Archive for faith

Claims of Exclusive Prayer Power

Posted in Atheist, belief, culture, enlightenment, faith, life, random, religion, Social, theology with tags , , , , , , , on September 1, 2014 by chouck017894

The devout followers of any man-invented faith system are too often arrogantly self-possessed–so sure that they alone possess the only communication link to some aloof and prejudiced Creator-God. This assessment has been triggered by a passing conversation in which such a faith system devotee declared, “If you are an atheist then obviously you can’t pray.” Sadly, such a declaration as to who can or cannot link with Creation’s power indicates that what these man-invented faith systems peddle as exclusive privilege is not “holy” truth.

No man-contrived faith system can honestly claim to have a monopoly on the connective liberty that each and every person has to align with cosmic consciousness–that personal approach which is commonly spoken of as prayer. This erroneous concept that there is only one select collection of people who can “pray” with an exclusive access to higher power stems from the mistake of personifying the energy Source of Creation as a humanlike being who is wracked with petty prejudices and empty hatreds. The awesome sustaining energy of Creation is demonstratively not a discriminatory power: this is openly declared in the mind-boggling variety and diversity which is active throughout the functioning, living universe around us.

As noted in the limited edition book, The Celestial Scriptures (page 434): “Properly understood, prayer is the adjustment of (the individual’s) aware consciousness in which there is opened a sense of personal relationship with universal forces. In most cases this requires only the quieting of rapid-fire thoughts, a not so easy endeavor in a world that has become so intent upon a fast paced pursuit of material things.”

Scientific research has documented that there exists within each person seven levels of consciousness. This discovery is something of a startling echo of prehistory teachings in regard to Creation processes, for it was then taught that energy involved through seven dimensions of involvement to manifest as matter. These developmental planes of energy were referred to in the ancient lessons as involution. This creative principle is even a known mathematical concept which is expressed as “the multiplying of a quantity by itself for a specified number of times, thus raising it to a specific power.” Thus even scientific research and mathematical theory provide strong evidence that the aware-consciousness of every individual has the divine right to draw upon the unlimited power of the creative Infinite Presence to define themselves. Attempting to bring the seven levels of consciousness into accord with that creative energy is what the corporate styled faith systems commonly refer to as prayer. In knowing the progressive stages of Creation power it is proven that “prayer” is not exclusive to any faith system: indeed, everyone, at whatever level, has the divine right of access. Aligning the seven levels of consciousness active within each of us as a harmonic energy field and that energy then follows the same Creation sequence of application to produce the sought after energy configuration. This is the “law of amassing” (Creation) through harmony–or responsible coexistence–which is the universal generating factor and which provides the “answers.”

Admittedly, this is not exactly as easy as it sounds, primarily because our self-aware consciousness is temporarily anchored in this transitory energy-matter form. The main necessity of aligning the seven levels of consciousness as a harmonic field is dependent upon not seeking to exercise rigid command over them. That is tricky. For example, any hint of negative intent, such as greed, anger, envy, revenge, etc., which colors one’s attempted alignment will automatically distort the outcome. In other words, any attempted alignment for the purpose of indulging personal ego can result only in short-circuiting the connection into creative potentiality. This is a Creation principle, and it is not something that highly organized ego-pampering faith systems will or can offer to seekers for the simple reason that all these faith systems have been built upon and maintained by imposing self-serving dogmatism upon seekers for the purpose of exercising worldly influence. So it is they, not some other man-invented faith system or atheists, who do not understand the actual technicalities of “prayer.” Man-invented faith systems intentionally place themselves between seekers and Cosmic Consciousness, which short-circuits personal power, for no one can pray effectively if the Patriarchal Principles of Creation are not acknowledged and drawn upon. Those Patriarchal Principles of Creation are not a monopoly product.

What man-invented faith systems religiously ignore is the scientifically proven reality that every energy-defined thing is surrounded with an energy field of force. Biological fields, for example, are actually detectable in the air that surrounds every living organism—from the largest creatures on this planet to the most infinitesimal cells. You and I and every animate and inanimate identity radiates an electrodynamic field about our physical forms which can be detected and measured with a voltmeter. This non-physical radiance is not usually perceptible to human sight, but is measurable with special instruments. That subtle energy may possibly be the matrix or template or blueprint which defines all energy-as-matter forms. And these defining energy fields, each secure upon their matrix, can then freely interact in subtle and revitalizing exchange which we perceive as the momentum of time and space. Thus each of us is, allegorically speaking, much like a little mirror which reflects the vast power of the living universe back into itself. We humans are more complex than any other life forms known to us on this tiny planet, and despite many shared energy building blocks which amalgamated as the energy which defines us, our matter-self remains presided over by consciousness of self in which the quality of conscience is ordained to evolve.

As energy-matter beings endowed with self-aware consciousness which evolves within us as conscience (seat of moral quality), we thus stand somewhat midpoint between the most massive definable objects in the universe and the most infinitesimal. All this speaks of the continual interaction of countless and diverse forms of energy. Indeed, a multidimensional configuration of energy may conceivably exist which continually and instantaneously encompasses the entire universe. What this means is that which we perceive as time and space is only our temporary subjective awareness, so our physical perception is not necessarily a factual exercise of comprehension! Our conception of past or future, for example, may very well coexist as only one aspect within an eternal present. And because every definable energy-entity draws upon that unlimited power of Infinite Presence to define itself, each of us hold the divine right of access which faith systems market as “prayer.” Everyone has that personal connection with universal power or we would not be self-aware. This means that no man-invented faith system can truthfully claim exclusive access into Creation’s power.

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Blind Faith and Expected Bliss

Posted in Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, Christianity, culture, faith, history, humanity, Middle Ages,, random, religion with tags , , , on July 21, 2009 by chouck017894

There are those religionists that take every word of their “scriptures” literally.  Inconsistencies and contradictory pronouncements are shrugged off as divine mystery when in truth such things attest to the ineptitude of the human schemers that wrote them.  Avoidance of critical perusal of claimed revealed wisdom does not logically stand as respect to god; in reality that approach to “faith” is simply devotion to brain idleness and the immature expectation that mental laziness will be rewarded with bliss.  Indeed, there is even a slogan for this: Ignorance is Bliss.

Blind faith seems never to be shy of certainty, however; it is too often like the squeaky hinge that demands one’s attention and gets rewarded with a relieving squirt of oil.  An example of priestly unhinged squeaking was provided in 1654 by Dr. John Lightfoot (1602-1675) who declared: “Heaven and earth, centre and circumference were made in the same  instance of time and clouds full of water and man was created by the Trinity on the 26th day of October, 4004 B.C., at 9 o’clock on a Friday morning.”  Another version says Creation took place at 9 o’clock in the  morning  of the 17th of September 4004 B.C., also a Friday.  What’s another month, more or less?  Anyway, Dr. Lightfoot was a member of the Westminster Assembly and was vice-chancellor of  Cambridge University from 1654.  He was also one of the scholars who assisted the noted English authority on the Bible, Brian Walton, in preparation of the six-volume Polyglot Bible (1654-1657).

The renowned Brian Walton, by the way, received his B.A. degree in 1620, his M.A. in 1623, and his D.D. in 1639.  He was ordained in the Church of England in 1623 and culminated his studies by being consecrated as bishop of Chester in December of 1660.  Some versions of his six-volume Polyglot Bible drawn from a Hebrew original of the Old Testament, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and interpretations from other language works are printed in seven languages.  Okay, so he wasn’t ignorant, just unquestioning in his pursuit of what ancient myth-spinners had composed.

Also in 1654 an Irish archbishop, James Ussher, had two volumes published, Annales Veteres et Novi Testamenti, in which he also fixed the date of Creation as having occurred in 4004 BCE.  He was also certain that the return of Christ was imminent.

Well, that was the seventeenth century: dare we say that religious understanding has evolved?

Unfortunately, there are still fundamentalists who insist that planet Earth is only a little over six thousand years old and is the center of the universe.  And it is holy truth to them that dinosaurs and humans romped together in Eden before being expelled for dietary no-no’s.  Never mind that dinosaurs are not mentioned in scriptures (but whales and fishes are).  Even a female senator from one of the southern states recently addressed the U.S. Senate referring to Creation as having occurred six thousand years ago!   Yes, the Bible told her so.

Let us remember a line from Shakespeare: “In religion what damned error but some  sober brow will bless it, and approve it with a text.”

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The Old Rugged Cross

Posted in Bible, Christianity, culture, history, religion with tags , , , , on June 27, 2009 by chouck017894

Long, long before the Christian movement began, the symbol of the cross was used across the world for more life-affirming beliefs than as used today with a tortured dead male body hanging upon it.  In fact the cross symbol was appropriated from Pagan mythology by the Christian movement around 250-300 CE to replace the cult’s original symbol that had consisted of two arced lines suggestive of a fish form–for planet Earth had then only recently (c.60 BCE) entered the Age of Pisces.

Babylonian, Egyptian and other Near East cultures had long used the cross symbol as a sacred emblem, not necessarily as an object of worship but as emblematic of the power that gives forth with life.  For this reason the cross was referred to as the “tree of life,” and it was not uncommon to show the cross with leaves and blossoms, sometimes even fruit, springing from it.   In ancient Rome, even the Vestal Virgins wore crosses suspended from their necklaces.  The ancient city of Nicaea of Bithynia, in Asia Minor, built in 316 BCE was laid out in the form of the cross.

To quote from Time Frames and Taboo Data (TF&TD, page 191), “The cross was a focal  point in Babylonian mysteries long centuries before it was made the central symbol for Christianity.  Worship of or before the cross–the mystic Tau–was simply because the T-form stood as representative of the god Tammuz (personification of nature) resurrected every spring.  Those initiated into the mysteries were marked upon the forehead with water with the sign of the mystic Tau, a cross, as a mark of new life.   The T symbol had always implied the salvation of life, being as it was one of the symbols for the male organ of generation.”  In other words, the T-cross represented for them the means of creation and renewal of life and the ecstasy of that divine release. 

The use of the cross in connection to the Christian movement apparently arose out of Egypt and regions of Africa where the familiar Pagan symbol, the ankh or Crux Ansata, was eagerly embraced.  In the early third century CE, Tertullian (c. 160-c250 CE), the Latin ecclesiastical writer regarded as one of the greatest of  the Latin Church “fathers,” complained bitterly that the Church of Carthage was infected with the Pagan symbol–meaning the Crux Ansata–the sign of life.  Again from TF&TD, “Thus the cross emblem used first by Christian cult members in Egypt had absolutely nothing to do with the crucifixion of the cult’s central figure.  The symbol gradually became shorn of  its loop ‘handle’ to become the simple Tau cross and was  first  employed on the sepulchers of Christian cult members.  This is a revealing clue: the symbol professed belief in life–the sustenance of life–and not as the gross reminder of a savior’s torture and death.

On the other side of the world the Aztecs, who never heard of Jesus Christ, would address the Cosmic Principle–the life affirming principle–from some high point by standing erect with arms outstretched as a living  model of the mystical T symbol. 

It was around the years 250-300 that the “fathers” of the Christian church chose to identify more with the harsher interpretation drawn from the gospel story of Jesus’ crucifixion, which provided a rich launching base for judgment-passing and apocalyptic threats.  Thus the early peace-suggestive fish emblem was discarded in favor of the symbol of Roman instruments of  torture and death which, they rationalized, more compellingly symbolized the doctrines of sacrifice.  And as an added plus, the cross symbol also inflicted upon the followers a subliminal sense of trepidation and unworthiness.

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Faith 3X3X3

Posted in Atheist, culture, freethought, history, life, logic, random, religion with tags , , , , , , on June 1, 2009 by chouck017894

History has shown repeatedly that for any religion to gain followers it must embody at least one of three elements: if it contains all three it is a surefire winner.  The necessary ingredients in the recipe for initiating an organized religion include: 1) a mythology;  2) a claim of miracles; 3) a definite doctrine regarding the “hereafter.”

Most people are brought up in or gravitate to a religion that is colored with mythology that includes alleged miracles about which they may express awe and fear.  Such seekers also generally feel a need for a limitless eternity that is nevertheless alluded to in measurements that imitate their own limited understanding of mortal life.  That way the seekers do not have to measure up too drastically in order to claim the promised reward for believing.

Braided into this recipe for an organized religion are three common restrictions that allegedly assure special favor from heaven.  These are: 1) submit to “the will of god”—which actually means that followers must do whatever the mouthpiece of the cult says;  2) release oneself of personal desire—meaning much the same as the  first restriction; 3) advance the “faith” through self-sacrifice—again meaning the followers must be thoughtless slaves for the “faith.”

Basically these three restrictive demands produce believers that consequently struggle with inner resentments that often become emotionally destructive.  If all the above mentioned ingredients are incorporated into the “faith,” the inevitable result for that rigid belief system is the degeneration into a trinity of deadly sins common to all hard-line religions, which are:  1) literalism; 2) formalism; 3) dogmatism—all of which are designed to crush any sense of personal communication with the universal essences that freely creates as ultimate Cause.  These three sins of hard-line religions then transform what little spiritual content of belief that the belief system might have to offer into material obsession. 

The reasons for this are:  1) literalism is the insistence upon taking self-serving accounts written by unknown authors–but always attributed to some divinely blessed person–as unquestionable truth;  2) formalism is the excessive and often rigorous adherence to man-invented ceremonies that are concerned entirely with external, extraneous aspects of worship that supposedly attract divine attention; 3) dogmatism is the assertion that particular beliefs are authoritative, and that unproven or improvable principles presented as spiritual guidance must be accepted as absolute truth.

Are such man-concocted indulgences really in the best interest of mankind’s higher potential?

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Faith or Obsession?

Posted in agnoticism, Atheist, culture, freethought, history, humanism, nontheism, random, religion with tags , , , , , , on April 20, 2009 by chouck017894

Obsession and faith often tend to  share a perverted relationship. Indeed the definition of mental imbalance referred to as “obsession” too often also applies equally to religious “faith” to an alarming degree.

Obsession is defined as a compulsive preoccupation with a fixed idea or compulsive feeling that generates a driving emotion—more often than not with symptoms of anxiety. When unreasonable ideas or emotions infect mental function to the point of preoccupation, extremism becomes the inevitable consequence. The now-archaic understanding was that obsession was the state of being beset or actuated by the devil or evil spirits. On the other hand, hearing voices from a burning bush or from visions that no one else could detect is presented as  being divinely endowed.

Such “faith” is routinely whitewashed as: “A confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness” of an idea, thing, or person. Religious “faith” is therefore presented as a reliance that need not depend on logical proof or material evidence–miracles, to them, are answers, not things that are questionable. “Faith” is also praised for an unquestioning loyalty to man-formulated doctrines and for extending numb trust that “sacred” texts that were written by various unknown mortal beings present the only access into spiritual enlightenment for man. The difference between “faith” and “obsession” thus hinges soley on how an individual’s egomaniacal temperament functions.

Both the words “faith” and “obsession,” in actuality, refer to some form of ego-gratifying conviction that panders to a sense of exclusivity. And any sense of exclusivity always results in mental obstructions. The next step for the faithful or the obessessed is then extremism–a condition that today infects so much of the world.  When “faith” fanatics try to take over worldly politics, history has shown that the end result has always been disaster for the subjugated, and mankind’s potential for truly moral conduct has been rendered impotent.

Recent research into brain activity has revealed that prominent neurological occurances linked with religious impressions are activated and intensified in the limbic system–the part of the brain governing basic activities such as self-preservation, reproduction, and expressions of fear and rage. It has been shown also that the prefrontal system of the brain–the prefrontal cortex and the parietal cortex of the brain–play an influential role in an individual’s religious devotion. Interestinly, persons suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorders are shown to have dysfunctional activity in the same prefrontal systems.

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