A bit of a swing off my usual path today. I have readers all over the world, so, this post is not trying to be an affront to any religious beliefs (whatever they may be) but a comment on how many religious autocrats over the centuries have worked to keep us subjugated to an idea of personal powerlessness. Just like many seem to be waiting for some kind of superman (or even aliens) to come and save us all from our own folly, so do many expect a deity (whatever name you use) to save us all, or to stop the bad things from happening.
In times of stress people naturally turn to some higher authority to resolve their problems. Many use their religions while atheists rely on the technocrats – either way, it is too often a subjugation of individual power to a higher authority. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad to believe in a higher authority but don’t give yourself to it without question and blame it for your life as you live it.
Blackrock and Vanguard (see recent post Saving the world through Meetings? – A Rant, WEF, COP26, etc. – Part 2 {November 2021}) own most of the mainstream media and they are busy dictating our perceptions of reality so that what you experience is what they are guiding you to experience – a little ‘me’ with no power. The good news is that people are waking up to the fact that mainstream media all too often lies to us and spends so much time driving fear as a primary factor of control. The excuse is that only bad news sells. For example, many fear flying in planes even though planes are statistically the safest way to travel – but plane crashes do make for a great headline. Before the advent of our modern news, the royal and religious elites promoted fear as a way of controlling the masses – control their reality and you find it easier to control them. Do it fearfully and you keep their attention. Nazi leader and head propagandist Joseph Goebbels knew this well.
The sub-title of this post is about personal responsibility. I too often read about people doing strange stuff and claiming that the Devil made them do it, or God spoke to them to justify very unholy acts of violence. For whatever reasons, we make our own decisions, and all too often try to push the blame for a bad decision onto some higher authority. It’s a Separation Theology where the Deity is up there and we are down here and everything is separate from everything else. A result of this is that it creates separation at the ecological and social level that allow a Separation Pathology (pathological behavior that creates suffering, violence, conflict and death). And this has been going on for millennia. Separation doesn’t mean we don’t do traditional tribalism where we create myriad sects of us and them. Use common sense and critical thinking to know when that is happening. Recognize seductive propaganda – it always speaks to the confirmation biases of your deepest beliefs.
I like and identify with Albert Einstein on his views about deities. When Einstein gave lectures at U.S. universities, the recurring question that students asked him most was, “As a scientist, do you believe in God?” and he always answered, “I believe in the God of Spinoza.” Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with Descartes. He wrote about his perspectives of God that didn’t mesh with the Christian Church teachings about God – so he was a heretic in his day for challenging the hierarchies of religion. Many modern-day gurus talk about God the same way e.g., Neale Donald Walsh (Conversations with God). So, what did Spinoza say that infuriated the leaders so much?
Spinoza imagined a conversation with a God that wasn’t trying to keep us in fear and dread of doing things wrong with everlasting torment for not following dictates:
- Stop praying with supplications. Lack is based on your own choices. Choose differently. What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life whatever it brings. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I’ve made for you.
- Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, and beaches. That’s where I live, and there, I express my love for you.
- Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don’t blame me for everything they made you believe.
- Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have little to do with me. If you can’t read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your child’s eyes… you will find me in no book!
- Stop asking me “will you tell me how to do my job or how to live better?” Stop being so scared of me. I do not judge you or criticize you, nor get angry, or bothered. I am pure love. Live as you want to live, not as you are expected to live by the hierarchy and your peers.
- Stop asking for forgiveness, there’s nothing to forgive. If I made you… I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies… free will. How can I blame you if you respond to something I put in you? How can I punish you for being the way you are, if I’m the one who made you? Do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of eternity? What kind of God would do that?
- Respect your peers and don’t do what you don’t want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in all things in your life: that alertness is your guide.
- My beloved, this life is not a test, not a step on the way, not a rehearsal, nor a prelude to paradise. This life is the only thing here and now and it is all you need.
- I have set you absolutely free, no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record. You are absolutely free to create in your life. Heaven or hell. Don’t blame your bad choices on me, make better choices.
- I can’t tell you if there’s anything after this life but I can give you a tip. Live as if there is not. As if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist. So, if there’s nothing after, then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is, rest assured that I won’t ask if you behaved right or wrong, I’ll ask. Did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?…
- Stop simply believing in me; believing is assuming, guessing, imagining. I don’t want you to believe in me, I want you to believe in you. I want you to feel me in you when you kiss your beloved, when you tuck in your little child, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in the sea, when you climb a height and see the world spread out before you.
- Stop praising me. What kind of egomaniac God do you think I am? I’m bored of being praised. I’m tired of being thanked. Feeling grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the world. Express your joy! That’s the way to praise me.
- Stop complicating things and repeating as a parakeet what you’ve been taught about me. What do you need more miracles for? So many explanations?
- The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders.
– Spinoza
There are so many people around the world that are now atheists or agnostics. I believe in a more science-based aspect of the divine and the mystical. Whatever you believe is OK, my point is that we take personal responsibility for our actions and ‘Live and Let Live.’ I think that humans achieve their greatest successes when challenges are hardest, because that is when we find our collective humanity and connectedness. It’s all about freewill. I don’t think you don’t need to pray to some deity to create a better life. Instead, find your spiritual sovereignty in your personal purpose, meaning and creativity arising from somewhere greater than yourself. The closing lines of one of my favorite stories; (Movie – 2010: Odyssey 2, from book by Arthur C. Clarke): “All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace.” Not a bad line to apply to us here on Earth – All this world is ours. Use it together. Use it in peace.
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