Archive for the monotheism Category

Failure of By-The-Book Faith Systems

Posted in belief, biblical archaeology, By-the-book belief systems, corporate style faiths, faith, monotheism, religion, scriptures on June 1, 2017 by chouck017894

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 hold only by indoctrination practices which have included perceptible intimidation tactics and even terrorism (such as is brutally demonstrated by Muslim extremists this day).  The underlying fact is that the whole purpose of monotheistic practice was to establish a closed “spiritual” environment in which each person is doggedly conditioned to submit and obey an upper echelon of the system’s hierarchy.

The methods of any by-the-book faith system’s empowerment is to inject subconscious fear of godly retribution by withholding any promise of attaining a glorious afterlife if any seeker fails to obey the faith system’s representative.  With that improvable assertion of a paradisical 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 (personified as “God”) favors them alone.  However, that 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 man-constructed and characterized by constant arguments over artificial objectives, empty symbols, phony prophets, shallow judgments of others, prejudices over superficial and pompous ritualism which intentionally keep seekers blind to our interrelationship 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 guide seekers into personal attuning 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 interrelated entities something is tragically inappropriate for authentic spiritual enlightenment.  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 the archaeologists, and the implications have horrified those who want to believe that the books thought of as “holy word” were God’s true revealed word.  The truth that is exposed is that the books of Scriptures were not even codified until the 8th/7th century BCE—or generations after the alleged events.  And the reason for that labor of codifying 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 “holy” works as proof that they were answerable only to God and therefore the Roman Empire had not authority over them.  That belligerent attitude of exclusivity with the Creator, not surprisingly, brought the Jews into constant friction with the Roman Empire and that characteristic is still at the heart of Judaism.

In assessing the “holy books” of western culture faith systems it should also be remembered that the Arab region had no prophet or written work to unite them in collective belligerence until the timeframe of Mohammad (570-632 CE).  The fundamental tenets of Islam are: 1) There is but one God (Allah); 2) Man must submit and obey Allah [as determined by select men]; 3) The world will end with a great judgement.  These tenets have direct and undeniable association with Judaic and Christian system beliefs–which Mohammad just happened to have been exposed to during his many caravan 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 heavily regimented faith systems of the western world. Everything remains focused on the faith systems themselves, which subconsciously suggests to seekers that the individual is not of any particular importance to an imagined 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 shown any means of opening themselves for the experience of true enlightenment.  The difference between practicing a religion and making oneself open for spiritual vitality is as different as taking or receiving.  If the emphasis is on ideology and ritual, then it is just 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” is itself a reflective component of that higher Creative Conscience.  If personal attention is grounded in what is nothing more than a theatrical performance then the path into the higher state of spiritual awareness remains blocked.

To be blunt; A person’s genuine spiritual evolution begins to malfunction as soon as exterior authority is imposed upon it.

These website postings have often referred to ancient lessons which concerned Creation/cosmology and life purpose, and those prehistory lessons were illustrated by using the universe itself as background.  There, emblazoned upon the infinity of space, groups of stars (constellations) were used 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.  Unlike today’s by-the-book faiths those teachings did not distinguish themselves through hostile competition for material gain.  Mankind must awaken to the fact that there can be no expansion or attainment of spiritual enlightenment from corporate-style by-the-book faith systems when those systems are demonstratively superficial in the universe as a whole, and are too implausible and unnatural to technological cultures on the smaller scale.  Clearly what humankind is desperately in need of today is not the pretense of faith system exclusivity but a new dimension of consciousness. 

 

 

 

 

 

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Corporate Style Faith Systems

Posted in Atheist, belief, ego and belief, ethics and morality, monotheism, random, religion, thoughts on January 1, 2017 by chouck017894

Any man-fashioned faith system is basically designed as a power structure: it is not unfaulteringly assembled for the benefit of mass spiritual enlightenment but designed to assert the faith system’s authority.  Like any commercial endeavor the service that is offered is gauged by customer demand, and commercial demand is stirred by advertising.  In the faith business the product is basically a manufactured illusion: the merchandise offered is emotional assurance that a higher power looks after them–but that power supposedly functions only if the subscribers submit, obey and partake of all the rites, rituals and ceremonies that the self-appointed authorities have set in place for business use.  Consequently those formalized procedures are cleverly fashioned to appeal to the ego of the seekers, not purposefully crafted to empower everyone’s personal connection (called “spirit”) to Creation’s Source.

Principles of righteous conduct are comparatively self evident to any balanced mind:  seek understanding, control avarice, value individuality, honor love, demonstrate compassion, respect all life’s diversities, recognize that all things are interrelated, etc.  For the most part the three  networks of corporate styled “faith” systems of today’s western cultures choose to market the principles of “belief” by claiming to possess direct favoritism of a compassionate Creator-God.  The general work  ethic of these three sister  faith systems, however, is to force their formalized concepts of God-Creator upon everyone else, which results only in constant conflicts.  Thus for each of these corporate styled faith systems, their calls to devotion happen to exploit identical  un-righteous principles that happen to resist Creation’s intended diversities.  Achieving “dominion” over life’s diversity is the subliminal message buried within every man-written “sacred” text, and that faith system obsession is often the excuse for fundamentalists to annihilate whatever they fail to understand.  That strategy is commonly exhibited in attempting to obstruct knowledge, curtail science, stifle natural desires, limit consideration for others, belittle intimate pleasures—in short, restructure everyone to a robotic religionist.

What is the architectural foundation for this?  It is  the concept of monotheism, a doctrine that there is only one Creator-God, who is characterized as male, of course.  That concept permits erecting a business machine under the assertion that the all-embracing, all-inclusive power which created and sustains everything then unexplainably censored himself to play favorites with segments of the human species.  This is a tactic which is then buttressed by utilizing man’s fear of death which further allows the charlatans to peddle their faith system’s insurance policy which is averred to offer seekers a glorious afterlife in a cloud-lined country club atmosphere–but only if they follow the rules.

The three self-serving monotheistic faith systems of western cultures could never survive as controlling powers if the peace and brotherly love to which they give much lip service was faithfully practiced.  Instead the self-appointed representatives of Heaven incite the egos of seekers with false notions of exclusive access to the all-inclusive Creator.  Peace and brotherly love happen to make for a limited meal ticket if such tolerance was actually allowed to be demonstrated by followers, for that would allow seekers to truly embark upon achieving personal alignment with universal powers.  Such true freedom of spirit would deprive the self-proclaimed god-ambassadors of their public image as individuals who assert to have been heavenly approved for godly service.  Each of these three corporate styled faith systems claim to teach love, tolerance and peace, but curiously after nearly three thousand years of these sugary claims the world has not yet witnessed any proof of such divine conduct on their part.  Instead, all three of these by-the-book religions  systems have to resort to whitewashing and disguising their bloody histories of violence, practiced prejudices, deceits, contrived theatrical ceremonies, and similar excesses of shameless spiritual pretentiousness.  With these pretentions each of these faith systems have shamelessly taught seekers to hate the intended diversities of life expressions.

When some faith system then attains some political clout it inevitably slides into the sensuous “sins” of brutal power management which they legitimatize by quoting cherry-picked verses from their own priest crafted holy books.  For example, does not the Hebrew Bible attest that God urged the Israelites, his “chosen people”, to slaughter the inhabitants of Canaan to attain the “Promised Land”–as reportedly executed by Joshua?  And for the promoters of Gospel, was not Europe brought into Gods’s favor by use of torture and fiery destruction of life during the Inquisition by self-proclaimed representatives of the Prince of Peace?  And does not the Quran avow that Allah (the merciful) sent hordes of angels to slay opponents of Mohammad’s possession of Mecca?  Such is the deceptive propaganda preached by all “holy word” aficionados.  The justification given for such acts of brutal domination is always in the name of a prejudiced holy spirit.  Nowhere in such faiths is the truth ever acknowledged that each and every thing is manifested through and from one Source, and that each and all things are therefore interrelated and stand equal before that creative Power.  There is, of course, no ego manipulation in teaching that, and thus there is little material profit in admitting the truth of impartiality before that Creative Source.

It has been noted elsewhere in these postings that regional conditions shaped and colored the spiritual teachings which were worked into the political governance of tribal styled stability.  Thus today, to the Jews and Muslims, God is still promoted as something like a bellicose tribal leader, and to those “others” who are not of his implied favored people the Creative Principle supposedly decreed “cut them off.”  For example, Psalms 118:10 (among many interpretations) “…all nations surrounded me; in the name of the Lord I will surely cut them off…”  In Christian faith, which was conceived and nourished in the militant Roman Empire, God is viewed more as a commander-in-chief, with priests, bishops, ministers, preachers, etc. placed in charge like combat commanders over the lower ranks.

How glaringly different are the by-the-book dogmatism practiced in the western culture’s faith systems today when compared to the much belittled way the Pagans approached spiritual understanding. Pagan understanding was that spiritual things are highly personal and meant to be experienced by each person individually.  The reason why Pagans did not actively solicit others to join their particular sect was the belief that the impulse for spiritual enlightenment must originate within the person himself.  It was not viewed as a commercial subject.  The Pagans knew that the first place of any person’s spiritual preparation had to arise within one’s own heart.  Spiritual preparation, they understood, was not something acquired through exterior pressures.  To the Pagan, regardless of which small sect he or she might be drawn to, it was always accepted that those in any superior position were like elder brethren who, just like the postulant, were sharing in a similar search for divine enlightenment.

Today such spiritual freedom has been placed upon the altars of corporate styled faith systems which reflect more spiritual greed than any dedication to true spiritual enlightenment.  Modern day corporate structured faith systems seek only to impose dogmatism which reduces one’s inner spiritual yearning to hostage status that is held for ransom.

 

 

 

 

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Religion and Social Ills

Posted in Atheist, belief, faith, logic, monotheism, random, religion, scriptures, theology, thoughts on July 12, 2016 by chouck017894

Mankind’s many, many faith systems are each self-advertised and promoted as the positive method that inspires people to live their lives with more respectfulness and righteousness. But are practices which are formulated to pivot upon judgmental and prejudicial behavior toward “God’s” intended diversity really the untainted “narrow path” to attain Heaven or Paradise?

When faith systems teach seekers that all human entities skate on thin ice at the edge of the black hole of “sin” the minds of the faithful are persistently maneuvered into a submerged fear-based emotional state.  Faith system merchants often lace their promotional spiels with heavy condemnation over minor differences which human entities are prone to.  The “flock” has then been “blessed” with inappropriate belief that their faith system holds some especial and exclusive favor with the all-inclusive  Creative Source.  It’s an excellent tactic for the faith merchants, but it is hell on a devout person’s rationality.  The sly inference of never quite measuring up to God’s expectations for you tends to fester in the subconscious, and that negative energy is inclined to gestate over time and give birth to little deformed demons of resentment.

Since personal consciousness rests within a god-ordained animal configuration during its limited matter life experience the natural response to all the subtle negativity packaged into faith system merchandising is a stimulation of the hypothalamus which often triggers an inbred fight or flight response.  But the crafted “religious” dictum is that you are allowed to do neither.  The internal physical/mental mechanism then must adjust something like this: The blood vessels become constricted and blood pressure rises; stomach acidity increases; and body muscles remain tense to get ready for physical confrontation.  The most immediate result of all this built-in internal defense activity is that it serves to suppress the immune system which is the body’s defense against genuine life-threatening conditions.

Western organized by-the-book faith systems prosper because they have always sermonized that there is a constant threat which allegedly exists between each persons’s soul and the possibility of oblivion.  Cultivation of fear for the unknown makes for an easy target for faith merchants to hit.  And the built-in advantage is that it also keeps the faithful suspicious of any minor but natural (God ordained) differences which individualizes each person’s interests or lifestyle.  It is a scientifically proven fact that over eighty percent of all human dysfunctions have been traced to emotional stress.  So is mankind’s higher potential really being served by such cultivation of fanaticism, suspicion and intolerance as is religiously churned out by man-invented faith systems?

Organized faith systems regularly stand guilty of emphasizing and passing judgment on what are but minor natural differences rather than counseling tolerance and inspiring understanding of God-intended diversity and variety.  These by-the-book faith systems generally give much lip service to tolerance and charity, but this is too often disproved by their typical attitude that their faith system alone–and it alone–holds some exclusive position with the Creative Source which they personify as “God.”  The inappropriate cultivation of belief that their faith system possess some exclusive expressway into  an imagined Creator’s favor generates only inappropriate expectations, both of others and of self.  The indulgence in such belief programming brushes extremely close to what may be termed true sin, for it sets believers upon a path of negative life occurrences–i.e. judgmental attitudes, feelings of guilt over natural desires, practicing conditional love, avoidance of personal responsibility, lack of forgiveness, lust for material things, and a host of other favorite themes of faith system merchants.

The concept of monotheism is actually a practice of personifying the all-inclusive Creative Source as a principled, judgmental human-like being (God).  This allows for the conducting of corporate-style business under the assertion that the powers which created and sustains everything is human-like and plays favorites with the diverse and varied energy combinations that are manifested as the human species.  This is a conman tactic which is then slyly intensified by grafting a foreboding of death and judgment into their sales pitch.  This further allows those claiming to hold the moral high ground to peddle their faith system’s insurance which promises a glorious afterlife.  Unfortunately mankind can never attain its higher potential through such ego-stroking indulgence.

Such faith system practices will never ensure that peace, tolerance and brotherly love will actually be achieved by followers of hard line faith systems.  Any acceptance and true charity for the intended diversity that is active as life would deprive those self-appointed god-ambassadors of their pretense of god-blessed authority.  Thus man-made faith systems commonly teach judgment passing, hairsplitting, self-serving rites and rituals, spiritual exclusiveness, and similar ego-stroking propaganda.  For seekers it all comes at a steep price: loss of the true access into higher alignment with universal power which is gained only through tolerance–which then flowers as enlightenment.

 

 

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