Archive for the Pantheism Category

Another New Year

Posted in belief, faith, Inspiration, nature, Pantheism, random, religion with tags , , , , , on December 1, 2012 by chouck017894

Each year the Sun reestablishes its apparent northward movement on the 25th of December, marking the position at which light begins to increase in the northern hemisphere.  This phenomenon is much grander in scope and more awesome in infinite power than is any imagined virgin birth of a demigod or some oil lamp in a temple allegedly burning on limited oil for eight days.  The interaction of planet Earth and the Sun is in every way a much truer covenant extended to all life by the creative universal power than are the ego-gratifying stories of special favor extended by god only to some select assemblage of people.

For our ancient ancestors—those much maligned Pagans—who felt a more intimate connection with nature and the observable heavens than is acknowledged today, there was no egotistical need to disguise the natural occurrences such as the solstice and equinox periods as being some mythic miracle performed only for a favored few.

For seven days following the end of the Winter Solstice (Dec. 25), which was honored by the Pagans as “Mother Night,” the beginning of increasing light was reason for celebration and the exchange of gifts among family and friends to acknowledge the approach of production and abundance.  And in this period, in recognition of the true miracle of the Sun’s support of life, the customary salutation upon parting with loved ones or friends was the blessing, “May your light increase.”

After seven days of celebration from Earth’s apparent emergence from the long nights, the routine chores of life were taken up anew, and a new cycle was calculated from the end of that seven-day celebration period.  Thus the time of the New Year observance that is today recognized across much of the world has its foundation in Pagan recognition of the scientific principles that are active throughout the universe and demonstrated in the Earth/Sun relationship.

The awe-inspiring universe was perceived by Pagan cultures to be a living thing–a vast unified consciousness.  When the Pagans looked out into the universe they identified something at work that was much grander in scope than do the constraining faith systems of today which choose to imagine some humanlike personification presiding over and directing that all-embracing power.  The Pagans felt an intimacy with that enfolding universal power which the practice of ecclesiasticism can never experience.  The spiritual attunement of the ancient Pagans with the surrounding universe confirmed for them the interrelatedness of all things.  They would judge as weirdly unrealistic the religious interpretations postulated by self-serving faith systems today that Creation’s power is separate, distant and aloof from everything that is made manifest.

Humankind’s invented hierarchical faith systems always have an unfortunate tendency to leave their followers with vague, uneasy feelings of being unfulfilled, which inevitably erodes their spirit with unrecognized resentment.  By ignoring Nature and the universe, and focusing exclusively upon itself, these faith systems have become systems in which one must will themselves to believe rather than feel one’s unity with it all.  Intricately structured faith systems such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam are not faiths that can be assessed as arising from natural expressions of consciousness.  They are, unfortunately, faith systems that encourage a denial of compassion for all things and beings that coexist with them in spite of their faith system’s self-set boundaries.  The reason behind their negative approach to Creation’s wealth of diversity is that allowing oneself to be open to feel compassion for all life is curtly dismissed by male-dominated faith systems as a feminine aspect and is therefore unworthy to be cultivated.  In other words, such faith systems are formulated to gratify their egos through carefully crafted hypocrisy.

It is unlikely that each individual’s higher potential was fashioned by a Creator to simply act as some separate organ of some religious social structure.  Dedicating oneself to what is only a man-conceived faith system reduces followers to little more than hive workers and breeders who, through indoctrination processing and mental conditioning, would find emotional survival virtually impossible if separated from the body of their faith system.  Followers of such systems are made blind to the beautiful transcendent unity that is made possible in the acceptance of all diverse people.  The binding element in that acceptance is the yearning of human spirit for enlightenment, and that is not achieved through some self-imposed alienation from everything else.

Despite mankind’s struggles with such bouts of self-inflicted delusions, the heavens still bear witness to the flow of Creation.  We need only to remove the blinders that have been placed over our eyes by those who make a habit of taking advantage of our blindness.  Lured away from adoring the unity of all things, which is openly expressed and demonstrated in the universe, we have been “guided” to seek spiritual enlightenment by huddling together in echoing “sanctified” enclosures.  There, the devout are given role models of heroes and saints and saviors and kings who would never have accepted being herded into such self-demeaning behavior as self-dedicated faith systems teach.

But the universe continues to fuse it all together by patiently extending allowance for wide-ranging diversity.  If mankind wishes to pretend that it is the sum-total of universal wisdom, the universe can afford to be patient.  Meanwhile the interaction of Earth and the Sun annually extends and reaffirms the covenant to all life, and that power is not restricted by time or mankind’s self-imposed limited beliefs.  As another New Year unfolds, that covenant is renewed.

May your light increase.

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Ancient Moon/Brain Analogy

Posted in Atheist, belief, freethought, history, nature, Pantheism, prehistory, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , on November 9, 2011 by chouck017894

Often noted in these web postings is the fact that the science of astronomy in the ancient past played a central role in presenting spiritual teachings.  For example, in prehistory cultures the Moon, or Luna, served as a fitting symbol for the enlightened mind.  Their reasoning was astonishingly insightful and testified to a committed study of Earth’s celestial companion as well as a keen observation of the workings of the human brain.  The Moon was understood by our “primitive” ancestors as symbolically embodying the negative principle by which man receives mental discernment, for neither the Moon nor man’s brain shed their own light, but only reflect what they borrow from a higher source.

The Moon was regarded as the material symbol of the receptive principle which is at work throughout Creation, and which enfold the attributes of mental discernment.  In conjunction with this, the Earth itself was, for obvious reasons, the common symbol for the human species.  The Moon/Earth relationship presented an active illustration of how man absorbs the light of wisdom.  In that distant timeframe it was known and taught that the Earth revolved about the Sun, and from this scientific knowledge of the electric relationship of these two spheres the electromagnetic activity centered in the brain could be demonstrated.

The prehistory sages observed in the phases of the Moon a repeating review of the creative powers that are eternally at work.  The cyclic enactment of the “dark of the moon,” or when the Moon passes into the shadow of the Earth, for example, was seen to symbolize life issuing out of the void.  The new moon phase, of course, is not new; it is simply an illusion caused by a dense matter object (Earth) moving in its cyclic pattern and temporarily blocking the light that the Moon reflects from the source.

Earth in its rotation about the Sun will periodically turn from that source of light, and consequently bring upon portions of itself periods of non-illumination.  This seemed to the prehistory sages to act as an illustration of humankind’s repeated lapses of attention in regard to respecting the sustaining power of Cosmic Intelligence.  In ignoring our relationship with the rest of Creation, humankind obliges itself to depend upon the reflected light which intellect offers, just as the Moon reflects the light offered by the Sun.  This analogy is itself remarkable wisdom when we consider that without the light of the Sun to give purpose to the Moon’s presence (visibility), the Moon would be virtually invisible to our sight.

Like the Earth in its turning, half of a person’s human nature receives illumination while the other half rests in apparent darkness (non-awareness of self).  Even so, the resting mind continues to retain and maintain its identity within the cosmic panorama, and the enlightened mind perceives itself as rising again—like the new Moon—above the horizon of self-awareness to dispel the dark.

To those prehistory sages every phenomenon of the Moon’s appearance, just as every feature of Nature, held symbolic expression.  The first quarter of the Moon was seen by them as having issued from its conjunction with the fecundating principle of life.  Luna was therefore seen as typifying the gestation attributes of Nature, the first quarter of the Moon’s increasing light representing to them first growth—and the issuance of higher wisdom.

It is for this reason that the crescent new Moon was often used on the robes of Pagan-age wizards, priests and priestesses.  This is the reason also why it is regarded as the symbol of the goddess honored by Witch-Nature covens.  And this accounts, too, why the crescent new Moon came to be held as the attribute of Christianity’s Virgin Mary.  Certainly the New Testament texts offer no reason to associate Mary with the Moon.  That association was brought into Roman Catholic thought during the Middle Ages.  The waxing Moon had stood as a symbol of the young maiden from the most ancient times from a belief that the waxing phase of the Moon was connected to a maiden’s menstruation period.  In Pagan interpretation the three phases of the Moon—waxing, full, and waning—served as the receiving representative of intellect, thus it was regarded as a feminine aspect.  These three phases were consequently presented as maiden, mother, and crone.  Christian myth makers chose to ignore the “crone” part, of course.

The Moon, as a passive receiver, was adopted in ancient times as a goddess figure, and the three aspects became a trinity mystery.   In various ancient cults this triple aspect came to represent the “Great Mother,” and in this capacity was often referred to as the “White Goddess.”  This triple aspect is adored by many in Witchcraft.  This is the background upon which the Virgin Mary came to be associated with the waxing Moon.

Knowledge once known to the most ancient known culture, the Sumerians, became fragmented long ago.  Somehow those prehistory scientists knew that the Moon held no atmosphere.  And they regarded the Moon to be a separate and independent member of the solar family, not some satellite of Earth.  The folklore that grew around that ancient knowledge stated that when energies were forming as our solar systems’ planets, an invading planet-sized object interacted with this planet’s unstable material.  That “battle” thus accounted for a smaller portion breaking away from the unstable mass which would become Earth.  That chunk that broke away then lost its primal atmosphere and radioactive elements, causing it to shrink in size.  Drained of its elements, and thrown from the orbital pattern established by the forming planet Earth, it became the companion of Earth, sharing its orbital neighborhood.

Abridged from The Shiny Herd.

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Religious Delusions of Exclusivity

Posted in Atheist, belief, culture, faith, freethought, logic, Pantheism, random, religion, Social with tags , , , , , on February 11, 2011 by chouck017894

Since the early 1800s CE, humankind has gained considerably more knowledge regarding universal truths than man’s limited known history had previously recorded.  Natural  phenomena that once terrorized our ancestors have been studied, their interrelationship observed and calculated, and working  models based on those examinations have granted modern man a degree of forecast and control that our ancestors would have regarded as godlike.

For example, we know how hurricanes develop; how an eclipse takes place; why earthquakes occur; what the Moon and the planets are made of; how health can be threatened by bacteria and viruses; and a great wealth of similar secrets that were once regarded as holy mystery.  Inquisitive minds have stubbornly chosen to know rather than just vegetate in belief, and in pursuit of knowing mankind has questioned and observed events around himself.  And those probing minds have found that the fear of God does not adequately serve as the beginning of creative wisdom as claimed, nor is that priest-stoked fear a sound foundation upon which to build faith.  No longer must mankind endure the bogus authority of shamans, priests and theologians who pretend explanation of natural energy interactions as consequences of divine miracles which only they have been blessed with the power to interpret.

Imagining some supernatural being who conjures up all the actions that pummel human life has never provided the means to work with or around those natural energy actions in which we experience our relationship with the universe.  Listening to the superstitions of shamans, priests and theologians has resulted only in inestimable years in which billions of persons have wept over trillions of unanswered prayers.  For all the scriptures of man’s invention, not one has ever provided mankind with a definite and clear-cut grasp of how to personally achieve the attributes necessary for ascension into that quality of being that is holy wisdom.  All that those hallowed texts have offered have been moral teachings, which most certainly are vital to human societies but which are actually woven upon common sense guides for sane social conduct.  There is no need for a supernatural being to tell us—through some self-appointed interpreter—not to kill, steal, lie, defraud and such: that is obviously detrimental conduct if one aspires to achieve peaceful and creative life experiences.  Acting contrary to those common sense guides is demonstratively self-destructive.

In claiming exclusiveness to common sense guidelines, the practice of the world’s bureaucratic faith systems’ programming has generated the bulk of thoughtless evil  that has dogged man’s history.  Belief that some supernatural being favors some  group of people above others, which is nothing more than mutual masturbation of ego, has fueled unending wars and inhumane conduct within a species that has more in common with each other than the imagined unbridgeable differences.  That these faiths all boil down to nothing more than manipulation of ego is provable in how social issues are perceived, manipulated and altered over time in the constant religious contests for material power: issues such as slavery, torture, abortion, contraceptives, sexual orientation, derogation of women, etc., etc. are not heavenly matters; they are taught human indulgences used to manipulate human passion.  Only a spirit that is truly at peace with the natural diversity within the universe can step away from these discrimination practices and truly approach Creation’s wisdom. 

Isn’t it time for mankind to face the fact that man’s invented faith systems are inherently dysfunctional?  When rationality is impaired by clerics belittling each other’s “faiths” and their indulgence in a proposition that our true identity is somewhere else beyond this awareness of self, that is not legitimate worship of Creation’s wisdom.  That is simply indulgence in obsolete mythology of prejudicial and judgmental sky gods.

The creative power which is assessed as “divine” can never be stripped from the here-and-now; that power is not detached and exists somewhere “out there.”  Take a cue from Pantheist understanding; that power continues to reside in everything.

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Increasing Light Signals a New Year

Posted in Atheist, belief, Christianity, culture, faith, freethought, humanity, nature, Pantheism, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , on December 27, 2010 by chouck017894

Each year the Sun re-establishes its apparent northward movement on the 25th of December, marking the point for the increase of light for the Northern Hemisphere.  This phenomenon is much grander in scope and more awesome in infinite power than any imagined event of a virgin birth or some oil lamp  burning for eight days in a temple.  The interaction of the Earth with the Sun is in every way a much truer covenant extended to all life through universal power than are the stories of special favor for some set-apart assemblage of people.

Our ancient ancestors, those much maligned Pagans, felt a more intimate connection with Nature and the observable heavens than most people today.  There was no emotional need to disguise the natural occurrences such as the alternate solstice periods as some mythic miracle performed for only a select few. 

For seven days following the end of the winter solstice, honored in Pagan times as “Mother night,” the beginning of increasing light was reason for celebration, and gifts were exchanged among family and friends in acknowledgement of the coming abundance of life-giving sunlight.  And in this period—in recognition of the true miracle of the Sun’s support of life—a customary salutation when parting with loved ones and friends was the blessing, “May your light increase.”

After seven days of celebration for emergence from the long nights, the routine chores of life were then taken up anew, and a new cycle was calculated from the end of that celebration.  Thus the time of the New Year observance that is today recognized across much of the world has its foundation in Pagan recognition of cosmic interaction.

The universe was understood by Pagan cultures to be a living thing—a vast unified consciousness.  When they looked out into the universe they perceived something at work that was much grander than the constraining religions which imagine a humanlike personality in place of that all-embracing power.  The Pagans felt an intimacy with that power which the practice of ecclesiasticism can never experience, for they intuitively recognized that each manifested being is a functioning part of that universal consciousness.  To them the notion that the creative power kept itself apart and aloof from everything that had been created would have been rightfully regarded as absurd.

Humankind’s invented hierarchical religions always have a tendency to  leave their follower with vague feelings of being unfulfilled, which erodes their spirit with unrecognized resentment.  By ignoring Nature and the visible universe these “faiths” have become systems in which one must will themselves to believe rather than experience one’s unity with it all.  Intricately structured religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam are not faiths that can be assessed as arising from natural expressions of consciousness.  They are, unfortunately, faith systems that encourage a denial of compassion for all things that are outside their self-set boundaries.  The reason behind this negative approach to Creation’s diversity is that to allow oneself to be open to feel regard for others is put down as a feminine characteristic and therefore not worthy to be cultivated.  As a result, such faith systems can gratify themselves only through carefully tended hypocrisy.

As a result these militant-spirited faith systems have always been at war with something.  For spiritual understanding the priests of these religions indoctrinate seekers with images and glorification of angel-warriors, wars in heaven, “holy wars,” the glorification of blood sacrifice, and never-ending combats with “sin.”  In their houses of worship they sit in strict military rows, or prostrate themselves in neat military rows, obey orders to rise, to sit, to kneel, to sing, and in some manner donate materially to the faith.  Indeed, these faith systems labor to crush each person’s individual connection with the universe until it disappears into the sterile personality of the religion itself.  The theologies of these organized religions have done little else than suggest that all Creation is divided into feuding camps.  That, however, is not how Creation holds itself together.  To be taught such a thing only imposes a kind of resentful hostility that has been misinterpreted as “spirit.”

It is unlikely that each individual’s higher purpose was to simply act as some separate organ of some religious social structure.  Perpetuating a man-conceived religion reduces followers to little more than hive workers and breeders who, through mental conditioning, would find emotional survival virtually impossible if separated from the body of their religion.  Followers are then deliberately made blind to the beautiful transcendent unity within all people, which is the yearning of human spirit for illumination.

Despite mankind’s struggles with such bouts of self-delusion, the heavens still bear witness to the flow of Creation.  We need only to remove the blinders placed over our eyes by those who make a habit of taking advantage of our blindness.  Lured away from adoring the unity of all things as expressed in the universe, we have been “guided” to seek spiritual upliftment by huddling together in echoing “sanctified” enclosures.  There, the devout are given role models of heroes and saints, saviors and kings who would never have accepted being herded into such behavior.

But the universe still holds it all together by extending divine allowance for such diversity.  If mankind wishes to pretend that it is the sum total of universal wisdom, the universe can afford to be patient.  Meanwhile, the interaction of Earth and the Sun continues to reaffirm it covenant with life, and that power is not limited by time or mankind’s beliefs.

May your light increase.

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Natural Equality

Posted in Atheism, Atheist, belief, Christianity, culture, faith, history, humanity, life, Pantheism, random, religion with tags , , , , , , , , , on August 24, 2009 by chouck017894

Religious pretentiousness has the self-delusional habit of refusing to recognize that humankind is but one species of mammal.  The eagerness to disassociate themselves from our distant relatives has inspired apprehensive men to invent convoluted notions of superiority and then practice that misconception as a religious truth. 

In the practice of organized religions the natural equality of all life is categorically denied—even though it is an equality that is easily proved by the chromosomal elements that all life forms share in common.  And herein is exposed a vital clue in solving the reason for the conflicts and bloody failures of organized religions—especially the western versions of “holy” truth.

Mammals vie for territory: it is the means of self-survival and species continuation.  And that territorial drive is reflected in the human clustering habit practiced as religion which, by extension, accounts for their attempts to impose themselves upon other through proselytizing.  Notions of spiritual exclusiveness are in direct opposition to experiencing life in concert with reason; that is to say, mutual respect.  Instead, all of man’s organized religions choose to concentrate on differences and magnifying them into gross distortions that continually attack and weaken the quality of man’s higher potential.

There have been great minds in the past, however, that have championed a deeper, more bonding understanding of man’s potential.  Unfortunately, wisdom is seen as a threat to a large segment of our species and so they are easily distracted and stampeded by the braying of fools that tell them they have elite status elsewhere.

The insolence and contempt for others that is often practiced today as religious “truth” has much in common with a school of philosophers known as Cynics founded by a  pupil of  Socrates named Antisthenes (144-375?  BCE).  The general attitude of the Cynics was to view everything in the external material world about them with contempt.  The nobler Stoic philosphy developed out of this in Athens around 300 BCE, and was introduced into Rome around 100 BCE by the Stoic philosopher Panaetius of Rhodes.  Panaetius had considerable influence on a literary group in Rome, and through them influenced Roman thought, especially regarding moral duties which served as basis for Cicero’s De Officiis.

Stoicism’s most distinctive aspect was in the attribute that we may evaluate as cosmopolitanism—the  sophisticated understanding that all men are manifestations of one universal spirit.  In that understanding the Stoics stressed living in brotherly love and readily helping one another.  Wealth and rank were recognized by the Stoics as purely external and transient, and therefore such things were regarded as virtually meaningless in social relationships.  Thus stressed was the recognition of the natural equality of all human beings—a wisdom that is sorely lacking in the three militantly organized religions that developed to distort the consciousness of the western world.

Stoicism prevailed widely in the classic Roman world, with metaphysics and pantheistic materialism being part of its ethics.  Material matter was regarded as passive (subject to man’s management) and was distinguished from the cosmic, animating principle that is active as life.  That sustaining energy-link out of that life principle was understood as constituting what religions refer to as ones soul.  The ideal followed by the Stoics was that man’s superiority does not lie in external objects, but exists in the state of ones soul.  Thus living in accordance with reason was expressed in the Stoic’s four cardinal virtues of–wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance.  This  reasonable approach honored in Stoic philosophy played a major role in Roman jurisprudence.

It is a historical fact, therefore, that well before the advent of Christianity, Stoicism accepted life’s unity (or natural equality) and believed in the brotherhood of man—a tenet often praised in Christian adherence but haphazardly practiced. 

 That means that unlike Judaism, Christianity or Islam, the Stoics never pretended to be the especial darlings of the creative power.  Untroubled with rationality, Judaism, Christianity and Islam nonchalantly trampled underfoot any genuine thought to Natural Equality.

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What is Reality?

Posted in belief, biological traits, culture, environment, humanity, Inspiration, life, naturalism, Pantheism, random with tags , , , , , on August 8, 2009 by chouck017894

Reality is commonly thought of as an event, entity or person that is “actual;” i.e. something that is recognized by our consciousness as existing.  In our passage through this energy field that we think of as “now,” the bulk of what propels and sustains us goes unrecognized.  For example, the amino acids in our bodies, the building blocks of proteins so necessary for life, are also found in stardust.  During the energy process that is the focus of our identity, the true reality encompasses far more than our consciousness may register from its material form.

Science has shown us that atomic and subatomic particles are a reality, but we do not sense them in the day-to-day meaning of the word.  Microscopic life is active everywhere about us—even within us—that we do not sense as reality: we generally become aware of microscopic life only when illness is experienced as a reality.  This shows that what we might call quantum reality is functioning beyond the range of our physical senses.  To illustrate, we hear sound only in the vibratory range only between 32,000-33,000 decibels, and we see energy designations as objects that register only between 450 trillions of red light and 750 trillions of violet light.  The vast gaps that go un-seen by our energy-form are incalculable from our energy-as-matter  perspective.

In our pursuit of matter-life we, as apparent separate beings, never suspect that an excess of 300 million cells of our matter-body “die” every minute—and these are immediately replaced by the division of living cells.  The stomach linings change every five days.  A new skeleton is made every three months.  Every six months the body has regenerated a completely new liver.  Ninety-eight percent of the body’s atoms are replaced in less than a year.  Within a span of seven years every energy arrangement that defined the physical body has been totally replaced.  Even the physical organ of the brain actually changes its structure as a consequence of attention and manipulation.  (So reading this is messing with your brain structure.)

Research into energy medicine reveals that the human body emits 12-gigahertz microwave signals.  A startling finding was that these microwave signals that our bodies emit can actually be received on satellite dishes!  Moreover, the body also emits high frequency x-rays.  Remember that we are speaking of the same energy frequency that goes through dense matter objects unobstructed.  What all this means is that all biological tissue has an electrostatic charge, thus when it moves in the three-dimensional energy range (matter) it creates a measurable electromagnetic field—a personal identity.  And that energy identity radiates into what we speak of as space.

Amid all this creation energy that is continually taking place within the universe of our physical bodies, there is a constant by which we know that everything  is working as a balanced system.  That constant, much like the microwave “background” of the larger universe, is our body temperature.  This built-in thermostat maintains the inner physical climate at an average 98.6 degrees regardless of the heat or cold present in the energy environment around us.  Think of it: our temperature shows that each of us is a functioning reflection of the macrocosm and we therefore maintain our own identity within all planes of cosmic energy. 

So, despite any appearances of separateness, none of us goes unrecognized in the universe.

  • Information in this post was abridged from The Celestial Scriptures, pages 424-425.

 

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Inner Relationship of All Things

Posted in Atheist, belief, culture, environment, nature, Pantheism, random, religion with tags , , , , on July 27, 2009 by chouck017894

The ancient world, much more than the modern world, recognized the intimate connection that all life has to what we speak of as Nature, and they respected that connection as the direct and active part of Creation’s life-sustaining principle.  In the modern world shaped upon priest-written scriptural concepts of an imagined right of  dominion by man over Nature, this truth has been virtually discarded and the result has been the brutal rape of Nature and the disturbed planetary environment.

Our religions, at least in the western world, certainly have never taught respect for a fundamental law of  “god’s” Creation, which is that organism and environment always define each other.  If we remove the blinders imposed by the faith merchants, we can witness that fundamental law of Creation everywhere in the universe.  A galaxy, for example, cannot exist without the environment of its enclosing field of energy.  Likewise, human culture exists and flourishes in the environment of Earth only because Earth evolved an energy-network of mutually interdependent organisms—which may be symbolized with mineral  ores and plant life.  This truth happens to be the reason why early scriptural myth gives such value to “gold, bdellium, and the onyx stone” as having been in Eden even before “man” was created (Genesis 2:11-12).  Certainly it is absurd to regard these minerals in an economic meaning if there was no one around to covet them, so they were clearly used as examples of the value of the “lower” mineral kingdom to the maintenance of life.

Material based religious practices,  particularly in western organized religions, have never taught reverence for the elemental aspects (which could be said as used by god) that create and sustain life.  Instead they choose to foster the illusion that human consciousness and intelligence is unique not only in Nature but in the universe as a whole.  Such religious interpretation is designed only to gratify human ego, for it ignores the truth that intelligence as a life organism becomes intelligible only in relation to its environment.  Remove the life forms and the environment from each other and both become meaningless.  What this attests to is that intelligent perception exists only because it is part of an intelligent environment—for an intelligent fraction cannot arise out of an unintelligent whole.

Then there is the plant kingdom which, even though inanimate in its energy form, embodies and contains energies of material life just as does the more advanced biological life.  Western religions do not teach that lowly plant life illustrates an existing inner relationship that is ever-present in all things.  The plant kingdom itself exists because it is an extension—an outbudding—of an energy dimension that is even more elemental–the afore-mentioned mineral domain.  Vegetation is the innocent life that is, allegorically speaking, martyred by and for biological life.  This was recognized and honored in the maligned Pagan observances held at the time of the vernal equinox—the same general time that became adapted as Passover and Easter.

Reverence for the elemental foundation of life as demonstrated by Nature has thus been stricken from god-the-creator-religions that fail to acknowledge that intellectual life can develop and evolve only when infinite energy combinations are incorporated.  This means, by extension, that in the overall creative environment nothing is ever called upon to “justify” its existence.  This truth is not exactly a feature of Creation that material minded religious manipulators want people to know.   Instead they choose to focus upon surface differences, such as diverse physical forms or colorings or emotional drives that various life forms may possess.  The mental environment that is thus established and accepted as spiritual understanding is subsequently rendered sorely deficient in the quality of compassion, the very factor that elevates the emanations of consciousness into wisdom.

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Humans’ Place in Nature

Posted in culture, ecology, history, humanism, humanity, life, logic, nature, Pantheism, random, religion, science with tags , , , , on July 25, 2009 by chouck017894

Nature, the bearing principle of what we think of as material reality, has become strangely alien to western thought, and that mutant insensitivity has increased across the world—a situation due partly to religion and partly to science, the two answer-seeking indulgences which often rear up as opposing qualities.

Western religions have, by and large, pursued the notion that the creature man is meant to have dominion over nature and that humans are called upon by some divine overseer of the universe to control that life-sustaining organism we speak of as nature.  Science, drawn more to exploring how things work and evolve,  does so not in a drive to dominate nature but to (ideally) learn how to cooperate with nature and utilize the powers from which we became manifest as conscious life forms.

The western religious assertion that we must take control(dominion) over the wisdom that functions as nature and which produced our physical being is a rather infantile stance considering that as a complex species of nature we humans too often fail in even understanding or controlling ourselves.  We should take into consideration that western religious philosophy which professes to know so much about the nature of a supreme being remains curiously vague about the nature of man’s relationship to creative forces.  That vagueness attests to weak theology, and that lack of insight has infected humankind with a sense of estrangement from his natural being and his natural environment.

Science, which may be described as theoretical naturalism, customarily professes faithfulness to an indulgence in  rational consciousness which, unfortunately, is almost as indefinable as the mystical soul.  Both science and religion can only theorize from a state of limitation because the studies of both use humankind in nature as the object that is studied as representative of the subject.  And because such a technique focuses on external manifestations it means that neither of those theoretical approaches can act as a subjective observer.

Through such theoretical  exercises of science and religion we continue to feel that we are estranged in some way from the inner workings that function as nature.  Nevertheless, everything that is active as conscious life and all events active as nature are mutually interdependent.  Man cannot rightfully be understood as an object that stands apart from the subject nature.  Such a sense of estrangement from nature then encourages the self-destructive exploitation of the resources of the planet that have led humankind into the present day environmental predicament.

Like it or not, humankind has a total  involvement with nature.  Ultimately inhumanity toward nature is to deny humankind a future that holds any higher potential.

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Religion’s Sexual Roots

Posted in Atheist, Bible, freethought, Pantheism with tags , , , , on March 23, 2009 by chouck017894

All organized religious sects of western cultures have their roots firmly entwined with sexual allusions. This, of course, is fervently denied by those who passionately seek association with the creative power that they imagine to be a humanlike being that is at once highly prejudicial yet blissfully indifferent.

But the sacred path has always tended to meander around in a labyrinth of camouflaged passageways. The alarming thing is that most of the time even the most devout of the “spiritual leaders” are oblivious as to the real message hidden under sacred words.

For a start, consider the word “sacred.” The words sacred, sacrament and sacrifice are all derived from the Hebrew word sacre, meaning “phallus” or “penis.” This should not be surprising, for the penis was regarded throughout all ancient cultures as symbolic of self-manifestation as activated through the creative source. This is why the three major religions of the west have a long history of denying women entrance into the ranks of priesthood.

And the holy testaments that are held out to us as divine pronouncements continue that sex association. We hold in high regard the such words as testament, testify, testimony, testification, testator, attest, etc. Guess what: the honored words are derived from the Latin testis, the testicles, the male reproductive organs situated in the external scrotum behind the penis. The respectful meaning accorded to these words today comes from the ancient custom prevelent through the ancient near-east in which the most solemn oaths were sworn by grasping their own testicles–or sometimes the testicles of the man sworn to–that what was declared was truth. It was regarded as asking for reproductive disaster to swear falsely upon the sac of life.

Of course it then becomes clear where the word seminary originated, although everyone today regards it as meaning a theological school for training priests, ministers or rabbis. But seminary is derived from the Latin seminarius, and referred to the seed carried in the seminal fluid. Again, women were thought to be  incapable of understanding this holy power carried by men and therefore women were barred from holy study.

And just to get the bottom of this, consider the words rector and rectory: Rector refers to a member of the clergy in charge of a parish (Protestant Episcopal and Anglican), or (Roman Catholic) a priest appointed to be administrative head of a church or institution such as a seminary: rectory can refer to either the house where the rector lives or the office of the rectore.  All these are derived from the Latin root rectus, meaning “straight.” It is telling that it is from this same root that we also get the word rectum.

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