Saturday, March 29, 2008

Who Wrote the Gospels?

There is a common misperception concerning the origin of canonical gospel accounts. Widely taken as dogma is the misinformation that the gospels are eyewitness accounts. The gospels weren’t written by the apostles or immediate disciples. The authors are cognizant of Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 A.D., so their narratives were not written until at least 40 years or more after Jesus lived. We don’t know who the authors were, only that they attached the name of esteemed leaders to their work in order to gain respect. The gospel writers didn’t see anything they wrote about, rather they recorded stories about Jesus and set them in a scenario paralleling stories in the Jewish calendar. They put the words of the Old Testament Prophets in his mouth to confirm his calling. The writer of Mark copied down portions of the mass of arcane, esoteric wisdom, which had been transmitted for centuries orally in the mystery religions and wrapped them around Jesus. Then Matthew copied Mark and added “The sayings of Jesus” corpus found in another source called Q for Quelle, German for source. Q was discovered by subtracting the text of Mark found in Matthew and Luke. Q is the common material left in Matthew and Luke after the removal of Mark. Evidently, the Gospel of Mark was less popular than the Gospel of Peter in the second century. More copies of the Gospel of Peter have been found than of Mark.
Because of the similarities found in two other early manuscripts, it appears that the substratum for Luke came from ‘The Gospel of the Lord’ by Marcion, bishop in a pre-existing Docetic church, which worshipped a non-historical, non-incarnate Christ. This network of ecclesia known as the Therapuetia pre-dates Paul. Jews initiated in pagan mystery cults formulated the resurrection story. Horus the Christ and Mithra the Christ were prototypes for Jesus the Christ.
In fact, Paul’s letters were written before the gospels. He never mentions a virgin birth. That theme had not been applied to Jesus as yet. Mark does not mention a virgin birth either, but Matthew and Luke borrow from the treasure trove of esoteric allegory to crown Jesus with this halo. The militant church summarily destroyed the records of the myths they plagiarized. The infamous burning of the Alexandrian library plunged the western world into the dark ages. Only after the Enlightenment has the ancient knowledge of Egypt, India, and Persia that inspired the bible come to light.
Realizing that the Bible is only the word of men, albeit inspired and holy, we are freed from the dilemma of answering to the unjust God portrayed in the Old Testament. When the scripture contradicts the spirit of love, we know the scripture errs. We are not befuddled by seeming exhortations to subordinate women or discriminate against homosexuals. Our own conscience, the spark of divinity in all of us, dictates to our heart that all people are equal. God is love and we can be sure that ‘God is “not” on our side’, if we take the side of aggressor even when that oppressor is Israel. “Hallelujah’ we don’t have to be prejudice, even if the Bible prescribes it.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Good News according to Mark

A casual reading of the parallel gospels causes one to realize that there are many differences in the synoptic writings. It is now accepted by Bible scholars that Mark was the first gospel written. It is indeed the shortest and along with the lost manuscript Q forms the core of the other gospels. It is revealing to recognize the way Matthew and Luke edit Mark. A few examples reveal Matthew and Luke's intentions. For instance, Mark frequently relates how Jesus was often angry. Mark 3:5,21;10:14;11:15. Matthew and Luke omit or sanitize these verses. Why? Maybe they didn't want to portray Jesus with this all too human emotion. Mark 3:7-22 says that Jesus healed 'many'. Matthew and Luke when relating this story, say that Jesus healed 'them all'. Evidently they didn't want their readers to doubt Jesus' power. Mark says that Jesus' relatives thought him a madman. Matthew and Luke omit this incident. Did they not want people to consider that Jesus' own family doubted him? We begin to see a pattern of Matthew and Luke downplaying Jesus' humanity and playing up his divinity. Mark 6:2-3 says Jesus was a 'carpenter'. Matthew 13:55 says Jesus was a 'carpenter's son.' Being a carpenter was a lowly position, but being the son of a carpenter was less of a smear. Mark6:4-13 says Jesus was 'unable to perform a single miracle.' Later gospels say 'not many miracles.' They refuse to admit Jesus' limitations. Mark 10 has Jesus say, "Why do you call me good?" Matthew 19 quotes Jesus, "Why do you ask me about the good?" Is Matthew editing this verse to play down Jesus' humility? In Mark 10:32-45, James and John quarrel about their place in the kingdom. Matthew in 20:20, changes this episode to deflect demeaning attitude from the apostles and has their mother Salome make the request. Mark 11:1-11 quotes
Daniel but changes 'donkey' to 'colt.' He doesn't want Jesus seen riding on an animal of derision but on an animal emblematic of Roman royalty. Mark 11 tells the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree. The other gospels omit this incident showing Jesus' human frustration. Mark 14:50 tells us that 'all' the disciples abandoned Jesus. The later writers copying Mark saw fit to omit this story that paints the disciples in bad light. Mark 15 praises women for their devotion to Jesus and their important place in his ministry. The later gospels downplay or eliminate women's role. All of these redactions make obvious that each word of the Bible is not to be taken literally or as inspired verbatim. We see the human element at play. Moreover, we realize that layers were added to the original story. Mark mentions neither a virgin birth or a resurrection. His Jesus is totally human. The later gospels develop his divinity. So what is the good news of Mark? Jesus was just like us. He accessed the kingdom of God within, and so can we. The Holy Spirit is our birhtright, even it we don't realize our dividne potential We don't need to find God, we are never lost. We live and move and have our being in God.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

"imagine! no religion" or "the good samaritan"

Devotional

No time for politics and religion, when families get together for more pressing and intimate issues. Love is the currency we share when counting our blessings. ‘Who’s right and who’s wrong’ doesn’t belong when comforting is the obvious immediate need. Jesus’ greatest and hardest teaching was to treat, love the least of these like family. Seek ye first the kingdom means when in all of our exchanges we seek the best and blessing of those who are indeed Jesus in disguise. The greatest virtue according to Jesus is to love God and neighbor. Our love for God is measured by our love for neighbor. We can’t fix the slums of the world, but we can treat the ‘untouchables ‘ with dignity. Each person is a child of God. The spirit connects us all. We are one. To be able to develop that sort of sympathy for the pathetic is a sign of sainthood. I may not be able to manifest that love, but Jesus does not hold that against me. He is our ideal, not our icon. Our advocate, not our judge. I may have the wrong concept of who Jesus was or what he did for me, no doubt I do, but I trust his love for me will not betray my heartfelt trust regardless of my theological bent.
‘All you need is love, because Love is God.
A simple exercise to form this mind as was in Christ is easy when you fly. We live and move and have our being in God. God as spirit permeates the universe as consciousness incarnate. We are souls with bodies and not bodies with souls; we are essentially consciousness, the spark where spirit meets matter. Our brain limits thought and captures like an antennae only part of the thought wavelength that is out there. Our brain doesn’t generate thought but focuses it like a lens. To gain this perspective, imagine looking down at yourself from above. Take the big picture if you will, like God might have. This is easy for people who have experienced near death or mystical trips. From this place, our directive comes from above, that is higher self, God. We see our bodies as what they truly are, instruments of the divine will. In flying we can actually experience this separation from the bodies, astral and physical. I am not my body. Being Oversoul becomes our sensation. Flying is always a near death experience and therefore a teachable moment when the veil between worlds is thin.
When you say your prayers next time, try this.
“God, help David to see your will.
God, help him to see your will.”
See yourself in the second and third person. We are the part of the mind behind the plot. My character is me; therefore I think I am. Love is something if you give it away. David is afraid, but I AM will enfold him and lift him up on eagle’s wings. I see my self from 30,000 feet and know I am dreaming awake. At night my body sleeps but my mind is free of flesh and ego, I am all seeing and all knowing. When I land I put on my shoes and slip back into my body, but I trail blurry visions like cosmic dust after a comet. My brain is a galaxy and my thoughts take forever, but prayers are faster than light. God is my co-pilot, God is my plane. God is the air, and God is the rain. God is the cloud, and God is the ground. God is the lightning, and God is the wing. God is the stewardess, God is the sun. God is the runway, God is One.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

A True American

A TRUE AMERICAN
I recently got an email from a friend, a chain letter in the form of
‘You might be Redneck… if…’
It stated you might be a true American
If:
You think the Ten Commandments belong in the courthouse
And
Believe there should be a law against burning the flag.
There were other litmus tests I don’t remember
But;
First, let me say I believe I’m a true American
Born here, love it.
As much as I love this country’s beauty and abundance,
I love its constitution and bill of rights.
There is a reason for separation of church and state.
Would you want the book of Mormon Or Koran quoted?
Besides, what if we actually followed the Leviticus law?
Moses required death for breaking these laws,
Stoning to death!!
Is that what we want?
How about posting the golden rule instead?
All religions agree on this precept.
‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
It is truly un-American to suggest a religious test for patriotism.
It scares me that I could be determined a ‘national security threat’
Because I don’t believe a whale swallowed Jonah.

And about burning the flag,
It burns me that people can’t seem to fathom what the flag stands for,
Freedom
Freedom of speech,
Freedom to express conscience,
Freedom to protest,
Freedom to burn a flag.
Freedom is virtue,
The flag is only a symbol.
I sometimes wonder if people can think in abstracts,
Or else they could understand that dissent is patriotic!
The people lending their opinions are what democracy is all about.
Reasoning people see the value of dispute.
Again, am I un-American
Because I understand that opportunity to speak your mind
Without fear or reprisal
Is more important than any icon.
Am I an enemy combatant
Because I burn a piece of cloth?

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

bye bye american pie

Sept. 29, 2006

Bye bye American Pie

Do you remember learning about the Magna Carta when you were in grade school? Faint recollections of it being the basis of modern law should stick in your brain. Since 1215 the writ of habeas corpus has been the corner stone of human rights. That is a person, any person has the right to appear in court and face their accuser. The Republican congress over threw that law yesterday. In a real sense, George Bush is now a legal dictator. He can throw any body he wants to in jail without any due process.
This aberration of the constitution and Geneva Convention was supposedly done to fight terrorism, but in process destroys our democracy. Consider that presidents take an oath to ‘protect the constitution’. Bush turns that around and says his job is to protect the people and shreds the bill of rights in the process of playing on our fears. ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ is no longer our battle cry.
Bush is essentially covering his ass, because of the war crimes he has already committed. The privilege has now been granted him to torture with impunity. So-called enemy combatants could be someone who donates to a Muslim relief organization, a clergy person who is a peace advocate, or non-violent protesters. Now (innocent until proven) people can be disappeared (rendition) without a trace and tortured without recourse.
Politicians who opposed this bill are called unpatriotic and weak on terror. I would say supporters of this bill are saboteurs of the constitution and strong on fear. We are no longer the land of the free and home of the brave, but land of the restrained and home of the afraid.
I am greatly saddened and would say vote these scoundrels out of office, but of course we are faced with the specter of two stolen elections already. Touch screen voting eliminates a paper trail and any evidence of a fair election. Diebold machines are easy to program to fix the vote. Honestly, I feel pretty helpless, I can only pray and dialogue and hope and call my congressperson and carry a sign.

BOMB IRAN –NO!!!!!

ps the Democrats have since won congress, but the privitazation of elections still looms as a danger to democracy,
'caging' is a repubilican trick where they mail certified letters to black disticts and if the letters are returned they remove them from the voting roll, most of these people are democrats and many are soldiers in IRAQ

Questions to Answers

Questions to Answers




A studied layman’s effort to explain bible criticism, offer grace to the guilt-ridden, and encourage faith, hope, and love.


A staff person for CFE, child evangelism fellowship, witnessed to me by demonstrating a bracelet she used with children. Green was God, who was good. Black was our sin that made us too dirty for heaven. Red was Jesus' blood that washed us. White were Christians clean enough for heaven. I wept. Emotion overwhelmed me for some reason I'm not sure of. Maybe i was a little upset for being being treated like a five year old. I have a Masters degree in Theology, and I was being lectured like I had nothing to say. Maybe I was sad for the seemingly impossibility of communication with someone with such credulity. I was not able to agree (or disagree other than in silence), but in my heart I believed only the green, God is good. A few years later I witnessed a puppet show at Christmas using color-coding again, only the coding was different. The thumb was gold, representing heaven. The index was black, indicating hell. Red was Jesus blood of course. White was washed clean, and green was now growth in God. A color was added and one was switched. But white was still highly regarded, black(negra) was evil, and somehow blood is able to unsoil and sanitize. I have changed my theology as well. I see God not as green, but as white. God like white contains all colors, and only our filters of reason and religion deflect the colors we see. Like a movie projector casts a drama onto the screen by filtering white light, God everywhere present as consciousness, manifests by the bending of the light in our minds. God is television broadcast and we are the TV set. Omniscience sometimes seeps through the doors of perception as mystical visions, clairvoyance, déjà vu, synchronicity, answered prayer, and madness.
This metaphor of creation by subtraction is handy when considering origins. If god created out of nothing, then what created God? Maybe God didn't create out of nothing, but created out of infinite potential, which is white light. All things are possible to God, so what we see only enters reality through a glass darkly. The evidence of the Big Bang is much more convincing then Genesis, the question now is what is on the other side? Gravity in a vacuum seems to be the answer. Einstein hinted at it with the cosmological constant. We now know about spacetime singularities providing the repulsive force for the primeval fireball. Like an out breath, the universe is not born but re-born. We are expanding for billions of years only to contract for billions of years when 'God' gets another opportunity. Is God the creator, or is God the creation of consciousness. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? According to quantum mechanics, the chicken crossed to the other side of the road to go through a wormhole. Reason suggests that the only process capable of creating God is evolution. Its time we let go of cosmologies invented out of deep recesses of our collective psyche as comfort for our soul. These world views squelch our imagination and censor saving discoveries. We can meet our emotional needs without embracing preposterous fantasies.


Growing up in a functional, religious family, I had no problem believing in the God served up to me at church potlucks. I learned to love Jesus over baked beans and 'deviled' eggs. Sumptuous casseroles validated for me the miraculous feeding of the multitudes. Challenging the Bible was always pointless to me, because I had no problem believing in miracles. I believed God could do anything. After all, that's what gods did. Miracles made perfect sense in the supernatural world of the Bible. I found comfort in an all-powerful deity that loved me. I could enlist his majestic powers in my humble endeavors. If our football team prayed to God, he would help us win. We didn't always win, so I just figured the other team prayed harder or was his favorite for privileged reasons.
My opinion was that other cultures just hadn't heard the 'good news' yet. As for the 'bad ' people, hell is what they deserved. You might say I was a 'good ole boy.' My faith, never tested, had a moral certitude. Being a curious and spiritually inclined, I was susceptible to the fundamentalist movement sweeping the country in the wake of the liberalism of the 60's. The 'second coming' was never preached in my Presbyterian church, and the 'late great Planet Earth' was a surprise when I read it in college. Shocked! My eyes opened to a whole another realm. Scripture not only predicted the future, but also could be used like the I Ching to plan my day. 'Speaking in tongues' was a sign of the ' Second blessing', and I wanted it all. I never learned to babble though I was prayed over and anointed with holy oil and laid on with hands. Someone with the gift of discernment decided I had a demon of lust. No doubt I did, I was 22 years old, but it could not be exorcised by any amount of bible thumping or otherworldly incantations. Eventually my faith faltered. My doubts first take root in the confusion I felt about my 'lost' friends and family, people I loved, who hadn't been born-again. I really couldn't believe they were going to hell. I prayed and fasted and read the Word and witnessed and never felt peace of mind. Maybe my faith was weak, or maybe I was not one of the elect! No less of a conundrum was the violent, unambiguous slaughter of innocent women and children in an ethnic cleansing of the 'holy land, countenanced by the Almighty. There was a too obvious disconnect between the golden rule and cruel and unusual punishment meted out by Jehovah. Bluntly stated, if the Bible is true, then God is a jealous, insecure, bloodthirsty tyrant.
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Was the Bible accurately describing what the wandering Israelites believed about God, or were they adapting myths they picked up in Egypt for their own purpose of creating a national persona. If the O.T. genuinely reflects Jewish thinking, then their theology was woefully inadequate. If their purpose was to create a national myth, they did well. If the plagues were real, then God slaughtered innocent children. Jehovah's tactics were more sadistic then merciful and strategically abhorrent, using mass killings as a means to an end. If the exodus is an embellishment of an event in history, an exaggeration you might say, then Moses was the perfect character, almost a god himself. After all, he had a 'one on one' with the almighty. The first commandment reinforces Moses' power by authorizing his priesthood, “thou shall have no other gods before me.” Before whom? Before Moses' god!! Moses' lineage is claiming divine rights by fabricating these legends.
The Israelites were anxious to throw off their shackles, but they emerged out of Egypt having been influenced in not so subtle ways. They blatantly aired their religious baggage, as they backslid into nature worship, witness the 'golden calf'. Poignantly, it is idolatry that is God's pet peeve. Polytheism is at the top of his list of dont's. Nothing pisses him off like whoring after other gods. He admits to a murderous jealousy. According to the injunction against having any other gods before Jehovah, there are other gods. Moses' monotheism required that these gods be abolished. Egyptian legends were transformed by the Hebrews into stories glorifying a god of their own choosing by claiming he chose them. The patriarchs replaced the Egyptian deities as the heroes in these epics older than time. While the core of the myths survived in different contexts, the plot lines made heroes of different protagonists. Cosmic intervention was a writer's method that served to guarantee the righteousness of their tribal cause. Charismatic characters defined the destiny of the children of Abraham in divine drama, a historical fiction meant to validate heaven's favor and eternal privilege. The heroes of the O.T. compose a rouge’s gallery. Cheats, liars, cowards, murderers, and prostitutes are counted among the saints, but 'Woe' to anyone who creates a graven image. These people practiced human sacrifice, but they better not take the Lord's name in vain.


John 6:10 says that Jesus fed 5,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fishes, whereas Mark 8:8 and Matthew 15:37 say it was 7 loaves, a few fish and 4,000 people. which of these different numbers is the word of god?. When did Jesus cleanse the temple? John says Jesus swept out the moneychangers at the beginning of Passion Week, while the Synoptics say he did it at the end. According to the logic of literalists, if the bible says it, then it must be true, therefore Jesus cleansed the temple twice. The Bible must be the Word of God, because it says it is.

I'm beginning to sound a little facetious I know, but I'm only trying to test your faith. What doesn't kill it will only make it stronger, right? Well, if your faith dies, but is resurrected, then it is stronger than ever. Consider my objective the rebirth of Christianity. Critical study of the bible can be a crucifixion of faith, if you take scripture literally. We shall take it seriously. Does saving faith depend on accepting Jonah's plight as fact? Can you be a Christian and believe in evolution? Read on! I've got lots of good questions. And you have the answer in your heart.
Once in the north frontier, a native asked a missionary if the natives would go to hell, if they had never heard the gospel. The missionary assured them god's grace extends to those who never have the opportunity to accept or reject Jesus. The native replied, “Then, why did you tell us?” To undo two thousand years of proselytizing and crusades is a noble goal I suppose. These ramblings are aimed at uncovering the doubts, fears, reservations, and uncertainties that clutter and cover our convictions and confidence like litter in an archeological dig. To get to the foundation of faith, we must sift carefully through the dust of centuries with a fine-tooth comb of scrutiny. What we find, what remains, stands the test of time.
One might say the three pillars of religion that endure among ancient relics are 'faith, hope, and love.' These virtues are a continuous motif in tabernacle, temple, church, and mosque. These highest of human qualities compose the essence of the soul. It is the image of god that allows us to love. Hope is the inheritance of creatures a little lower than the angels. Faith sets us apart from the animals. But the greatest of these is love, at least, so says the apostle Paul. Of course, today's churches put all the emphasis on 'faith'. It all depends on what you 'believe.' If you accept the gospel, then you'll go to heaven. And “accept', in contemporary terms, means believing in miracles; that is, insisting against unbelief that Jesus rose from the dead, and furthermore, that his blood was propitiation for your sins, and that Jesus was born of a virgin, and that the serpent beguiled Eve. People say they could believe that Jonah swallowed the whale, if the Bible said it.
What's really more important? Faith or love? I don't always agree with Paul, but he's right on this issue. Love is most important. Faith can never be proven. Faith is what sustains us when we are uncertain. Faith is our willingness to face the unknown and not be afraid. Faith is courage in the faint whisper from behind the veil, faith is trust in a benevolent mystery, and faith is an assurance in our own spirit. But love is greater.
Faith is basically confidence in god's love, despite the evidence. Is Jesus' crucifixion a sign of the son's love, or an indication of God's wrath? Or both as some would say. This schizophrenia is no inconsistency for the bi-polar god of the bible. Tough love you might think. Others might think the bible is an obstacle to faith. If you have to believe in 'Noah's Ark' in order to be on board the boat to heaven's shores, than I contend the Bible is an anchor. But if Noah's ark were never found, I would say, “Our faith need not be shaken. “ Maybe these are myths; I believe that they are legends, and that they were meant to be taken metaphorically. The artists tried to explain ultimate reality, in the limited fashion available before computers and scopes, both macro and micro, and the “Scopes’ trial. They weren't meant to convey history or science. We are going to take a look at some problems with inaccuracies and contradictions in the bible. Test the mettle of your faith. May it be refined in the fire? Toss yourself into the flames that consumed the censored books of the dark ages. What could we have learned from the library of Alexandria that the early church set ablaze?
There is so much we don't know. Good thing we aren't saved by what we know. Being right doesn't save us. It's not really whom you know either, but who knows you. God knows you and god loves you. You are saved as surely as you were born. We are born into god's family. Love is our birthright. Love is our essence. Love is greater than faith. Jesus is our embodiment of love. Whether or not he was incarnated is unknowable and ultimately inconsequential. Whether Jesus walked on water is conscientiously debatable by even the most saintly devotee. This story was common among deities as a sign of their divinity. The gospels were expected to be taken metaphorically by the intended audience, because the first century Christians were well aware of the parallel miracles performed by other saviors. There are dozens of similar universal themes found in the lives of Jesus and Krishna and Dionysus. The first pagan converts expected Jesus to be at least on the same level as Horus or Mithra. So the evangelists produced a biography of Jesus in accordance with the tradition of previous Christs. The Gospels contain many miraculous events that surely would have attracted attention, but there is no mention of Jesus or any of his signs by any record whatsoever during his lifetime. Consider an incident of obvious paramount importance mentioned in the gospels that fails to make the chronicles of the day. According to Matthew 27:52-53; dead people rose from the grave and walked the streets in burial shrouds like mummies. A non-virtual 'Night of the living dead', and it didn't get noticed by the historians of the day. Did it happen? I doubt it, but I still love Jesus. Jesus' resurrection didn't get mentioned in the current events either. You would think the first Easter might have made the headlines. Even if Jesus were a myth, my faith would not be shaken. Jesus is the symbol of God's love. Jesus taught and lived love. He taught mercy and grace, but he taught nothing about redemption by blood or salvation by execution. His resurrection is allegorical of the soul. The Son rises again as does the sun. The soul rises again as did Osirus and Horus and Mithra and Apollo and Dionysius. The Bible must be read metaphorically for it to have pertinent meaning. Faith in the Bible's inerrancy is misplaced and leads to loss of religion. We can deconstruct the bible and rebuild our faith on the Christ within, the hope of glory.
What impels this adventure into the realm of spirit and dusty archives? Well, what drives the seed towards the sun? We seek the light! Love is our source, our guide, and our reward. Truth is our beatific vision! Let's explore the metaphysical landscape. My ambition is to guide seekers clear of theological quicksand and emotional angst. My hope is to open a vista where we may gain a new perspective. My hope is that the Bible makes more sense, and that Christ is revealed in your heart.
No one's integrity should be questioned because they put a local face on the numinous. We worship the only god we are accustomed to, and rightly so. And in keeping with the logic of love, there are saints in every religion. People have an innate spiritual longing, and that longing is spirit calling unto spirit. The image of god, our conscience, is in every human.
Desiring god is having god. Desire is an attribute of God as is fulfillment. Longing is the essence of love. I hope that the singing and dancing going on in the mega - churches and holiness tabernacles continues when they realize their object of worship is only a metaphor for the divine spark that animates each of us. All people feel close to god and can verify god's presence by sense or some scripture. There is no denying at least the 'god gene' in all people. The feeling of intimacy someone might have with Jesus is no different from another having spiritual intercourse with Krishna.
There's no reason to be afraid if your idea of god dies. Gods die and rise again. And your essence, the soul we share with god, will never die. Hallelujah!

Paul announced the god worshipped in ignorance. People have a god locket in their heart that only spirit unlocks. Yes! Like C.S. Lewis said, birds have wings because they are meant to fly. People have an impulse that fulfills itself in worship. Worship is god expressing itself, not an attempt to reach god. Worship is an indication that spirit is real. Worship is a symptom of god intoxication; worship is not a therapy to gain healing. We all worship in ignorance, because god is a mystery beyond our knowing. Jesus personifies god inasmuch as he loves, and people honor god inasmuch as they love. It is not believing that Jesus is god that matters; it is loving like Jesus did. We all speak in tongues, so to speak, gibberish to god, but acceptable because it comes from the heart.

What did the sign above the cross at the crucifixion say? It differs in all four gospels.
MATTHEW 27;37 'THIS IS JESUS KING OF THE JEWS'
MARK 15:26 'THE KING OF THE JEWS'
LUKE 23;38 'THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS'
JOHN 19;19 'JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS'
Who has the right version? Did the crucifixion really happen? Obviously, we are not expected to believe the exact words are important. What is it that the writers want us to believe is important? That he was crucified. Mark's narrative actually ends after the crucifixion. There is no resurrection in Mark. Mark was the earliest gospel; did the earliest Christians believe in a bodily resurrection? The other gospels want us to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Resurrection was a signature attribute of gods, but they got their stories mixed up again. Compare the gospels and try to decide who arrived at the empty tomb first and what the angel looked like and what the angel said. We are given variations that don't mesh.
Matthew and Mark report one Angel at the tomb and Luke and John report two. John steals the prestige from Mary Magdalene of being the first witness and gives it to Peter.

Imagine a cult of Elvis a thousand years from now refusing to believe he really died, or that he remained in the grave. Star Wars might be the holy Book for our great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchildren.

Is it important that we accept each syllable of scripture as veracious in order to glean meaning? There are roughly 5,400 ancient Greek manuscripts of the new testament that are used to piece together an English translation. There are roughly 30,000 significant variations within those manuscripts. What are the odds that god is involved in the syntax of our modern text? It is no longer disputed that the final 11 verses of Mark were a late addition, yet how many people have tested their faith in the word of god, spelled out in the verse found there about handling serpents and surviving, and lost their life betting on this spurious passage?

Test your scholarship. Matthew 27:9-10 claims to fulfill a saying that it attributes to Jeremiah. The saying actually appears in Zechariah 11:12-13. What is the question to the answer? John tells us that Jesus was crucified the day before the Passover; Mark says it happened the day after. Why didn’t an early editor, say the Holy Spirit, catch such contradictions? Maybe time and setting were beside the point of the story? What is the “Gospel Truth”?
Maybe the story was familiar as myth to the intended audience, and it was assumed that the historicity was inauthentic. The ‘Greatest Story’ ever SOLD was given new form in a context appealing to the Hellenistic world, particularly the ignorant and poor. The ‘Initiated’ understood the halo bestowed on Jesus was borrowed from Mithra and handed down from Horus. Only later, as Knowledge, in the form of Gnosticism was eradicated, did the esoteric truth of the Cosmic Christ disappear. Those who knew Jesus of Nazareth understood his resurrection as symbolic and the miracles as attachments to his sayings as a stamp of approval. The stories of turning water into wine and feeding the thousands were common endorsements for competing deities.


There is a way the bible will not let you down. The gospel writers borrowed old mythologies and gave them new life in Jesus. Legends of rebirth abounded in early recorded history because every religion was nature based, thus they all had similarities. Death and rebirth as revealed in nature! A universal transcendent experience culminated in common rituals among different cultures. The Egyptians were the first to rituallize the afterlife. They understood the mystery of the descent of spirit into the human plane as death and the physical death of the body as the rebirth of the soul. Death is not the opposite of life, but of birth. Birth and death are both a part of life. The soul descends into humanity at the autumnal equinox as the sun begins is descent on the horizon. At the winter solstice, when the sun is in the balance and begins its turn upward, the Christ is born as spirit begins its transformation of our animal bodies into spiritual beings. We grow into god when we die. The miracle stories attributed to Jesus were meant to be taken symbolically when they were written. Everyone was familiar with these anecdotes from the fanfare of other deities. Walking on water was expected to be one of the qualifications for deification. Bacchus turned the water into wine before Jesus, but Jesus up staged him by saving the best until last. Jesus was a charismatic teacher and a saint, but words were put in his mouth and deeds attributed to him that were made famous prior to his Christening by earlier legendary gurus who had already become accepted as avatars. We can get the original meaning of scripture by reading it metaphorically.
Consider that early Christians were illiterate and contemplate the irony that Christianity was founded on a book. Pagans had no doctrine or holy books, but the early church adopted the dogmatic attitude from the Jews. How dogmatic can you be when your manuscript was written without punctuation or spaces? The New Testament was written something like this 'ihidtheearringbehindthedoordidyouhaveawindowseatontheairplane'
How do you exegete?
'godisnowhere'
'God is now here' or
'God is no where'
Consider Psalm 104 and it's implication that the earth is the center of the universe. '…earth, that it not be moved forever.' We know now that the earth moves at astonishing speed around the sun, but this verse was enough evidence for literalists to stop the advance of science for centuries. In 1 Kings 7:23, we read that 'the circumference shall be 3x the radius squared. Should we accept Pi as exactly 3 instead of 3.1414?
We must wonder if we have the original words written by the original authors anyway. Early church leader Origen conceded the problem with authenticity. “The difference among the manuscripts have become great, either through the negligence of some copyists or through the perverse audacity of others: they either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please.” Copyists were amateurs. They were only local literates without training. Not until the 4th century were there professional scribes. In Galatians, Paul makes the admission that his letter is dictated. Can we even be sure that Paul's words were copied with 100% accuracy? Maybe the original manuscript itself has wrongly transcribed Paul's words. Our oldest surviving manuscript of Paul's writing is from 150 years after Paul. What are the odds of every jot and tittle being exact? Remember that early Christianity was remarkably varied in its theological expressions. There was motive to falsify texts in order to make them say what the scribes already thought they meant. The book of Acts is obviously an effort to smooth over the dispute between Paul and Peter and to make orthodoxy appear uncontested. Another motivation was to lay the blame squarely on the Jews for Jesus death. The Romans were exonerated, because by the time of canonization in the 300s, the Roman bishop had the power and authority.
We know that there were many Christian sects competing for dominance in the first century, not because of extant sectarian writings, but because of polemics by proto-orthodox rebuttals. So-called heresies were some of the earliest versions of Christianity, but zealous Catholics destroyed their teachings. . The many polemics we have record of pre-suppose the pervasive influence of alleged 'false-teachers.' These lost Christianities came to light when the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi texts were unearthed. We can see theology develop through the New Testament if we follow a time line. Jesus did not teach the Nicene Creed, but its tenets were a response in order to contradict other popular assertions. In 1827, ovum was discovered, and women were proven to contribute an egg to conception. The Catholics were once again forced to renovate doctrine. The Immaculate Conception of Mary was conceived to deal with the possibility that she passed on sin to her son.
Mark did not know the Old Testament very well, or he did not worry about quoting it mistakenly. In chapter one, he attributes a citation from the Book of Malachi to Isaiah. In chapter two, he indicates Abiathas as High Priest when David ate the showbread, but I Samuel says the High Priest was Ahimelech. What's up with that? Mark doesn't know or doesn't think it matters. What's important for him is for people to believe Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus 's divinity was sharply debated, and manuscripts were sometimes manipulated to erase any doubts. For instance, Jesus' cry from the cross, 'why have you forsaken me?’ has been changed to “why have you mocked me?” The idea of Jesus being forsaken creates qualms, so a particular scribe or school of copiers saw fit to give the passage their own slant.
The gospels them selves were more commentary than history. The virgin birth was as controversial then as it is today, and Luke wanted to leave little room for argument. In Luke 2:33, “father” was changed to “Joseph” in later manuscripts to eliminate the suspicion that Jesus had an earthly father. A few verses later, in the anecdote of the temple visit, “parents' is changed to “Joseph and his mother” for the same reason. “Your father and I” has been changed to “We”. All references to Joseph as father have been redacted.
Another contentious topic was Jesus' divinity. When did he become god, or was he equal with god? Some contended that Jesus assumed fullness of the spirit at his baptism when the dove alighted on him and a voice form heaven announced, “Today I have begotten you”. Luke contended that Jesus was born equal in the godhead and changed his version to read, “You are beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” Luke adds the line 'he was taken up to heaven' to his source text to stress the physical ascension of Jesus, but contradicts Acts1; 1-11 where the ascension takes place 40 days later. If Jesus went straight up at the speed of light, he is still traveling within our known galaxy. If the authors of the Bible thought Heaven was up in the sky, then I'm not going to trust their cosmology.
The place of women was being established and the evangelists wanted to keep them in their place. Subtle shifts in syntax attempt to do just that. In Acts17: 4, 'prominent women' is changed to “wives of prominent men' in some mss. Romans 16:3 has “Priscilla and Aquila” changed to'Aquila and Priscilla' putting the man first. The verse forbidding women to prophecy is inserted after verse 33 in some mss. of 1 Corinthians and after verse 40 in others. It contradicts 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 where women are allowed to prophecy, so it is suspected of being a later addition in the opinion campaign against women. Jesus freed women and broke down barriers while his followers were quick to mend the walls of prejudice.
Other alterations were made to fight pagan tendencies. Matthew 24:36 says that no one knows the time, “not even the angels of heaven nor even the Son, but the Father alone”. The phrase “nor even the Son” is left out of many mss., so that one doesn't get the idea that Jesus was not omniscient. “Wine” in Matthew 27:34 has been edited to read “vinegar” to conform to the prophecy in Matthew 26; 29 that Jesus would not drink of wine again until in the kingdom. Mark 14: 62 is changed to omit mention of Jesus imminent return. This was after the expected return was overdue.
We get the idea that scripture has been tinkered with in order to further points of view. Anti-Semitism was fostered as a political tactic for establishing better conditions for missionary activity by shifting blame for Jesus' death from Romans to the Jews. John mentions the Jews 78 times, always with the clear connotation of 'the enemy.” In John 4: 22, 'salvation comes from the Jews” is changed to” salvation comes form Judea.” Matthew 1: 21 has “save his people (Jews)” changed to 'save the world” in an attempt to discount the Jews. The Jews have suffered persecution and prejudice for centuries because they have been made the guilty party. Pilate was reported for dramatic effect to have washed his hands. Who was there to witness this, since all of his followers had fled?
It seems the questions were never asked, much less the answers ever given. For instance, the 'Magnificant of Mary' raises some serious questions even to a little child, maybe, especially to a child. Who was there to write down what the angel said and what Mary answered? Who was the eyewitness, or the ear witness? Mary's exaltation is anything but what something coming out of a little girl's mouth would sound like. Girls weren't allowed to read or study. How could she quote a passage from the scripture? Was she inspired to say that and the author of Matthew inspired to recreate the scene literally? It makes much more sense to many scholars that the words were put into Mary's mouth in order to fulfill a so called prophecy. The virgin birth was not mentioned in Mark, the earliest gospel. “Mark and John appear uncomfortable with accusations of Jesus' illegitimacy, but never mention his miraculous origins. Paul refers to Jesus as being 'born of the seed of David according to the flesh' and 'born of woman,' without referring to Mary's virginity at all.
Divine heritage was a legitimizing myth applied to various saviors in other rudimentary religions. Based on the same legends traced back to Egypt, incarnation and resurrection are ultimately ritual symbolizing nature. Branches of Sun-God religion flourished throughout the ancient world.
Christianity traces its roots to Osiris as does Krishna and Buddha. Mohhammed is a late bloomer and his miracles are a little harder to believe. Of course you'll always have your Joseph Smiths and Moonies, but for most people it's easier to believe in miracles if they happened long go and far away.
Why didn't Mark write about the Resurrection? Mark's theology preceded the theory of atonement by blood. Jesus' teachings were the core of the earliest churches, not his crucifixion. The Essene sect of Christians followed Jesus because of his morals centered in mercy. They knew nothing of a sacrifice for sins. They understood Jesus as a divine human by virtue of his evolved consciousness. He demonstrated that we are all begotten of God and share the Spirit. His message was 'Original Blessing' not 'Original Sin.' Grace is our birthright, not the exclusive fortune of the virgin born. Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi indicate there was not consensus about the divinity of Jesus, rather there was widespread differences regarding the person and work of Jesus. Consider that the selection of the Canon grew out of dogma. The Nicene Creed in 323 precludes what was allowed into the sacred book and considered the Word of God. The Pope decided once and for all, even for Protestants what was considered Holy and true. Dissenting views were burned and banned, but passages from so-called heretics survive in the apologetics of the proto-orthodox.

John seems to poke fun at people who take Jesus ‘literally.’ The woman at the well is made to appear naive when asking about ‘living water.’ Nicodemus is rebuked for wondering how one is born again. Even the disciples are chastised for taking Jesus’ literally in John 4:33 when he offers food they know not of. They expect wheat for the stomach, but he spoke of nourishment of the soul. It seems that Jesus himself meant his teachings to be taken metaphorically. Why should anyone demand or insist each syllable carries only concrete meaning as if written in stone?

Perhaps we are well meaning but afraid. After all, God struck dead Ananius and Sapphira, though they were acting legitimately and legally. Don’t cross the Boss! He’ll send a bear to cross your path. Jehovah has a history of human sacrifice, Ex. 13:2,12, 13, 22-29. Jeptha sacrifices his daughter and is praised by Judges. God is the “Destroyer of the Firstborn”. Heb.11: 28. With redemption by execution, atrocity becomes good news. This hangman’s theology where human cruelty is falsely considered God’s will has promoted inhumanity. Would Christianity be as glamorous if Jesus died by guillotine or needle or noose?

There is something wrong with god not us, if he demands slaughter. That GOD IS DEAD! That 1960’s headline convinced few people, because people are still afraid, and the new, more improved Jesus was more palatable to the public. The mainstream is fed a pabulum diet to keep them happy and quiet. A taste for truth is developed when we rid our diet of junk foods. I’m speaking with double meaning now. Get junk food out of your diet, and you will make better use of your brain. We are what we eat. Fast and pray, try being a vegan for a day, and you might understand the evil that permeates our factory farms and raises a stench unto heaven! Our food is not blessed, if it comes by way of suffering animals and spoiled land. There is no righteousness in the way we transform giant trees into toilet paper . Its not a question of whether Jesus ate meat or not, the question is what is causing mad cow disease? Is it yet safe to say that the Church has failed our society by patronizing the rich and sanctifying selfishness? Meditate on the Crucifixion. Imagine pulling out the nails in empathy with Jesus’ suffering, instead of shouting ‘Crucify him for me! Make him suffer, so I can go to Heaven!”

Carl Jung said, “When one person says he talks to god and sees angels, they call him crazy; when a group makes the same claim, they call it religion.’’ So what are we to make of the Bible? This troubled interplay between a lonely god and a homeless people. Books in the bible, like Hamlet and King Lear, invoke fictional characters to tell a story. Ellsinore Castle is historical but Hamlet is not. Did Jesus walk the streets of Jerusalem after his crucifixion, or was it another Elvis sighting. The human tragedy is god making man in his image. We only want what God had deemed ‘very good.’ Being like God, obedience is not a divine virtue, nothing less than desire for knowledge should be expected. The highest drama that could be imagined is unfolding. It is a comedy of survival, and the laugh is on me, and the laugh is in you. We write the play with our prayers. We decide our furure. Will we create heaven with love, or will we manifest hell through fear? If love is true, hope is as sure as the Sun, though faith as uncertain as the rain! From stardust we come, and to stardust we return. If grace is true, peace passes understanding.
Where are we to go from here? What are we to make of faith and the bible? How are we to understand mistakes in scripture? Luke mentions that Quirinius was governor of Syria when the first Christmas census occurred. That census was in 6 C.E. (common era), but Herod died in 4 B.C.E. Luke didn’t know his history or didn’t care. Should we be concerned about historical flaws? Are we being honest to suspect that the census was a literary device used by Matthew to place the nativity in Bethlehem and thus appear to fulfill prophecy? Maybe a more pertinent question would be, is there a message that comes across despite or rather regardless of historicity? The universal appeal of the bible story is salvation. The question to the answer, so says Jesus and Buddha and Plato, is that we were never lost. We are partake in the divine as sparks of the godhead. god is the ground of being, in whom we live and move and have our being.
Enlightenment more accurately describes the experience when we come to the realization that there is no separation from God. This is the Perennial Philosophy accepted by Gnostics, people in the know, of all ages. What about the undeniable, existential reality of being born-again? You might say, 'But I know in my heart...". Consider Paul’s conversion as related in 3 contradicting accounts. In one account, the men with Paul heard the angel but saw nothing, in another narrative, the men saw the angel but heard it not. They all remained standing, but in the third rendition, the men all fall down. I say take your pick. Fall down if you want. Hear the angels, or not! Paul visualized a Hellenized Christ in the tradition of Serapis, Seth, and Hibil. Jesus claimed to only have been sent ‘for the lost sheep f Israel. The great commission was put in his mouth later as missionary activity began after Jerusalem’s fall. Christianity shed its Jewish cocoon, and Jesus metamorhped into an avatar. No church father denied that communion as holy Eucharist was a sacrament in Mithraism, but they argued that pagan similarities to Christian rituals were demonic imitations designed by the Devil to delude the infidels. Just as God had supposedly created fossils to fool the curious, we are taught not not trust our common sense. Faith against reason is a dubius virtue. The vast majority of sayings attributed to Jesus are from earlier Judean wisdom literature, or Pagan and Greek moralistic and philosophical beliefs. Jesus was first revered for his wisdom and mercy. Apocalyptic expectations transformed the sage into a prophet, the teacher into a warrior. Would you still love Jesus, if he were only a man? If Jesus were merely a spirit filled human and not the eternal arbitrator, would you follow his example? The first Christians were inspired solely by Jesus’ life and teachings. They deserve better, than being tagged heretical by the emerging Christ cult who insisted on his divinity. We would do well to emulate their allegiance to principle and not a super- person. Miracles need not be a component of your faith. Love is the greatest evidence of God, and love survives the rubble of temples and rises from the ashes of ancient religions. By universal consensus, the Word of God is, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Isn’t this what your own heart pleads? Let this be my dogma, let this be my creed. Of books and saviors and preachers and popes, I have no need.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Humility or Humiliation

Humility or Humiliation

I listened to James Robinson on TV this morning reading from his booklet talking about the choice before us now, humility before god or humiliation by catastrophe. He seemed seriously concerned that the metroplex would come to chaos of failing water and power systems, because we had turned away from God’s laws. His offer of hope involved getting right with God. I couldn’t agree with him more. The devil is in the details however. How do we get right with God?
James Robinson didn’t go into a plan to heal the land or society, but implied that if we confessed Jesus, everything would be all right. What is God’s will if not to live righteously? That means more than keeping chaste; it involves living a balanced life. What is your water source? Are there safeguards to keep it clean? Where does your food come from? Is there any thing more spiritual than bread? Desecrating the flag or allowing gays civil rights is not the source of our problems. The crises we face are natural consequences of our shortsightedness, not the punishment from some less than all-merciful deity who feels neglected and throws a temper tantrum.
I sensed the collapse of industrial cities decades ago. It doesn’t take a prophet to apply ecological science. When you have an overpopulation that poisons wells and paves over pastures, you set the stage for failure. I wrote a paper in high school circa 1970 about pollution and the planet’s imminent demise. The first Earth Day was that year, and a lot of people paid attention to our situation. Alternative technologies emerged, but were dismissed by the profiteers in power. Small-scale innovations continued to improve and be used. Organic farming regained popularity and sustainability and permaculture became adopted as lifestyles. The ‘back to the land’ pioneers were considered quaint or hippie, but they have led the way on living a ‘righteous’ lifestyle. There is Zen saying, ‘Enough is a feast.’ Will Christians be able to learn humility? The first settlers learned how to plant fish with the corn and thereby replenish the soil. Today we pump petroleum back into the ground in the form of fertilizers to coax corn from the mismanaged heartland, and the accumulated fertility of five hundred years washes away in a day. God’s will, one would think, would involve living in harmony with nature. I don’t think it upsets God that there is sex down on the farm, but maybe She is concerned about genetic modification. Common sense says not to ‘spoil you own nest’. The Genesis deity says to replenish the earth, not to rape and plunder.
The churches have let us down, by failing to preach an environmental ethic. The clergy can hardly be blamed though, for they are victims too of a foolish theology that divorces man from nature. Maybe the knowledge we need today went up in smoke with the ‘witches’. There is no escaping the seasons or the limits of our habitat. Where can we learn to live a lifestyle that ‘replenishes’? Possibly from panentheists like Native Americans or biodynamic farmers. Bless our food O Lord, may it be free of poisons. Is our sustenance kosher in the sense that it is free of exploitation? Civilizations don’t crumble when some deity withdraws favor or someone blows a horn, they disintegrate from greed and avarice like overgrazing and government fraud. Getting right with god means composting! Build humus and make the world a better place.

Christ for the Ages

Christ for all Ages
And all People

“Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason then that of blindfolded fear.”

Thomas Jefferson in a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

After the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls and the Naj’ Hammadi texts, Alvin Kuhn, a biblical scholar and Egyptologist pieces together, literally and figuratively, from the fragments of ancient papyri, the suppressed story of first and second century Christianity. For the first time in 1600 years, the voices and thoughts of early Christians known as Gnostics were revealed. What we have to learn from these devout followers of Christ will help us make decisions about the kind of future we want. For that is the lesson of the Gnostics, we are God’s incarnation on earth, the embodiment of the Spirit, each and every one of us. We, in the Image of God, have the creativity to manifest Heaven or Hell.
This understanding of Christ espoused by the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas spoke to my heart. We read, “Divine Light is in all people”, and also about Jesus refusing worship, instead directing seekers to the Light within. ‘Gnosis’ or ‘Knowledge’ is coming to the ‘understanding, belief, and faith’ that we each have direct connection to God, and that all humanity is linked together in the Spirit. Enlightenment is our salvation; we are separated from God only by our pride or ignorance. To try and save a ‘self’, is contra-indicated to our wholeness or salvation, because we are never ‘lost’, and our true ‘self’ is a part of God and Nature and Spirit. Trying to isolate or ‘save’ your ‘ego’ or ‘self’ from the rest of creation of which it is an integral part is futile. Jesus said ‘whoever would save his soul must lose it.’ We must die to self, that is a personal ego, and identify with all of creation as an extension of our self. To acknowledge a separation from the ‘ground of being’ that is the all in all, and the ‘I am that I Am’, one in effect experiences disconnectedness (sin), because they set up a paradoxical reality living in opposition to the heavenly matrix that fills the universe and in which we live and move and have our being.
My first mystical experience was when I was a young child of 3 or 4 one summer at my grandma’s house. This was in fact my first memory. I feel like my soul was born that day. I woke that morning to comforting smells and friendly sounds, but it was the sight in the window that inspired the epiphany. A nest of Cardinals became the Beatific Vision, I saw God in the mother feeding her brood. A blue green dreamscape combined with the sweet feelings of a summer morning in the country at a family reunion precipitated the Spirit to sweep over me and fill me with the indisputable certainty that we were all One, and that all was well in the world. I saw with God’s eyes, and it was good.
That experience defined my religion and it seemed to work pretty well in the Presbyterian Church we regularly attended. Not until I heard about the ‘second coming’ and ‘being born again’ did I question the reality I experienced in my own heart. I asked to be saved, not just a few times, got baptized twice and started worrying that all my friends and some of my family were going to hell. Worry about my own salvation continued to haunt me; was I really sincere in my heart of hearts? It was hard for me to believe that the Lamb of God was really a wolf in sheep’s clothing, coming to slay and torture the “wicked’. None of this seemed real to me. I was depressed and confused, I thought my faith was weak, because I couldn’t believe in Jesus as an avenging judge. I had a hard time believing Jonah being swallowed by a whale. Some say faith is trying to believe what you know to be impossible.
I had known God by the omnipresence of the Spirit that filled my heart, and the infinite peace that filled that eternal space. I couldn’t relate, no matter how hard I tried, to a schizophrenic god, who is both loving and vengeful, therefore sending his children to a lake of fire for the sin of being born. Was the Bible wrong, or was it simply misinterpreted? Is god really the vindictive Olympian who slaughters out of jealousy, the bloodthirsty Quetzalcoatl who demands sacrifice and rationalizes violent conquest and revenge?
Maybe Jesus came to redefine and clarify. Maybe God wasn’t really like that. Maybe the Old Testament writers didn’t speak accurately of the attributes of God. I believed in a God of Love and Compassion, therefore I couldn’t believe the Bible. Maybe the Gnostic texts have a perspective of who Jesus was and what he taught that matches my ideal. Maybe we can look at the bible with a new ‘Old’ understanding and recover the essence of Christianity and experience a revival of the eternal Christ with the assurance and trust that comes with a rational belief system.
A problem that perplexes us as a society is the predominance of a pre-Einstein worldview. The atomic bomb exploded the myth of dualism. E=mc2 proves all things are connected, energy equals mass. This is a universe not a duo-verse of spirit and matter. All things are interconnected and interdependent. We all share electrons! Deepest in the heart of matter we discover only vibration. Waves are no less than the Word of God in concert with the music of the angels mingled with our thoughts and prayers. We need a spirituality that matches our science.
Matthew Fox building on the prophecies of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin gives us that cosmology. Unity thought is often considered ‘New Age’ by fundamentalists but is in truth the ‘Perennial Philosophy, embraced by mystics and saints of all ages and religions. Fox gave voice to my soul with his book ‘Original Blessing’. Belonging is our birthright, the earth is not cursed, and neither are we. Does it speak to your heart as it did to mine that at our core we are good. We are not distanced from God by our humanity, but we are spiritual beings, lost only in our loneliness we know when the light in our heart is faint and when we feel worthless and disconnected. I could never be happy, not even in heaven, if other people were suffering. If God were a loving Father, none of this made sense. I decided to trust my conscience instead of the Bible.
If Grace were true, we are not saved by what we believe or if we are right or wrong. God’s love is unremitting, which makes sense in a seamless world. I knew peace for the first time since before I was ‘saved’. I trusted God was bigger and better than any notion I might have. I preferred a God of Mystery to a tribal god responsible for vicious atrocities.
A cursory reading of the Old Testament presents even the casual observer with panoply of vengeance, murder, and rape perpetrated in the name of Jehovah. This proves to be a dilemma for believers in scripture’s inerrancy, but is exactly what is to expected, if ‘anthropomorphisms’ is what we really have, that is ‘god created in man’s image.’
A critical study of the Bible is an exciting adventure into the ancient world. Like a detective story, secrets are uncovered when we reread familiar passages with an open mind. One of the most obvious characteristics in the Pentateuch is the use of ‘doublets’. The same stories are told twice, each story contradicts the other in some way; be it names, chronology, or geography. Examples can be found in the creation, the garden, and the flood stories. A closer look reveals that two different names for god are used in ‘doublets’. It is most likely that passages using different vocabulary and having different perspectives were written by different authors. This is the conclusion accepted by most modern scholars.
Was the Bible not written by Moses then, but compiled later from writings by competitors? This hypothesis seems to fit the history of the period that traces the rivalry of factions within early Judaism. Much like today, where churches contend for the ‘true’ form of worship, priests back then challenged one another for authority. Their holy writings were polemics justifying their cause. After all, if sacrifice was only allowed in your temple, then your priesthood prospered and was assured of at least something to eat, namely sacrifices. The tribes of Judah and Israel gave us the conflicting ‘doublets’ in the Bible in an attempt to prove that ‘God was on their side.’
Jesus taught that God did not take sides, but that God was on the inside of everyone, ‘the kingdom of heaven is within.’ God has no favorites, and Jesus broke down the barriers of race, gender, nation, and religion. This message of non-discrimination was not what the Jews wanted to hear, or what they expected from a messiah. They wanted a hero like Moses or Elijah to exalt their nation. So, he was rejected and crucified.
Stories begin to circulate about his resurrection. A god who dies and rises again is a theme not uncommon to the world of antiquity. Religions based on similar myths of risen saviors had held sway for hundreds, if not thousands, of years before the time of Jesus. Horus, Dionysus, and Mithra all fulfilled the role of resurrected gods in passion plays, which became to be known as the ‘Mysteries’. A virgin birth was not unique to Jesus. Even some of the miracles (walking on water, feeding the multitudes, healing the sick, raising the dead) attributed to Jesus find precedent in older myths. There is a common thread that runs through these myths, and that is the hope of life after death. People pinned their hopes on these representatives of the human spirit. They even went so far as to eat the flesh and drink the blood of their gods. The ‘mystery’ for the initiates was that the “Christ’ or ‘anointing’ was the Spirit in them. God raises us all from the dead in the Spirit. There was, in fact, Christianism before Jesus. The term ‘Christ’ was applied to Jesus as the legend grew. Was Jesus being mythologized as the next Christ in a long list of saviors?

“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fables of the generations of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823

Speculation about Jesus resulted in a multitude of gospels claiming insight and inspiration. How and why did the texts we know as the New Testament become canonized? Investigation once again leads us to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Naj’ Hammadi texts. They were buried for fear of being burned by the sect claiming orthodoxy. What was the 3rd century church afraid for us read? One such gospel is the Essene Gospel of Peace. This book is especially important, because it is likely Jesus spent his unrecorded years among the Essenes, an ascetic community that criticized temple worship they considered corrupted. The Essenes believed in the divine nature of man, the holy spark in all humanity. This was heretical to those who wished to exercise control. How could the clergy claim to be the sole arbitrators of grace, if every believer communed with God through the Spirit? They couldn’t, so they begin to define what it meant to be a Christian to fit their agenda. When Gnostics and orthodox Christians discussed the nature of God, they were debating spiritual authority. Soon only the Roman Catholic Church could dispense the sacraments. Constantine assured orthodoxy’s triumph after a ‘vision’ of the cross with the words “In this sign Conquer.” He invested in the ecclesiastical infrastructure while at the same time destroying rival temples.
The Romans not only defeated the pagans and Gnostics but also gained dominance over the church of Jerusalem founded by Jesus’ own brother James. Paul, a man who never knew Jesus, became the main apologist and theologian, and his only authority was a ‘vision’! The historical Jesus remains shrouded in obscurity, because there are few records outside of the gospels about him, and the gospels must be read as propaganda, because that is exactly how Luke describes their objective, “this is written that you may believe.” Mark is acknowledged as the first of the canonical gospels, written sometime after 70 C.E. Its contents were not whispered in someone’s ear by God, but passed down from personal associates of Jesus to become oral traditions, later to be written down and finally copied by the author of Mark. That is 4 levels of remove from the historical Jesus. The authors of Matthew and Luke who copied Mark and added their own stories were 5 levels removed.
Mark portrays a very human Jesus. He even leaves his readers guessing about the empty tomb at the end of his story. Matthew and Luke both use Mark as a reference plus another common source known as Q(German for source). Then amplifications are added to accentuate their point of view. A parallel reading of the synoptic gospels reveals discrepancies in each telling of the same stories. Literalists who claim the Bible is inerrant are once again hard pressed to explain the differing versions. Compare the quotes of Jesus about the meanings of parables found in Mark 3:14 and Matthew 11:2-3. In Mark, Jesus is said to use parables to obfuscate. In Matthew, Jesus uses parables to illuminate. Matthew similarly touches up Mark’s story about Jesus and John the Baptist. Matthew is evidently embarrassed by the lowly status Mark infers on Jesus and changes the story to exalt Jesus above the Baptist. Matthew consistently edits Mark to suit his own purpose, which is establishing the divinity of Jesus. Matthew uses familiar miracle stories from the Old Testament and pagan sources and attributes them to Jesus to substantiate his assertions. The Gospels are clearly not historically accurate. The writers of the gospels were not concerned about those details. They were writing theology not history.
However, their influence would chart the course of history. The western world was plunged into the Dark Ages as the Church clamped down on reason and freethinking. Extensive documentation records the diabolical horrors of the Crusades, the inquisitions, and the witch burnings. Finally, the Renaissance and Enlightenment freed humanity from the slavery to the Pope. People were free to have their own thoughts without fear of reprisal from the Church. The fear of God had been inculcated into the psyche and collective unconscious for a millennium, however, and fear is not easy to overcome. The Reformation generated many new sects interpreting the scriptures according to their inclinations, but the teachings of the ancient Mysteries and Gnostic gospels had been systematically erased from common knowledge. Some of these secret teachings were preserved as ‘esoteric’, despite libraries being razed in the name of the ‘Lord’.

“I have recently been examining all known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies.”
• Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dr. Woods

The Bible is the word of god in the sense that it comes from and speaks to the deepest instincts and aspirations of man, the abode of the Spirit. We can profit from the Bible by reading it as mythology. There are universal lessons to be learned from the “Illiad”. Though we do not take the stories literally, they are still true to human nature. Miracles were assigned to epic heroes to signify status and produce awe. God did not part the Red Sea, but that legend elevated Moses’ reputation and conjunctively codified the Law. The finger of God did not write the Ten Commandments, but they were expressions of humanity’s highest ethics. By claiming revelation, societies were able to impose order. Suggesting that the Bible is full of promises is putting a heavy burden on believers. We should not expect miracles. Rising from the dead in the Spirit requires no miracle; resurrection is inherent in the natural order.
The unearthing of the Dead Sea scrolls and Naj’ Hammadi texts can be seen as a resurrection. We are offered another chance to revive our theology according to teachings ascribed to Jesus that affirm our deepest held beliefs that we are all God’s children. We are not asked to sacrifice our reason and accept miracles. Our salvation does not depend on believing the impossible; that Jesus was born of a ‘virgin’, or that he walked on water, or even that he was raised from the dead. Our salvation is assured by our birthright, the anointing of the Spirit that is our essence. Christ is that spirit. Jesus assumed that title by living in the fullness of the Spirit and recognizing our Oneness with God.
Incarnation is perhaps the oldest religion. The Spirit in us testifies to the conclusion that God became Man. We feel that connection in our soul. We long for Heaven because that is where we are from and where we are going. Our hope for eternal life is justified precisely because the Sun is born again each spring. Easter was attached to this phenomenon, for that is the nature of the cosmos. Apollo is a type of Christ, as is Jesus, as is the Easter bunny. Would you sacrifice a rabbit to appease an angry god? Is God really angry? Does God demand a bloody sacrifice?
The history of the church could be written in blood, by martyrs yes, but mostly by innocent people who couldn’t believe in a sadistic deity with a nationalistic fervor and genocidal program that Hitler could only envy; compare Auschwitz to Hell. Burned at the stake for their unbelief, are these infidels the true saints? Have we the courage to deny the dubious authority of misconstrued myths and trust in our own hearts and minds?
Are you able to imagine the sweet ‘Lamb of God’ transforming into a ‘Lion’ bringing judgment and destruction? To me Jesus will always represent the God of Love who is ever Merciful. If we can but look on our fellow man through the eyes of the Christ, we too would be sympathetic and wars would cease. Who would Jesus bomb? We are all brothers and sisters. Treating anyone as less than a child of God is to sin against the Holy Spirit. The laws and the prophets are summed up in this one saying, ‘Love the lord thy God with all thy heart, with all the soul, and with all thy strength, and love thy neighbor as thy self.” Love thy self, because we bear God’s image, and love thy neighbor, because our neighbor is our self.
Armageddon doesn’t have to be. It will not be, if we listen to the Spirit of Love in our hearts and not to the prophets of hate and fear. Blind support for Israel as they commit crimes against humanity is not alignment with God’s people, for God’s people are the ‘anointed’ of any religion that practice mercy and loving-kindness, “Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” Which side are we on? Warfare and genocide seem to be the way of Moses and Mohammed. Non-violence and self-sacrifice is the way of Jesus the ‘Christ’.
The yearning in our heart for God, the desire for truth, the longing for redemption, the hunger for justice, the thirst for righteousness, the yen for love; these cravings are signs of the Spirit in our soul. These urges are evidence of the Cosmic Christ that pervades time and space and resides in every heart. Our conscience is our assurance of salvation. Our nostalgic ache for ‘Eden’ is a wish for unity. The kingdom of heaven will come and is now here for those who know this peace.

Reflections on 9-11

Reflections on 9-11

I was in a cabin on the edge of the Three Sisters Wilderness when I heard the news. We did not have electricity, except for what we generated from running water and falling light. The cell phones did not reach here, and there was no landline. I had turned on the radio to listen to a classical music station broadcast from the University of Oregon in Eugene. At first, I couldn’t make sense of the strange words coming with the familiar voice. The WTC had been attacked. The radio host usually spoke with a sophisticated accent that personalized calm and demeanor. She became an unsuspecting character in an unfolding drama and had no chance to rehearse, having been put on the spot to narrate the horrible events we all were witnessing. I had a 6-inch battery TV and was spared those same scenes on a big screen. It was almost more than the imagination could take. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. Stunned, dazed, confused, I was so far away from the action; there was nothing I could do.
I suppose every one sensed the ‘outhouse’ would soon be
hitting the fan. I knew we would be going to war. I also felt
sadness or regret that we had not created a more peaceful world.
I felt, also that in a spiritual sense the attack was somehow my fault.
I had certainly not been as good a person as I could have been.
Maybe if I had not cut my hair (I had worn dreadlocks as a sign
of the peaceful diet, taken a Nazarite vow and broken it) or not betrayed my heart at times, maybe if I had been little more passionate or a lot more compassionate, I would have altered the course of events, not so much by converting the heathen or enlightening the self righteous, or by appeasing an angry god, but by balancing karma and magnifying
the light, in other words by always being truthful. Call me crazy or obsessed with a Christ complex, but I feel the cosmic connection between what I do and what happens on the global scale. We are the world, and I have pride and prejudice in my heart. If I harbor violence or hatred, how much hope is there? I know my well meaning friends will say Jesus is the answer. Jesus had the answer, ‘love your neighbor as yourself’, but Jesus is not coming again like Dr. Strangelove on the wings of a bomb.
I felt helpless and useless. I didn’t go to work. It was only a planning day anyway. I decided to climb a mountain called Indian Chief peak that towered over the elk friendly valley along Horse Creek. It was a rock outcropping that featured a prominent profile. I had wanted to climb this Mt., and this seemed the perfect opportunity to deal with my angst. After bushwhacking through brush and vines ands briars to get to the steep cliffs, I was sweaty and cut and ready to climb. A few trees clung here and there to the sheer terrain. Soil gave way to gravity. I initiated a few small landslides and received a dose of falling debris in my eye. This was the type of climbing where I could pull myself up by roots and rocks without a rope, being ever cautious that the root or rock I grab could give way. After a few hours of struggle, mixed with alertness and concern, I reached the outcropping. The last few yards to the top involved a perilous shimmy along a precipitous rocky ridge. I crawled, clinging like a snake, inching my way to the summit. Mountains and blue sky stretched as far as the eye could see. No planes were flying that afternoon.
I left an offering at the top, token recompense for my complicity in terrorism as beneficiary of the military industrial complex. My very clothes reeked with injustice, the sweat of wage slaves in another land, a stench to any god of justice. Being born American gave meaning to original sin. We had become like Rome, a military empire. Not to besmirch the salt of the earth, most people are honest and hard working, but corporations are not people. Collectively and at a distance, we do what we would never do on a personal basis. Corporations pollute and exploit for the profit of a few. For the most part, Americans are as out of touch with where their taxes go or what their investments do, as they are about where their clothes come from. There is a need to question whether our foreign policy has set the stage for terrorism? We are resolute that our presidents profess an irrational faith. Even though this requirement is unspoken, it should be unthinkable to insist our leader feigns allegiance to some ‘higher power’. Only fear demands that we want a ‘man of god’ in the oval office. We are fighting theocracies overseas, while our own ‘mullah’ has come home to roost in the White House. We have an occupant in office, of questionable legitimacy, and whose sense of reality is informed by fundamentalism firmly rooted in fantasyland. Fine! It’s okay if these pious people want too go wait on the mountaintop for the ‘rapture’, but lets take away their nuclear toys. Armeggedon doesn’t have to be, and the sincere seekers will eventually come down from the mountaintops and join the evolution of consciousness. My guilt, our guilt has been failing to love one another as ourselves. We have the Truth, god is love, and we have the Spirit, love is god.
Coming down Indian Chief proved more difficult than going up. I had decided to come down on the opposite side than what I had come up, and it proved even more plumb. There was an abrupt ravine that started as a rock staircase and eventually caught water and became a waterfall. The walls of the canyon were like a funnel running toward the creek, and so did I. The trees were giants in this untamed forest, growing hundreds of feet high, and almost parallel to the intense slopes. The rugged trees were my anchors as I cascaded down this plummeting hillside. What had I got myself into? Was there a safe way out? Scrambling, sliding, pert’ near flying, I made my way to the bottom. I made good use of the adrenaline that been flowing since the news that morning. I had faced danger and survived. A scratch on my eye made my eyes water for about a week.
Looking back from 5 years later, I reflect on the evidence of conspiracy and am convinced the Bush administration is culpable. But W’s war is only indicative of the war that is fought in every breast. The ‘war on terrorism’ is ultimately fought by every soul wrestling with opposing proclivities in its own nature. Our leftover survival instincts play out as battles of the rich against the poor, or more aptly the greedy against the needy. It’s not east vs. west, or blue vs. grey, or brown vs. white, or this god against that god, it all boils down to love vs. fear. Love is the spirit of peace, and perfect love casts out fear. Are we afraid of dying? Would we murder to defend our faith? We are so afraid of being wrong, yet we insist on beliefs that can’t be proven. How many people have been blown up by a desire to please god? Gut knowledge tells us that most religious tenets are ridiculous, if not impossible, even with god, if god is reasonable and loving. It is honorable to lay down your life for others, but to kill for religion breaks the golden rule. Justice means equality not revenge. I have a theory that is analogous to Einstein’s E=mc2. Suppose that m(mass)= people and c(speed of light)=love. As the number of people filled with love reach critical mass, a spiritual explosion will take place and E(energy) = evolution. We take a quantum leap into peace and prosperity. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth!
As I write this I am recuperating from a broken leg I suffered while rock climbing recently. Had I fallen in 2001, because of where I was and because I was alone, I probably would have died from exposure, but I continued to live, and continued to live on the edge. Now, after this latest mishap, I feel like I have been given a second chance to ground myself, figuratively and literally. I realize I’m lucky to be alive, but luck does not guarantee safety. Hopefully I have learned to be more careful, and I pray I have learned to be more compassionate. I wonder if we, the world, will be given another chance. Will we be more careful and compassionate? Will we be courageous enough to reach beyond our intolerant tribal religions? Will we be fortunate enough to survive our reckless technologies? Is it not in our best interests to learn how to ‘love our enemies’?