The greatest cloning feat in human history

Dana Carvey's judgmental "Church Lady" character. "Well, isn't THAT special?"
Dana Carvey’s Enid “Church Lady” Strict:
“Well, isn’t THAT special?”

The condescending attitudes of those who believe that God solves problems by drowning, burning, torturing and threatening to excessively punish His children throughout all eternity used to make my blood pressure rise. I’ve been met with outright hostility and judged as a hell-bound heathen because I steadfastly refuse to believe that God would do anything Love would not do. Is it really diabolical to believe that God is consistent, not capricious?

Take a Deep Breath…

Instead of angrily going to the “You worship a sadistic genocidal despot, and you have the nerve to look down your nose at me” place, I’m making an effort to understand why so many believe that God is so vile.

Maybe people are so judgmental and think they’re so special because they believe that God is judgmental and exclusionary. But it’s mankind that seeks differences between himself and others, discriminates against others, and feels superior to others. More than likely, he long ago cloned God in his image.

Establishing an exclusive path to God perpetuates man’s belief in divine discrimination (an oxymoron, if I ever heard one). It goes like this: I’m on the only path to God; you’re not. As Saturday Night Live comedian Dana Carvey’s smug superior-dancing Church Lady character, Enid Strict would say, “Well, isn’t THAT special?”

What “One Path” Really Implies

This “One Path to God” theosophy presumes a few things:

  1. God is not omnipresent spirit: He (always “He,” in the image of his creator) is a stationary, man-like being who lives in Outer Space and occasionally venturing out to banish, condemn, murder or eternally torture His kids.
  2. God turns His back on unfavored children: Billions are wandering aimlessly because God didn’t show them the path home.
  3. God is a hypocrite: God wants humans to do as He says, not as He does. He sent Jesus to tell us to forgive 70 times 7, love our enemies, judge not and condemn not. Meanwhile, He drowns, tortures, threatens, judges and condemns…with love.

God’s Fingers Crossed behind His Back?

Another critical one-path belief is that God’s forgiveness comes with strings attached. They say three conditions must be met:

  1. God’s only innocent child must be sadistically tortured to death;
  2. Everyone else must believe that the innocent child was barbarically murdered instead of us;
  3. We also must believe that torturing an innocent man to death is an act of divine love. If we don’t believe it, they say, God will inhumanely torture us throughout all eternity.

Would Love do that—or have these Believers completely redefined Love?

Unfair father

Man has made God in his image, awash in qualities that we consider undesirable, criminal, even despicable in mere mortals. In fact, He bears a strong resemblance to our so-called “enemy,” Satan. Despite that, many have embraced this diabolical image of God—maybe because they haven’t really thought about what they believe. They simply believe.

Have you thought about it? Say “Amen” if you:

  • Worship and adore a father who doesn’t tell all of His children how to get back home.
  • Admire violent, vindictive dictators.
  • Relish the opportunity to be with someone who solves problems by killing and torturing people.
  • Love it when someone is unfair, threatening or judgmental.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Your choice, your truth: Are you human or divine?

In honor of George Washington, can we talk about truth?

I ask because the issue arose while commiserating recently with a friend. She was bewildered and hurt by her husband’s suddenly pubescent behavior. At 40, he had become obsessed with the gym, his brand new muscles, rap artists and flirtatious young women who thought he was buff.

“Is it a mid-life crisis?” she wondered.

The Loud Mouth also wondered what was the underlying truth. I didn’t doubt that my friend’s husband was going through a crisis. Actually, I found it rather ironic that his intolerance over her failure to wilt into a dead faint whenever he stepped out of the shower or entered a room actually rendered him rather unattractive, except to someone who valued superficiality.

This poor man truly had created a crisis. I simply wasn’t sure it had anything to do with mid-life.

Backpack instead of briefcaseHuman Life Can Be Calculated

Actors on Earth’s theater who identify themselves as their characters—as humans—have a beginning, a middle and an end. For these fine folks, everything and everyone is physical. Nothing exists unless they can see, feel, taste, touch or hear it.

Most of them believe that they were made in God’s image. But what is that image? It changes from one culture or country to another. Always has. As Greek philosopher, theologian and religious critic, Xenophanes (c.570 – c.475 BC), once wrote:

“Ethiopians say that their gods are snub-nosed and black and Thracians that theirs have blue eyes and red hair….If cattle and horses or lions had hands, or were able to draw with their hands and do the work that men can do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves.”

Simply put: Those who believe that humans are merely physical bodies typically worship a god who looks human, complete with body, gender and a defined space in which to live. Their anthropomorphic god behaves in ways that are more characteristic of humans, rather than divine (2 Kings 1:10):

  • He is volatile, violent and vindictive (Ez. 25:17);
  • He changes His mind (Gen. 8:21);
  • He solves problems by slaughtering or sadistically torturing His children to death—one at a time (Mark 15:25) or all at once (Gen. 6:17);
  • He is jealous (Ex. 34:14);
  • He demands obedience and rewards it with physical bounty (2 Cor. 7:15);
  • He brutally punishes disobedience forever and ever (2 Peter 2:4);
  • For all of this and more, they say, he is “worthy to be praised” (Ps. 18:3).

The Divine on a Calculator

There are others who also believe that they were made in the image of God, but they perceive God to be invisible, invincible and immortal spirit (John 4:24). They believe God is everywhere, rather than somewhere.

They also believe that God is Love (1 John 4:8), and embrace Paul’s definition of love captured in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8: Love is patient, kind, not envious, boastful or proud. Love does not dishonor others, is not self-seeking or easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always, trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, and never fails.

For these believers, anything that claims to be said by God, written by God or done by God, but does not fit within Paul’s definition of Love, mocks and demonizes God.

As humans, we create crises, not because of our age or any fear of aging. Generally, it’s because we choose to worship our mortal body costumes. We’ve made them our only reality. We’ve diminished ourselves to a calculable beginning, middle and end. But think about it:

  • If we are made in God’s image, are we spirit or is God a man?
  • If God is spirit, as John claims, how do we calculate God’s beginning, mid-life and ending?
  • If we are spirit, how do we calculate our own beginning, mid-life and ending?

We choose how we will perceive ourselves and how we will perceive our God. We can be, think and act as if we’re merely humans marching toward death, even on the way to the gym. We also have the option of traversing this world as divinely as humanly possible.

Our outcomes—our joys, our pains and our suffering—reflect our truth. For better or worse.

Does Christmas belittle Jesus’s mission?

Egyptian god Horus
Horus of Egypt, son of a human virgin and a god.

I’ve often wondered whether we have done Jesus a great disservice by assigning him the same birthday as ancient gods. In mythology, Horus of Egypt (c. 3000 BC), Mithra of Persia (c. 1200 BC), Attis of Greece (c. 1200 BC), Krishna of India (c. 900 BC), Dionysus of Greece (c. 500 BC) and others were “born” on December 25.

All are the alleged offspring of virgin mothers and powerful gods. As legend has it, these illustrious demigods healed the sick, raised the dead, and were murdered by the establishment. Each one was resurrected after three days.

While it’s possible that December 25 was Jesus’s birthday, no one can pinpoint anything, anywhere that cites that date or justifies claims that he is “the reason for the season.”

Despite that, hundreds of songs have been written, thousands of pageants have been performed, and millions of gifts have been exchanged on December 25th. The Pope’s latest book says our Christmas traditions are based on myth. If you want the Cliff notes version, Yahoo! News outlines “Five Surprising Facts about Christmas” in this post.

How many times was Jesus born?

Many contend that to be a Christian, you must absolutely positively believe the Bible’s accounts of Jesus’s birth and death. Fair enough, since religion typically requires unquestioning belief. But which accounts are we required to believe: Luke’s or Matthew’s? (Were you brave enough to take the poll in my previous post, Manger or Mary’s House?)

As discussed in that post, most of us haven’t noticed that the Bible cites two different locations for Jesus’s birth. Bible scholar Bart D. Ehrman says it’s because we read the Bible as we read other books: vertically, from the top of the page to the bottom, when it’s often more insightful to read it side-by-side.

To help his students glean more from the text, Ehrman asks them to list all the facts in a Bible story, then compare them with facts stated elsewhere. It’s a technique also used by the Rev. Gaylon McDowell, my New Testament teacher at Christ Universal Temple.

What I discovered when I did that exercise is that both narratives began and ended the same, but nothing else matched:

Contradictory Birth Narratives

If you’re interesting in learning and growing, I’d suggest that you try this technique with the Bible’s accounts of Jesus’s death and the days that followed. I think you’ll find it as insightful as the fact that the Book of James, written by Jesus’s brother, contains neither of these accounts.

How we missed it the first time

More fascinating, try this technique with the Great Flood story in Genesis, which claims that God couldn’t think of a better solution for man’s wickedness than to kill every living thing—including innocent infants, animals, fish and fauna. According to Bible and Torah scholars, five flood myths were woven together to Genesis. Because of that, you’ll need more than two columns on your page because the “facts” frequently contradict each other from one verse to another, not simply from one chapter or book to another.

Because we are told that the Bible is the inerrant “Word of God,” we typically dismiss or ignore inconsistencies. In other books, we’d consider it implausible for someone to be born in two different places. We’d easily notice that facts are changing from one sentence (or verse) to another.

With the Bible, we negotiate and reconcile blatant contradictions. That’s why we often see the star in Matthew’s story positioned over the stable and shepherds in Luke’s story. The wise men, who went to the house, are curiously standing near the shepherds and manger.

Why the facts don’t line up

Many believe the gospels were written by Jesus’s disciples. But based on the dates their gospels were written, Bible scholars agree that neither Matthew nor Luke ever met Jesus. They also note that the Book of James, written by Jesus’s brother, doesn’t mention the miraculous virgin birth involving his very own mother.

Matthew and Luke, however, were fervently committed to converting more followers to Judaism’s new sect, Christianity. Matthew crafted his birth narrative to attract more Jews by including as many elements as possible to link Jesus to the Jewish prophesies about the Messiah. In particular, it was important to establish that he was born in Bethlehem and from the lineage of King David. For good measure, he drew a parallel to Moses, who escaped the Pharoah’s mandate to kill newborn boys.

Luke’s aim was to convert everybody, Jew and Gentile. His birth narrative used imagery of common folk, shepherds, who rejoiced at the birth of the Messiah.

Both men realized that they needed a device to get Jesus to Nazareth after the birth. After all, he was known as Jesus of Nazareth, not Jesus of Bethlehem.

Does myth matter?

Completely lost in these tangled fables is the real significance of Jesus’s life: His message for us to love unconditionally and forgive untiringly, as exemplified by the father in the Prodigal Son parable. Another casualty: His admonitions for us to avoid judging and condemning each other.

If Jesus’s mission was to teach us that we are one with the father and to save us from committing sin by loving, forgiving and being nonjudgmental, have we belittled that mission by dedicating ourselves instead to errant words, unrelated traditions and worshiping the life story of mythical gods? If we haven’t honored Jesus’s teachings, as urged in his brother James’ book, what on Earth are we celebrating?

Manger or Mary’s House: Why does myth matter?

I saw an interview with theologian and bestselling author Dr. Bart D. Ehrman, who mused about polling his students on the first day of class at the Bible Belt university where he teaches. His first question: How many of you believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God? Practically every student’s hand shoots up.

Da Vinci Code Cover
More thoroughly read than the Bible?

Next, how many have read “The Da Vinci Code,” cover to cover? Again, almost every hand is in the air. How many have read the Bible, cover to cover? One or two.

It’s no surprise to Ehrman and other Bible scholars that people who haven’t read it or haven’t comprehended what they’ve read are the ones that believe it’s the inerrant word of God. Like him, I’m a bit fascinated by that phenomenon, although I’m sure we both understand that the language in the text can often be challenging.

Add nuances such as ancient ritual, cultural idioms and good old-fashioned hyperbole to the mix, and it’s even more difficult to separate fact from fiction. Jesus, Interrupted coverPlus, as Ehrman pointed out in his latest book. “Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them),” we tend to read the Bible vertically, from the top of the page to the bottom—the same way we read other books. And that could be a problem.

A problem? Yes. It’s probably the reason most who call ourselves Christians totally miss the fact that there are contradicting narratives of Jesus’s birth and death published in the Bible.

Most of us are confident that we know basic details about Jesus. Certainly, we know where he was born. More than likely, we don’t. Pretty weird, especially since we’ve attended dozens of Christmas pageants, even if we haven’t actually read the narratives in the Bible.

I’ll reveal the answer as we continue to explore whether myth matters, in the next post in this series.

Tuesday’s votes are already counted

"Vote" buttonA spiritual teacher I highly respect recently confided to me, “Contrary to the view I usually hold of human beings as inherently holy, I have trouble holding that view of one of the political candidates. I would have less trouble holding Hitler as holy; at least Hitler had some passion. This guy, no matter how hard I try to see him otherwise, seems empty, soulless, and zombie-like to me. And I wonder why I can’t seem to get past this with him. He makes me shudder.”

I could relate to her concern; but I couldn’t concur with her angst. That’s because while I fervently believe all souls are inherently holy, I don’t hold the same view of human beings. For me, “human” is the costume we’re wearing; it is not at all who we are.

The Body and Soul Disconnection

Distinguishing the mortal body from the immortal soul provides a different and deeper context for the drama on Earth’s stage. It enables me to watch the action from Life’s balcony more objectively, and opens me to the possibility that there is a script outline guiding the acts.

Paper ballots in boxesWhen you watch Life long enough from the balcony, you can glimpse evidence that “the script is already written.” This U.S. presidential election drama is no different: The votes were cast and counted eons ago, just as the evolution and devolution of this planet were obvious in the Big Picture.

A Body with a Soul or Vice Versa?

Let me explain: Imagine that you were made in the image of your Creator: immortal, invisible, and invincible. There is no beginning or end to you. You are soul, and as soul you have the free will to do whatever you want.

One day, you learn that something dramatically transformative was going to occur on teeny tiny planet Earth during the 21st century. Grand theater! You don’t have to watch it from afar; you can actually be part of it.

You survey the planet’s locales, and decide the perfect place and circumstances. You spot old friends over there who could be your parents and siblings. While their bodies sleep, you huddle with them and plan your entrance onto Earth’s stage. It’s all quite exciting, and what a break from the monotone life of soul: *Om*

But here’s the thing: You quickly discover that millions of other souls had the same idea. Bummer.

Entering Earth’s Stage

There you are, in the wings of Earth’s theater, surrounded by a swarm of souls patiently awaiting their stage cues. There’s no pushing or shoving. There’s no anxiety—with the exception of those who are returning to the stage because they bombed miserably in their previous performances.

Golden Rule on bronze bears statueThese bad actors have reason to dread the return. They violated a rule so simple and so basic that some call it golden: They treated others in ways they wouldn’t want to be treated. Now, they will be treated the way they treated others. Ergo, the queasy feeling in their celestial bellies. Diagnosis: Bad karma.

But enough of those unfortunate karma creators. You’d rather focus your attention on your temporary home, an intriguing location called the United States of America.

Intriguing is an understatement. This particular spot on Earth, considered the leader of the free world and a Christian country, paradoxically was founded and has been sustained for more than 200 years through acts of oppression, suppression, bigotry, injustice and violence—often under the guise of religion.

The Karmic Ricochet

America is in a “what-goes-around-comes-around” world. It is governed not by the laws of men, but by the Law of Karma. Some call it the Law of Attraction or the Law of Reciprocity. It all means the same.

Most of us don’t believe that because we’ve seen too many people fail to receive what they have given. But karma isn’t attached to people. People are merely human body costumes that souls wear during that bat-of-an-eyelash experience called a human lifetime.

We step out of our bodies, leaving them like a heap of gym clothes on a locker room floor. And the karma we created while wearing those bodies follows us, just as the glory or embarrassment of athletes’ performances follows them, not their uniforms. Karma is also attached to the soul of a nation.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

The karmic energy of this country, a mere molecule of this dust speck of a planet hanging in the massive universe, is seductive to those who revel in pain and discord. But it is just as attractive to souls who want to heal pain. That’s why you and I were so determined to be here now.

We knew about the karmic history of this place; some of us even helped create it. We knew that 2012 would signal a major turning point, a shift. We knew that the schisms and “isms” that have historically mired this nation had to be coaxed from the underbelly into the sunlight so that they and the nation could be healed. We also knew that one incredibly courageous actor would volunteer to be the target of the venom and the catalyst for the healing.

We’ve read the script. We know the outcome. The votes were cast and counted before most of us stepped onto the planet. Tuesday our body costumes will discover what we already know: whether or not this nation, through blatant disregard and disrespect for all of creation, will eat itself alive.

President Obama’s soul mission…revealed

As I watched the second inauguration of President Barack Obama this morning, I was reminded of a heart-pounding election prediction that I stumbled upon on September 7, 2012 in the most unlikely place: Facebook. At the time, national polls were yanking us every way but loose, as they predicted conflicting outcomes.

Polls, though scientific, are guesstimates; they’re based on human feedback, statistical probability and history. The election predictions on Esteban E. Ramirez’s Ete Light Facebook page, on the other hand, were based on spiritual feedback: He posted a collection of provocative messages that had been transmitted to and through him for more than a year from what he calls the “Higher Dimensions”—the ultimate balcony of Earth’s theater.

I was both astonished and relieved by the predictions. More important, these alleged spiritual messages confirmed what I suspected: Our life purpose is established before we arrive on this planet.

Obama was chosen to lead before birth

Are our life scripts already written?

I had my first conversation with Barack Obama in 1994. He was a young civil rights attorney who reviewed my housing discrimination case. I instantly trusted him. There was something earnest, yet sincere and empathetic about this young man.

The following year provided an opportunity for me to support him. I joined a small audience at a book signing for his autobiography, “Dreams for my Father,” in our Hyde Park neighborhood. It was his birthday, and several family members were there. The brilliantly written book was further evidence that Barack Obama was no ordinary being.

Embracing our greatness

When we come to the realization that we are not here randomly, that life does not begin with physical birth or end with physical death, we move more powerfully and fearlessly through the world. When we believe that we’re here for a purpose, we see clearly that all of our life scenes and props have been staged, and each actor has been cast to fulfill our purpose.

When we embrace the possibility that we, too, are not ordinary beings or mortal beings, we become increasingly aware that not only do we have a life script, we wrote it before entering the stage door of Earth’s theater and slipping into these human body costumes. When we know that physical life is not Life itself, posts such as Mr. Ramirez’s resonate with our hearts.

“President Obama will be re-elected, and this is no more a matter of politics now than it ever was. Often we have told you that the Golden Age master planners requested this soul from a highly evolved civilization to come to the planet specifically to fill one of the most strategic positions during this phase of Earth’s ascension out of third density and entry into fourth. And all of you agreed with this when you enthusiastically chose your own roles in this lifetime.” Spiritual message from July 2012, posted on Ete Light

A great “Being of Light”

I thought it highly unlikely that a U.S. Senate neophyte wearing a black human body costume would become President of these United States during my current lifetime. So, imagine my surprise when Spirit compelled me to tell Michelle at Barack’s senatorial victory party that they would be the first black family in the White House. She was as stunned to hear those words as I was to speak them.

I had no idea it would happen two short years later. It also didn’t cross my mind at the time that Barack, like all of us, has a soul history. If we are to believe the claims of those in the Higher Dimension, his history includes experience as a world leader.

What an ingenious strategy: If Spirit’s mission is to lure dark forces from their hiding places so that this nation can evolve, why not put a black man in the White House? That will force the Darkness, mouth foaming, from the deepest bowels of the Earth.

But who would agree to be the target of such hatred? Only a brave and committed soul who is fully aware, even while wearing a heavy human body, that he is immortal and therefore, invincible.

Obama prays
(AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

 “The vociferous and rancorous disagreements within the US government are not as they appear to be, a stubborn partisan bloc or inflexible ideological differences—it is the influence of the light and of the darkness being played out on the United States government stage.” ~Spiritual message, posted on Ete Light

Earth valiantly struggles to mimic Life

It is difficult for most of us to grasp the possibility that Earth itself is theater and that we are merely actors, immortal souls temporarily wearing human body costumes. But if you’re open to that possibility, consider: If we are immortal souls rather than human bodies, we could choose to be anywhere right now. If we chose to be on this planet, in this country, at this time, why? Perhaps we wanted to actively support this nation’s shift from barbaric conflict resolution and hatred to peace, love and enlightenment.

Most of us gave our spiritual energy, our votes, our activism and our dollars to this cause—as we agreed while standing in the wings of Earth’s stage. The curtain is still rising, if we are to believe Spirit’s message about the President that came through Ramirez in January 2011:

Barack Obama-2013 inauguration“His best work is still to come, and he is well aware of his destiny to lead the people out of the darkness. He is a highly spiritual soul and will, with our help and protection, work with us to speedily transform your experiences into ones of happiness and release from the Draconian laws that rule your lives.” January 2011 spiritual message, posted on Ete Light

Later in 2011, according to Ramirez, another significant message came through. It is most poignant on this Inauguration Day:

“Be aware that he is a great Being of Light, who is having to play a role that requires him to ‘play’ along with the dictates of those who advise him. He has achieved a degree of success even though he has faced opposition all along. He needs your continued support and love, and you will see him blossom and take charge once he can fully implement his own policies without interference.”

No wonder the President’s 2012 campaign slogan was “Forward.”

If you’d like to read all the Obama-related readings mentioned in Ramirez’s September 7, 2012 post,
visit: http://www.facebook.com/esteban.e.ramirez and search for that date.

Blowing up our violent god

I awoke this Sunday morning to a disturbing but not surprising newspaper story about a suburban Chicago teen, Adel Daoud, who tried to blow up a downtown bar full of patrons. His goal: To kill as many Americans as he could—and not just any Americans. He specifically targeted bar patrons with his car bomb because drinking alcohol is prohibited by Islam.

This was to be an act of jihad. The authoritative Dictionary of Islam defines jihad as: “A religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad … enjoined especially for the purpose of advancing Islam and repelling evil from Muslims.”

The teen reportedly told undercover agents that he wanted to make it clear that his jihad was a terrorist attack. He didn’t want Americans to dismiss it as just another act of a mentally ill person, specifically referencing the recent Aurora, Colorado movie theater massacre.

According to the criminal charges filed against him, Daoud allegedly sent an email declaring: “I am trying to do something [an attack] here [in the United States] . . . pray to Allah for my safety and that I’m successful in this life and the hereafter.”

His message gets to the heart of this drama: There are those who believe that their god sanctions the use of weapons of mass destruction. In fact, Allah will protect them in this life and reward them in the afterlife, if they successfully murder their disobedient brothers and sisters.

Gun-shaped Holy BibleShocked? Appalled? Can’t understand why anyone would believe something so preposterous?

You shouldn’t be surprised at all. Most Americans worship a God who solves problems by murdering humans. This angry, vindictive god is at the core of Judaism, Christianity and Islamic faiths.

In the first chapter of the Judeo-Christian Bible, God kills “every living thing”—from pregnant women and newborns to plants, trees and wildlife.

The body count rises as the book progresses. By some accounts, the Bible records God killing more than two million of His own children. By contrast, Satan kills a whopping 10.

But that’s not all: God orders us to lay waste to each other, too. Using Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, I counted more than 50 circumstances under which the so-called “word of God” mandates us to murder a member of our human family for the strangest of reasons. (Good thing we’re disobedient heathens. We’d all be serving life sentences in state and federal prisons.)

Bible says God killed more people than Satan
dangerousintersection.org

For example, the Bible tells us that children who curse their parents “shall surely be put to death.” (Exodus 21:17) Women who are not virgins when they marry “shall be executed.” (Deut. 22:13-21).

Is this the word of God or merely insight into the controlling behaviors of ancient men, as recorded by scribes? Did God become less inhumane, as some would have us believe, when they contrast the God of the Old Testament with the God of the New Testament? Or is it more likely that humans gradually evolved beyond these particular barbaric behaviors?

If the Almighty can’t think of a more humane way to solve problems, how can mere mortals be expected to do so?

It’s a compelling question that attorney Eric Veith approached from a different angle in his March 2007 post on the Dangerous Intersection blog, “Does reading violent scripture make people violent?”  Veith cited a study that had recently been released in which researchers asked 500 students to read a violent Bible passage.

Half of the students were allowed to read through to the conclusion of the Old Testament story. Only those students knew that God had ordered members of select Israeli tribes to retaliate for a woman’s murder by completely destroying several cities. (Perhaps a precursor to the urban riots following the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination?)

Researchers then conducted an exercise to measure the students’ aggression after reading the violent passages. Here’s what they discovered:

Those who were told that God had sanctioned the violence . . . were more likely to act aggressively.

Let’s connect the dots: Our beliefs about God—what God is and what God does—informs, supports and sometimes even dictates our actions. The behavior of humans throughout recorded history reflects this. The results of this study merely punctuate it.

The violence we now experience on a daily basis, in the Middle East and America’s inner cities, reflects our thinking and our beliefs. And it reminds us why we have been told to let peace “begin with me”: As long as one of us worships a God who solves problems by murdering, torturing, crucifying, condemning, harshly judging and angrily retaliating against members of the human family, none of us will have peace.

What is it that you believe about God?

The politics of hate: What it means for us

From the balcony during this political season, I’ve noticed that most of the American actors on Earth’s stage are campaigning in their own heads, whether or not they’re running for office. Hatred, which many have cloaked for a few decades since it became politically incorrect, is once again basking in the light of day.

A village in Kenya is missing its idiot.
(c) zazzle.com

Hatred is uniquely human. It’s taught and perpetuated by those who have relinquished control of the greatest part of themselves to the weakest part: the ego. Like the ego, hate’s life blood is the illusion of separation. Like the ego, hate preaches that others are different, less than we are. Consequently, we are not obligated to respect them.

Haters are being played like a fiddle. The ego is strumming their laziness and gullibility, and chortling while they create more drama and karma debt than they can repay in a lifetime. No doubt, they’ll return as the hated.

Let’s not get it twisted: Haters are not “the other.” They’re like the rest of us: too lazy to find out who we really are beneath these human costumes and so gullible that we believe Ego’s claims: We’re merely human. We’re separate from each other and from the Divine. Life is hard, unfair and scary.

No wonder we needed a rabbi to save us! Lord knows, he tried.

But Ego got us so entangled in the bad storytelling about the rabbi’s birth and death that we overlooked the life-saving teachings he left behind. For example, he reportedly said: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”  

The “Law” to which he referred is karmic law, that immutable Universal Truth that declares: We reap what we sow.

“Rubbish!” We hear Ego screaming. “How many times have you seen people hurt others and get away with it?”

We have to admit, Ego’s got a point. Heck, we’ve even seen innocent people serve prison time after being wrongly convicted.

Life simply isn’t fair, we conclude. That’s precisely the conclusion that Ego wanted us to draw.

Here’s what Ego doesn’t want us to know: We’re not “people.” We’re currently cast as “people” on Earth’s stage, temporarily dressed in mortal costumes. In reality, we are souls, made in the invisible, invincible and immortal image of our Creator. We’ve been alive since The Beginning. And we’ll be alive forever. (It’ll take some of us that long to work off the karma we’ve created.)

As long as we believe that we’re mortal, we’re going to sow shortsighted behaviors such as hatred that we’re going to have to reap at some point in our eternal lives. You see, Dear Souls, everything we do while wearing a human body costume will return to us at the most perfect time, in the most perfect way.

Just because you don’t believe that Life is eternal or that karma isn’t a law doesn’t mean that it isn’t. If Life isn’t eternal and if karma isn’t real, the worst that can happen is that you treat others the way you’d want to be treated. But if it is true, and you treat others in ways that you would not want to be treated, speaking to them the ways you wouldn’t want them to speak to you, disrespecting them even though you would not want to be disrespected, hurting them even though you wouldn’t want to be hurt, hating them even thought you would not want to be hated, refusing to forgive them even though you would want to be forgiven, the worst that can happen to you is horrific.

You might not be able to see it from Earth’s stage. But from where we’re sitting, you’re always carrying the debit or credit card called karma. So go on and hate if you want to. Eventually, you’ll have to balance your karmic bank account. And sooner or later in your eternal life you’ll figure out that if you’re not factoring in the karmic consequences of all your actions, the only one you really hate is yourself.

Can you have faith without religion?

God is so reliable. I was perusing my list of blog post ideas, looking for inspiration, when one caught my eye: Can you have faith without religion?

F is for Faith
The substance of things hoped for, The evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1, KJV

It’s a compelling question, especially since an increasing number of Americans now describe themselves as “spiritual, not religious.” One study reports that as many as 33% self-identify as such. I am among them.

Before I could expound on some of the reasons millions today believe God is spirit [John 4:24], rather than an angry, judgmental and vindictive Being who lives beyond the farthest star, a browser tab caught my eye. I typically have at least a dozen browser tabs visible. They’re frequently visited sites, including CNN, The Weather Channel, a couple of unfinished books on Kindle Cloud Reader, Facebook and Twitter, and sites related to whatever research I’m conducting. Right now I have 18 tabs at the ready.

It was Facebook that lured me from my writing. At the top of my news feed was a story, “My Neighbor’s Faith: The rabbi and the Christian cab driver.” I was instantly intrigued.

Rabbi Brad Hirschfield recounted the time he hopped into a Syracuse cab and was stunned to discover “JESUS LOVES YOU” stickers on practically every surface of the interior. The dashboard bore a crucifix; pocket Bibles hung from the windshield. He quipped, “This wasn’t just a cab, it was a rolling cathedral!”

The scruffy looking cabbie asked the rabbi what he thought of Jesus, and why he didn’t believe Jesus was his path to salvation. The rabbi’s response was profound:

“I can believe that Jesus is a great teacher without believing that he is God’s son and the only path to salvation. One truth doesn’t negate the other. I can love Jesus in my way. And you can love Jesus in yours. There is room for both of our understandings of Jesus. I don’t believe that you have to be wrong for me to be right.”

“I don’t believe that you have to be wrong for me to be right.” The words hit the cabbie like a ton of bricks.

I felt a punch in the gut, too. Why? Because I’m keenly aware that the Loud Mouth can be as strident and judgmental as those who describe themselves as religious, particularly those who describe themselves as Christians.

God's wrath was aimed at you. Jesus took it. Don't reject him.Many Christians criticize those who don’t believe that we need to be saved from God’s judgment and eternal punishment. I, on the other hand, criticize anyone who believes that God is judgmental, sadistic and unforgiving. Neither position reflects Yeshua’s (aka Jesus) teachings.

Days ago, I expressed to a Facebook friend that I wanted to be more mindful of Jesus’s admonition to “judge not” and “condemn not.” It obviously put the spiritual wheels in motion.

Enter Rabbi Hirschfield, stage right: “Why do religious people have to be wrong for you to be right, Pat?”

I’m sure he is only the first of many who will offer me opportunities to rise above my Virgo propensity to criticize and analyze.

Rabbi Hirschfield didn’t say that I have to believe that God is an angry, judgmental, genocidal and vindictive Being who lives in the sky. I don’t have to believe that God’s forgiveness has strings attached, or that God solves problems by killing, banishing, forsaking or sadistically torturing anyone to death. I also don’t have to believe that sadistically torturing an innocent child to death is a divine way to demonstrate one’s love for the guilty children.

What he said was that others don’t have to be wrong for believing any or all of these things. Another great Jewish rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, probably would concur: “Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet,” he reportedly said.

I have faith that I can shake the dust off my feet. I can give others loving allowance to believe whatever they want and worship whatever kind of God they want. I have faith that I can practice Jesus’s teachings until they are second nature: Love my neighbor as myself; forgive 70 times 7; judge not; condemn not; God is within.

I have faith that I can experience and radiate the Christ within me, as he did. I have faith that with practice, I will grow in love so consistently that I’m will not be the person I was the day before.

Where Is God?

I was absentmindedly watching the flight information screen as we ascended toward Istanbul from Cairo, and noticed a little factoid that had previously escaped me: The outside temperature. It was plummeting by the second. Before I switched screens to scroll through my movie choices, it was -98°F out there—almost 200° cooler than the Sahara.

It's FREEZING up here!
It's F-F-FREEZING up here!

I peered out the window. Why does anyone in the 21st century still believe that God lives above the clouds? I wondered. And why would anyone human want to, especially since we also believe our physical bodies are going to reconstitute for the ascension? What earthly bodies can sustain themselves up here?

Isn’t it interesting how we get so firmly entrenched in other people’s stories that they take on a life of their own (and ours)? The ancients, who hadn’t traveled above the clouds or to other planets, offered us their beliefs. We should thank them and catalog their beliefs for archival purposes, a reference point.

Instead, we revere their vision of a huge man-clone who lives in the frigid sky. We hold that caricature, with all his violent and sociopathic personality traits, close to our bosoms. And how is that working for us?

Humans fear the uncontrollable. That’s why we’ve confined God to a box: a religion box, a denomination box, and a place in the sky box. But how do we build a relationship with this sky-dwelling god of the ancients’ vivid imaginations? How do we feel secure when God is heaven knows how far away? How do we convince ourselves that this condescending god who can’t forgive us without torturing someone to death really loves us? How do we  love someone so diabolical and distant—and who considers us so vile? Or do we simply feign love because we’re afraid to claim otherwise?

On this or any Sunday, did we find God in the places we looked? Or have we simply found it safer to keep the God we met at church as far away from us as we can?