. Clearly what humankind is in desperate need of is not pretense of faith system exclusivity but a new dimension of consciousness.
Leave a Reply