INTRODUCTION
This Is The
SYMBOL OF UNITY
It represents what is common to the five major faiths:
Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism.
Its purpose is to serve world understanding, peace, and unity,
by helping people to focus on what they have in common, rather than
what makes them different.
If you undertand the following email I sent to my daughter, this site is for you. I wrote
it in response to a Wikipedia site she sent me to on "Posthumans"...the cyborg era where our
very cells are replaced:
"Creepy. They are taking pigs hearts and removing all the living tissue so it is just a
husk, and adding stem cells and then getting it to beat. I didn't know we had a husk.....
If they can keep changing our cells out into what they are talking about, and if a person
can stay alive like that, that means "the" life wanted it to be created for Itself, which
is why we could figure it out. If only so much can be replaced and any more than that has
negative effects and can kill you, then it was not "the" life's intention, just out own
foolishness
The reason we don't live in Eden is that the Creator does not want us to live forever.
"Adam" and "Eve" weren't thrown out for eating the fruit of the tree of good and evil
(the proverbial apple), they were thrown out "lest they also eat of the tree of life
and live forever." Thus the world is designed to slowly wear us down into old age and death. We are
born into an illusion. As we become "dis-illusioned" we also grow old. I have always
believed that it is no so much that we grow old, but that the world grows old to us.
There is also the spiritual path to "dis-illusionment", which is the one I've walked. When
you see it as a constantly flowing illusion of light, see the synchronicities and wonder at
them, you can't possibly ever see it as a "solid" thing again. Knowing that Life is there,
loving you all the time even though it is slowly killing you, greatly eases the knowledge
that we all must die.....for instance:
I landed at the beach one day and found 2 marbles right away. They were just plain old
marbles, but still, marbles are as rare as reds.
So I said, "Lord, thank you. I sure would like to find a red marble, though. I've got a
blue, and I thank you, but I sure would like to find a red. Please, Lord?"
So I went back picking and put that thought aside, and I was tired and it was time to go
tide-wise, but there was just a little more beach to do, so I decided to just make a quick
pass and see if I could spot anything special just lying there.
Just before the end there is this HUGE red marble. It's 15/16ths of an inch. It is a
Christainsen "Bloody". He was the first guy to machine make marbles between 1906 and 1917.
All his marbles are collectables. Mine is worth $200 just as a marble, much less a sea
glass marble. It is a beautiful blood red with a white swirl that forms A WAVE!
I MMMMEEEaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn!
I go, "Lord!, Oh God! Dear Lord, etc." When I bend down to pick up the marble, there are
also 2 pieces of RED glass! I go, "Oh, Lord! Dear God!, etc." and dance around a bunch with
tears in my eyes. Reds are 1 in 5,000 pieces!
This is how I know the Creator exists. These things happen for me all the time. Of course,
so do bad things because I am also being worn down. Just can't escape that, it seems.
But then I also turn my love to the Creator for mercy and I usually get it.
Really it is all just so beautiful......
I also saw a show on the History channel about how quickly things will rot away if we are
not here to maintain them, like streets, roads, houses, even skyscrapers. Just amazing how
fast everything would just disappear and you'd never know we were here. I'm afraid that
might be happening because we are on the verge of what might be a cyborg eternity.
I do know the world is being intelligently designed for us by the Life that is creating it.
It is really just light materializing for us as we live our lives. It was "not" created.
It is "being created" around us all the time, every instant. It is literally a "world of
light". And What is creating it has a vast sense of adventure. It's been doing this
literally forever in one form or another.
What that means for us I do not know. I also know that those who know how to love their
Creator fare better through hard times. I know it from personal experience.
I wanted to put my marble story up on my website. (It might be there already, but I think
I skipped it.) Now I have it written!
Keep the faith, baby.....
Dad"
The way into that world is what I am trying to share with you on this site.
Back now to the most important of these things the faiths have in common.
It is the "Golden Nugget" that
is at the core of each. It is the path to spirituality through
communion with the Greater Life creating us from within, because this Life is
the Life of the Creator, and It is also manifesting what we perceive to be the
external world. When one loves the Creator within, It responds with love in the
apparent external world and we enter a world of light, where the world materializes
around us, rather than evolving slowly, like rock breaking down into sand.
It also grants us an understanding of how we all possess Eternal Life.
No matter how "religious" a person is in following health laws, including the "moral
laws", they are not "spiritual"
unless they commune with, and learn to love their Greater Selves; the Creator
creating all.
This Site Reconciles The Major Faiths And Modern Science,
simplifying them to their essence,
and the "Symbol of Unity" represents this reconciliation.
The Symbol Contains:
The Buddhist Wheel
The Christian Cross
The Hindu OM
The Jewish Star of David
and the
The Muslim Crescent Moon and Star
It is not deliberately meant to be exclusive of other faiths,
but represents what is common to ALL legitimate faiths.
The Symbol of Unity is thus a new Peace Symbol for the 21st Century:
A symbol of religious, scientific, and cultural reconciliation and accommodation in an
increasingly smaller world.
This site contains the simple truth, told plainly. Give it an hour, and it can change
your world from one of rock and ashes to one of light and eternal life.
Even the small child should understand what is said here.
But first, who am I and how do I know what I going to share with you?
I am Captain Joseph H. Forrington. I am a Cum Laude graduate of The United
States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, Class of 1972.
Robert Kennedy Nominated me for Appointment when he was Senator from New York.
I have visited over 50 countries (maybe yours) on every coast of every continent (except
Antarctica), in 27 years at sea, the last 14 as Captain.
I have studied all the major faiths, the
arcane, occult, and psychic, and followed closely the developments of science in fields
like Cosmology and Quantum Physics, which attempt to explain where the universe
came from.
I've read well over a thousand books in my years at sea,
sometimes one a day.
I have an IQ of 141.
Friends and family call me "Cass", a birthname that was kept as a nickname when I
was adopted at the age of 6 months.
The SS Green Valley was my last command.
She was 900 feet long and 100 feet wide and was scrapped 18 months after I retired:
I have been blessed to be able to travel the world as I searched for the meaning
of life, which I share below. If you think a man like me might gain
some wisdom in such a search, please read on. What I have to say will challenge your
beliefs, whether you consider yourself religious or not.
Even though I was educated in Catholicism, Episcopaleanism, and Lutheranism by the time
I was 13, I had to re-discover the simple truths at the core of each faith, the
"Golden Nugget" their founders knew, for myself. This is because the faiths have
become so clouded over time that I learned nothing of true "spirituality" in all that
"religious" education.
I studied, and practiced, much to learn what is simply stated here.
I urge you take advantage of what I have learned, because you do
not need the extensive book knowledge
I have to live in the "World of Light" I
inhabit. Neither do you have to travel anywhere to find it. It already surrounds
you, you just can not "see" it yet.
I will tell you HOW to "see" it so you can live in it, too.
In this age of scientific specialization, most leading scientists do not know of
or understand the significance of discoveries in other fields that do not
influence theirs directly. (But let me urge everyone to rent and watch the
movie
"What The Bleep We Know", as it is our Quantum Physicists explaining how
the world works in a most entertaining way. If you do not get it the first time,
watch it again. The movie will explain to you, through our highest science, how
Jesus, and you, could walk on water. ALL of the great Mystics would have loved
this film.)
I, on the other hand, have had a life that has allowed me the time to study a broad
range of scientific and spiritual lines of inquiry and, hence, I have been able to tie
many different things together, and make many connections even the most talented
scientist or spiritual leader is ignorant of.
When his disciples asked Jesus why he did not teach everyone what he was teaching them,
he replied that they would not understand. I tell you now that our highest science
can now explain to you simply what Jesus knew and taught his disciples. Indeed, it
is going to become common knowledge to everyone born from now on, simply because it
is now commonly accepted science that will be taught in all our schools and universities
worldwide.
There are no leaps of faith here, though the power of
faith is discussed here. The logic behind the power of faith can be found in the section
where
I describe washing my hands in acid.
What is said here is not meant to replace the legitimate faiths with a "new
faith". But what we will now be teaching our children about the scientific basis of
spirituality will require all the faiths to make adaptations and adjustments.
It IS
meant to clarify certain things, which have been clouded with time,
differently within each faith, and to make
clear the scientific reasons behind other things, which before now were unknown
and "simply" considered matters of "faith" and "religion", based upon our faith in
our ancestors' desire for us to prosper and live well.
I want to state briefly here that I do not "see" the world as most people "see" it.
I love science and follow new developments closely, but I do not live in a
physical world. What I see is the world of light that materializes itself around
us as we live in it, as explained by Quantum Mechanics, our most modern science.
Even our very bodies materialize around "us", our "spiritual essence", or
"Life Force", as we live "in" them. This is one of the reasons miraculous healings
and stigmata occur, and why many dis-eases are purely psychosomatic.
Modern science tells me this perception is correct, that this is actually the way the
World works.
I see this because I learned to petition the Creator as a matter of course, and
hence began to "see" the responses, which are often truely awesome,
in the "external", "physical", world. This makes the external world appear "fluid"
to me and this is the "spiritual" world I now "see"
and live in, and our most advanced science is not in conflict with it at all. I talk
about this more fully in the sections that deal with faith and power and the
origins of the Universe, but wanted
to make this clear in the beginning.
Mine is a world of miracles, large and small, a "fluid" world of light.
Whether you have a faith or not; whether you believe in a
"Higher Power" or not; what is written here concerns you
because the conflict between Islam and the West is not about oil,
it's about health.
The members of Al Qaeda are trying to destroy the West to protect
the health of their families and communities.
What fundamentalist Muslims (and conservatives of any faith) do not want,
that Western societies are ridden with, are:
1) Full blown epidemics of every known sexually transmitted disease.
(In the United States, 1 in 3 adults has a Non-Curable STD
and, Worldwide, 1 in 100 people are dying from AIDS alone.)
2) 50% to 70% divorce rates with the poverty and financial ruin divorce brings
to everyone involved, especially the children.
3) Emotionally and mentally dysfunctional children from broken homes.
4) The rampant obsession with sex, general promiscuity and lack of
personal responsibility that cause the above ills, and is perpetuated and
spread through the uncaring and greedy in the entertainment industries, who are
willing to wear the AIDS ribbon, but not willing to live or espouse and promote
the lifestyle that would eliminate AIDS naturally.
If all of humanity simply practiced the chastity and fidelity espoused by all the major
faiths for JUST ONE human lifespan, ALL Sexually Transmitted Diseases would
be eliminated, losing their means of transmission and survival.
This is really the only rational path to wellness, but profit and greed keep the
entertainment industry from espousing it: that and false, self-serving, vanity.
Al Qaeda would never have attacked the West if it were still exporting
"Leave It To Beaver" instead of "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy".
This is not to justify the acts of Al Qaeda and other such groups.
These are desperate acts of violent, impatient people who would be far
more effective spending their money on advertising campaigns to fight
for clean, healthy living. History proves this through the story of
Bar Abbas and Jesus, as discussed below.
The terrorists think they are spiritual people, but they are rather like the mad
shepherd who slays the lamb that strays. Anyone who knows any western scripture
knows this is madness. The good shepherd rescues the lamb and worries over its
loss. He certainly doesn't hunt it down to kill it.
In this age of instant and mass communications, it is inexcusable for
people to use bombs and bullets when they could be spending their lives
and money on educating the lost and saving lives instead of ending them.
Even the secular governments spend large amounts of money on health advertisements
that relate directly to the moral issues the conservatives are concerned about. For
instance, I pay less than US$9.00 per month to keep my whole domain up, of which
this is just one page. And just how cheap are advertisements on TV at 2 AM, when
the lost and lonely are watching?
Science, Religion and the Origin of the Universe
There are different ways of looking at the world that join together for me. I absolutely
know my spritual beliefs are correct because I simply live in that world. I can
have no doubts about it, because it is actually where I live. I "see" it as my reality.
This is not the same, however, as explaining it all in scientific terms. I am trying to only
post on this site what I KNOW I know, but I believe we will finally tie science and Creator
together.
So for a strictly scientific view of my current
Cosmological Theories please click on one of these
Origin of the Universe
links. I must stress, however, that these are just theories on my part, which is why
they are not posted on this site, which states only that which I know is absolutely true.
Spiritual reality over-rides scientific reality, but the two do live in perfect harmony.
Our job is to figure out how. My Cosmological Theories are my attempt to resolve the two on
the basis of what I know.
Astronomers look out into the cosmos at larger and larger structures and Physicists,
especially Quantum Physicists, look within at smaller and smaller structures in
the pursuit of scientific knowledge. Astronomy and Quantum Physics meet in Cosmology,
which tries to explain the origin of the universe.
Quantum Physicists believe the universe is an
on-going creation that actually materializes around us as we live in, and interact
with, it. They say our own sub-atomic parts actually "pop" into and out of existence
all the time. In other words, there are parts of us that don't exist at any given moment.
This is the world I "see".
The physical world indicates that this popping into existence in this universe began
about 13.7 billion years ago, but it could be an eternal phenomenon.
Not all scientists agree with this, but most scientists agree that the universe
"began" at some point in time about 13.7 billion
years ago in what they call the "Big Bang". The problem has been with what existed
before the Big Bang.
The latest "expanding universe" Big Bang theory is called the Inflationary Theory
and it tries to deal with what caused the Big Bang, and what happened in the first
tiny fragment of a second after the Big Bang.
It is also widely accepted that the Universe is expanding, and at an increasing rate,
due to a mysterious "dark energy" they think has to exist to cause the expansion they
believe they see.
My problem with an "expanding" universe, is that there is no place for it to expand into.
The universe can not have a boundry, because all that exists is it. If there was space past
it to expand into, then that space would also be part of the universe. Time would also
exist there, because time and space are really one thing, Time/Space. This is why the
universe folds back upon itself and why any observer, anywhere, is at the center of the
universe. We actually have our own universes we live in, but they overlap so we can
interact. Each of us is literally the center of the universe, and would be so, no matter
where we are in it.
The Big Bang also says all the matter in the universe came from an "infinite singularity"
that existed before it exploded into the universe. This singularity had infinite mass
but no size. I just can't believe that.
Therefore I do not believe in a universe that is expanding "into" another place. New
space might be being created within the universe, increasing its apparent size,
but it can not be expanding into a place or space that does not exist, and I believe
it must fold back upon itself, regardless of whether it is growing or not.
I have cosmological theories of my own, that I believe might solve the scientific
questions. They are posted in another section. Basically I believe the universe will
be shown to be eternal in nature, but not
necessarily in fact, and non-expanding. This is because science explains the illusionary
world, while spirituality explains how it actually works, which is that it actually
materializes around us as we live in it, as according to quantum physics, even though
it appears to have stability over time. For more on this, please read my section on
my
Theories Concerning the Size, Age, and Origins of the Universe.
It is already commonly accepted that all matter is made of light "packets" called
"quanta", which is where the term "quantum" physics comes from.
The question really is, where does the light come from?
Our highest science is telling us that the light comes from "nowhere" out
of "nothing", just because quantum physics says it is a mathematical possibility.
In other words, out of nothing and nowhere, the universe just sprang into existence
because it was a mathematical possibility before the universe, in which such a possibility
could exist, existed. This is not the same as saying the universe sprang forth out
of a vacuum, because a vacuum is a thing and implies a space. "Nothing" is literally
"No Thing". Absolutely nothing.
I find it fascinating that our modern science knows that the world is made of light,
which is what Moses, who was a mystic who's faith worked many miracles, indicated
in the book of Genesis.
The scientists can not say that the Creator creates the light, and Is what exists
before the light, because they believe they can not empirically prove the existence
of the Creator, though most of them are people of faith, who believe they are just
figuring out how the Creator does it (manifests and orders His creation).
I believe the proof of the
existence of the Creator is so obvious, that we tend to overlook it: I did.
Even though we can not
measure the life in a living thing, we know it is there animating the dirt that
makes up the living thing. We all also know deep inside that the life within anything
is special and to be respected. Even pagans feel this way. If life is animating the
soil that makes us, the most complicated of things, certainly it can be seen that it
also manifests the inanimate world the living beings occupy.
There is a lot of contention today between creationists and evolutionists about when
the universe was actually created. All scientific evidence points to about 13.7 billion
years ago, but Judeo/Christo/Islamic scripture (The Old Testament)
indicates about 6,000 years. Hindus and Buddhists account for a slightly longer
time.
I would remind the evolutionists and scientists that the universe, if it is
made by a Creator, can be made to appear to be any age and to have gone through any
stage to get to us. In other words, because it appears to be so, doesn't make it so.
One of the very real possibilities scientists are evaluating is that the Universe
is actually eternal and would appear to be 13.7 billion years old to any observer, in
any time, from any place.
It is also fascinating that the Universe can have no edge or border because there is
nothing to border on, even a vacuum. Therefore, all observers always appear to
be at the center of the Universe, no matter where they are, and all travelers will
eventually return to the point they left from.
The creationists are obviously wrong about 6,000 years as we know our species, in
its current stage of development, existed way before that.
We can trace ourselves
back at least 110,000 years to Africa and a common ancestor.
The other races and ethnic subgroups only began to evolve 60,000 years ago when some
of our ancestors left Africa. At that point, only about 60,000 of us were left
(about the same as the orangutang population today).
Thus we have been developing into "separate" races for
only 800, 75-year life spans, or 3,000, 20-year generations. These are very small numbers
and shows how fast evolution occurs according to where we live and what challenges
our enviornment presents.
What I see is that the universe wasn't "created" and left to run on its own. It was
created and it is now an ongoing creation. As we
live and act, and react, in the world, the world manifests itself around us in the
next instant. Each of us participates in the actual creation through our actions,
prayers, dreams, and expectations, and fears, which is why faith can work
miracles, and the absolution, or relieving, of guilt is so important to good health,
as Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and Krishna all taught either directly or indirectly.
It is this "coalescing" of the light that I see when I see a miracle happen.
The observer affects the observed. This was first demonstrated when a sub-atomic
particle called a "quark" was discovered. Quarks were discovered nearly simultaneously
by researchers in several different parts of the world. What was amazing was that
each of them observed something different: the observer affected how a quark
behaved, what it appeared to be, according to their own expectations.
Picture an expedition going single file through a deep forest. They are approaching
a tree that no man has ever seen before. Before the first man sees the tree,
it exists as a seed, a seedling, a young sprout, a mature tree, an old tree, and a dead
tree lying on the forest floor and all the possibilities in between. When the first
person sees the tree, all those realities collapse into a single reality and every
person afterward will perceive the tree as though it had aged from that date. In other
words, a person who comes along 20 years later will perceive a tree that is 20 years
older than the tree the first person perceived.
Because of this, I do not believe we can ever determine when this universe actually
began, or when people appeared in it. Genesis only makes sense if it is taken as
the origin of one people, the Jews, as traced back to the earliest fabled ancestors
by Moses. Otherwise Cain would have no people to fear or live with after he killed
Abel. Likewise, "time" (and "space") do not really exist, but are simply constructs
we use to help us understand and order our world. So saying the universe is 13.7
billion years old ultimately means nothing. It certainly appears to be 13.7 billion
years old, but it could have been made to appear that way at any point.
In conclusion, science agrees with religion in that the world is made of light. Science
says the light comes from nowhere out of nothing, religion says Life creates the light.
I know the Life creates the light because I see it every time I see a miracle.
The ultimate truth is that space/time, which, according to our scientists is one
thing, is an illusion, and the only reality is an
Eternal Be-ing aware of Its-self in an eternal instant. That eternal loneliness and
boredom is the primary reason there is a Universe: Divine Discontent.
THE MEANING OF LIFE
As I am a spiritual, mystical man, I must ask you to bear with me if you are an
atheist as I explain what I have found to be the meaning of life. Most of what I
say and believe is affected by this belief and it is necessary you read it so you
understand the basis of what I say.
The Primary Question is:
"Does Life spring forth from the world,
or does the world spring forth from Life?".
Every living thing I see is dirt animated by life.
I do not see dirt animating anything.
I also see the world materializing around me as I live in it.
The World Springs Forth From LIFE.
Again, I STRONGLY recommend EVERYONE OF EVERY AGE watch the movie
"What The Bleep We Know".
it explains what modern science knows about the very nature
of our beings, and how the world manifests itself around us as we live in it, in a
very entertaining, easy to understand way, animation and all.
This is the kind of thing I am talking about here, but from a personal perspective:
a world of light, instead of a world of rock and dirt.
My children introduced me to the movie, and I was so grateful because they no longer
thought I was the only one who understood, and sees, what I do. It has opened
the spiritual world for them in a very nice way.
Everyone I have talked to who has seen the movie has loved it.
I guess I'm a movie critic now.
In any event, our most advanced science confirms what I am about to tell you,
and watching this movie is an easy way to understand how.
There is a Be-ing which exists and which has always existed. It was never born nor
created. It will never die nor cease to be. It is the ONLY REAL Thing that exists.
It is made of nothing. It is made of NO THING. The only reason It exists is that
It is aware of Its-self. It is the "I AM THAT I AM." It is a BE-ing.
There is no reason for Its
existence other than the fact It exists. It always was and always will be. It is
eternal. It is Life Itself. It is eternal Life Itself. It is One. There are no
others. It is not made of parts. It is indivisible. It is eternally alone. It
lives nowhere because there is nothing real but Itself. This is the Creator: the
Supreme Be-ing: God.
The major religions all say we are created in the image, or likeness, of this
Supreme Being. Most people interpret that to mean we look like God and God looks
like us. But God has no toes, no fingers, and no nose. God is made of nothing but Life
Itself: Its Own Self-awareness.
I am a Human Being (You-man Be-ing), but It is the Supreme Be-ing.
The Supreme Being has no sex.
The Supreme Being is referred to as "He" because that is the proper impersonal
pronoun in the English language. It does not confer sex or physical being.
God has no body. God is everywhere because He creates everywhere there is. God is
nowhere because everywhere He creates is just an illusion. It is His dream; His
creation. Without Him there would be no creation and nowhere would exist. If you
could close your eyes, plug up your ears, taste nothing, smell nothing and feel
nothing with your sense of touch, and just be aware of yourself existing,
with no words or dialog in your mind, that is
similar to what it is like being the Creator:
a state of just be-ing.
He exists, in an absolute void, only
because He is aware of His own consciousness. He only exists because He is aware of
Himself. If there were no such Being, there would be absolutely nothing. There would
be no existence at all.
And when you focus your attention within, shutting off your senses, you are
communing with, and becoming one with, the Creator creating you from within and your
world from without. Words can be used to ask questions or ask favors, and they are
answered, with a subtle voice and feelings from within, and physical manifestations
in the world.
When it is said we are created in the image or likeness of God, what is meant is
our spiritual selves are like His.
What we feel, emotionally and spiritually, are
what God feels.
One of the worst feelings we can feel is loneliness. Even in prison, the ultimate
punishment is solitary confinement; being locked up all alone. If a bee is isolated
from other bees, or a termite from other termites, they will die. A dog with a
single master, whose master dies, will often lie on his master's grave and die of
loneliness.
This is the reason there is a world; a creation. God is totally, eternally, alone.
The creation allows Him to escape from His loneliness much as a movie or book allows
us to escape from ours. He creates others so He will not be eternally alone and then
He lives through those others in His creation.
This is His magnificent ability:
out of absolutely nothing, He can dream up this creation.
Then, He can incarnate Himself into His creation, through all the various life-forms
and participate as if lost in the illusion, born as a baby,
while still remaining aloof as His Own Self:
the Harmonizer and Judge, harmonizing the entire Creation so it makes sense to
each of His incarnations apparently living separate lives, in all forms, plant
and animal.
To one who is alone, the most important thing is an "Other". The most important
other is a loving other. Thus He makes us male and female. The male and female, in
loving each other, take part in the process of creation and issue forth other
loving others in the form of children. The Creator rewards those who take part in
this process with intense spiritual and physical pleasure and the love of the
children they propagate.
This is the centerpiece of the Creator's creation:
loving others creating more loving others.
The Creator is passing eternity here, through us, in the most enjoyable world
He can imagine for Himself to be in.
We put danger, adventure, drama,
humor, and intrigue in our books, plays, and movies. As we are created in
the Creator's likeness, we can understand why the world contains all
these elements, too. It makes the world exciting for the Creator
that lives here through us.
It enables the Creator to live the fullest of lives possible.
The creation is the Creator passing eternity in the most enjoyable way It can
imagine. This is the meaning of life.
THIS IS Heaven for the Creator. God is in His Heaven: HERE.
We have a hard time understanding this because we are mortal. Once one understands
the world in terms of the Creator's purpose, though, and realizes that the very life
that animates them is that Creator and therefore eternal, and that nothing
actually ever dies, the world makes more
sense. If the Creator is to be entertained here, and distracted from Its eternal
loneliness, then the world must be as it is.
The Creator enjoys being the Tiger as well as the Lamb. The Creator is NOT
human (you-man). Observe Its creations and you observe Its soul. Use your eyes. Get
down in the grass and spy a bug. Look up to the sky and spy a bird. Consider the
tree.
Thus all life is sacred and the Creator loves the homosexual, cannibalistic murderer
as much as any holy person because It is incarnate (in the flesh) in all.
This does not mean we have to tolerate such a person, just that the Creator
loves that life as much as ours, even though It requires us to end that life in
the course of ours.
We should strive to love our neighbors as ourselves, and our enemies, as well,
because the Creator is incarnate in them, too, and they are, on a deeper level
than our egos, truely OUR selves.
WHAT IS RELIGION AND ARE YOU RELIGIOUS?
First of all, what is religion, and what does it mean to be "religious"?
"Religion" does not equal "Spirituality", nor does it require a
"spiritual" belief of any kind.
Do you brush your teeth regularly? If so, you brush them "religiously", and
therefore have religion. Are you a vegetarian? If so, you "religiously"
avoid meat, and therefore have religion. You don't have to
believe in a Creator to have religion.
If you take the Creator out of the major faiths, what is left are the collective
health laws of our ancestors. If you take out all the ceremonies, all the saints, all
the holy men, and the concept of the Creator itself, you are left with the collective
wisdom for healthy, happy, living accumulated by your ancestors. As people everywhere
have come to a knowledge of the existence of the Creator, they have naturally included
Him in their daily lives and recipe for happiness. But with or without Him, the
health laws of our ancestors remain valid. These, including those of "modern" science,
are the basis of our "modern" health laws and this brings us to the Law.
The word "man" will now be used. This should not be interpreted as
inferring sexuality. "Man" is the proper impersonal pronoun in English for all of
mankind, regardless of sex.
The law is made to serve man, not man the law.
This is the primary test of any law.
One of the reasons there are five major faiths in the world is the early
geographical separation of the different peoples. People have all developed
the ability to perceive the presence of the Creator. Indeed, our
connection to the spiritual is actually built into our physical selves,
and can be measured
and observed chemically and electrically in the brain, as discussed below.
So the core spiritual beliefs of the major faiths
are very similar, their monotheistic belief in one original Creator, but their
"Religions", or "Faiths" about what "to do" and "not
to do", have been influenced by
widely diverging circumstances and environmental factors as they developed.
Please take note, the "Golden Nugget" of truth I found at the core of every way I
studied, was that when we rolled our eyes up in prayer, meditation, or communion,
and simply communicated with the very Life within us, we were in direct communication
with the Creator that was creating us, and the world around us as we live in it,
and that It could be asked questions that would be answered and that It could be
petitioned with love and prayer. I know this is true because I do it and see the
results manifested in my world as I live in it.
All ways developed slowly over time, and all had bright flashes of spiritual
infusion to keep them developing. The three in the Judeo/Christian/Islamic tradition
all appear to have had a short-term infusion of wisdom through the person of Moses,
but his infusion was actually the result of an extremely long tradition of observations
and research meant to keep the pharaohs of Egypt alive as long as possible.
Moses did not receive all of his education through direct inspiration on Mount Sinai,
but through his education as a prince of Egypt who might become Pharaoh.
He was telling the Hebrews not to eat the shellfish in a desert, where they did not
exist, because he had been taught that shellfish were dangerous as a prince of Egypt.
They did not serve shellfish to the Pharonic household. Moses was not just inspired
by the Creator, he was also one of the best educated men in ancient history.
I found it important to view the holy men of the past like any other man. We tend to
wrap them in such reverence that we forget that everyone of them said each of
us could do just like them if we looked at the world a certain way (like them). When
we put them in historical context, as real, ordinary, men, it is far easier to
understand them.
When Moses left Egypt, he led a very large population of slaves numbering about
600,000 who had nearly no individual culture left. He had been raised as a prince
of Egypt and was groomed throughout his life to rule, should circumstances bring
him to the throne.
Though Egypt had a pagan,
polytheistic religion, Moses was already a mystic who knew of, and communed with,
the one true Creator. So he created a priesthood, complete with
ritual and breastplate of pretty stones, tablets and ark, and gave them laws to
live by. In effect, he created a society from scratch.
The health laws he passed on were exceptional because, for 2,000 years before he
was born, there were people whose only purpose in life was to figure out how to
keep the Pharaohs and royal family alive and healthy for as long as possible,
just as they tried (very successfully) to keep them preserved after death.
Because he was also a mystic, he gave them a solid belief
in the Creator through miracle after miracle being wrought through his faith; one of
the things all the great teachers possessed: faith.
The Egyptians didn't know about bacteria, parasites, etc.,
so he had no way of explaining why people should serve their cooked meats on
clean plates, for example, and not the ones the raw meat was prepared on, except that
they could get sick and die and that was just
the way it was. That made it a mysterious or mystical thing and "God's will", so the
laws blended with the spiritual
concepts he gave them.
The most important thing he gave them was the knowledge of the
Creator, however, because our interaction with Him is the most important aspect of
our lives in regards to how we influence the actual creation. More on that later.
When the "religious" laws of any religion are examined in the light of what "science",
which is the art of observation and experimentation, tells us today, it will be seen
that we now understand the health reasons behind them better than our ancestors did.
For instance we now know that Moses was right all these years about the clean plates
for cooked food. And while the Christians of the Middle Ages were getting sick
and dying from eating off contaminated plates, the Jews who kept to the laws of
Moses, and later the Muslims, avoided those sufferings.
These include the moral laws, which benefit mental, emotional, spiritual, physical
and financial health. The reason our "modern" science can explain these
laws are that they were based upon scientific principle to begin with: the
observations of our ancestors.
What we do "religiously", we do "regularly". The reason we do them is because over the
course of time our ancestors have observed that if we do them, it is good for our health.
These are the "religious" laws that require us to do something, like serving our food
on clean plates so we do not pick up the parasites from the raw food on the plates the
raw food was prepared on.
Other "religious" laws require us to not do something, like eating pork, which we
now know if not cooked well enough can pass along trichinosis to humans. This is
a particularly disgusting parasite which is why pork and related beasts get special
attention, but the ingestion of raw blood and meat of any sort was also prohibited
because of the parasitic health risks there.
We also now know that certain parts of the pork are high in fat, which is to be
avoided, just as Moses taught thousands of years ago, though the fat risks of pork
in particular might not have been known to him. Trichinosis and other parasites
might have been his only concern.
Moses knew most of these things through the long line of wisdom that preceded him.
For thousands of years the Egyptians studied how to keep their Pharaohs alive and
healthy as long as possible. Moses was a prince of Egypt and in line to be Pharaoh,
so he was taught the wisdom of his ancestors.
Others were direct inspiration from within, and others occurred to him over
time. Circumcision to prevent troublesome male penile infections he learned through
the Jews as passed down from Abraham.
The "religious" traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism are the same. They are the
the accumulation of long lines of observation and shared wisdom that benefit the
health of the individual and the culture as a whole.
Before humanity knew about parasites, bacteria and the causes of disease associated
with high fat diets, all they knew was that certain regular, or "religious" practices
could protect them from disease and death. This was the wisdom of their ancestors,
who they loved and trusted. It was also just the way it was: "God's will". It is
simply how the Creator made the world. It is not that God does not want us to eat
pork to test us. It is that our ancestral wisdom told us it was unclean and that is
just the way it is, which makes it "God's will".
Those people who learned to cook pork well, eat it sparingly, and avoid the fatty parts,
have not been struck down by God for "sinning" by eating pork, because they learned
how to eat it safely, something even the pharaohs did not know how to do.
In most cases, in most faiths, "sinning" is the equivalent of doing something
unhealthy.
Buddha taught that all things should be partaken of in moderation. (Nothing is evil
unto itself - it depends on how it is used) I can't understand why he is always
portrayed as fat, when gluttony is so excessive and causes so much ill health,
and he was so wise. He was known to be well fit and athletic his entire life until
intermittent disorders overtook him in later life.
The Old Testament of the Judeo/Christo/Islamic tradition says nothing is evil unto
itself. It depends on how it is used. Again, moderation is espoused and excess
condemned. So, too, in Hinduism.
In any faith, if you are fat, you are a glutton and are sinning and will pay for
your sin. Most people in all faiths take this to mean after death. But if you are
a glutton and get fat, you pay here and now with many kinds of diseases, including
those that are fatal in very unpleasant ways.
Likewise, if you drink too much or are promiscuous, you will get sick and
might die. You are a sinner. You are living an unhealthy life.
In all faiths these laws have been passed along as "God's will". This is because most
people cannot understand what the wise have understood and even the wise did not
know the reasons behind the effects in all cases.
So for one faith to despise those of another who eat pork no longer makes sense,
but the prejudice is maintained because the "law" was put in terms of
"God's will" and "sin" instead of health.
Instead of despising each other for the different ways they have developed, the people
of the different faiths should be looking at each other in the hopes they will learn
something their own ancestors missed. They should also rejoice that the
Creator they love has also been recognized and loved everywhere.
The "laws" the faiths share
far exceed the "laws" that separate them.
Our ancestors found it natural to think of their ways as "God's way", or "God's will",
because it was not just their wisdom regarding diseases from food and cleanliness
that was growing, but also moral wisdom that pertained to sexually transmitted
diseases and what made for happy, well-adjusted individuals and communities based upon
the family.
In other words, they realized that their moral behavior could also influence
their health and happiness.
The fact that "immoral" behavior resulted in the spread of disease was noticed,
and all of the faiths have attributed it to God's plan for the creation. The concepts
of love, marriage, and family have evolved along with mankind's consciousness
everywhere. In effect, mankind has been forced into marriage and fidelity by his
knowledge of the diseases inherent in promiscuity. The fact that all peoples have
made this spiritual connection is a
testament to the existence of the Creator and to the fact that He has revealed
Himself and His plan for human cultures built upon the family unit to all.
It is extremely significant that, when mankind thought it had all the deadly
sexually transmitted diseases defeated through antibiotics, AIDS and Hepatitis C
appeared. If a person can't see this, they just don't want to and are in a
state of denial.
This is where all mankind has found its spiritual connection to the Creator. This is
the spiritual hub around which all societies revolve: loving others creating loving
others, and the Creator has maintained deterrents to living otherwise in spite of
modern science.
All the valid laws are based on health,
whether physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or financial,
and they come from ancestral wisdom.
However, it should be noted that many faiths have "laws" that, while well intended
to please the Creator, do not actually serve man. Instead they place unnatural,
cumbersome burdens on people. Most of these have been generated by well-meaning
people who want to extrapolate on the simple law and find deeper meaning in it.
It is an act of devotion, but one that eventually clouds and obscures the simple
message at the heart of each faith. Such a law is the Jewish admonition against
tying a string on your finger on the Sabbath to remember to do something the next
day because it is work. This has nothing to do with benefiting the person involved,
like the Sabbath itself, but merely puts another reason for senseless guilt on the
individual. Extraneous laws place unnecessary guilt on people and this causes pain, which
pains the Creator who lives here through us.
There can also be a collapse of the law when the messenger is misunderstood.
In Christianity, Paul discarded all the health laws of the Jews, based upon a
misunderstanding of the teachings of Jesus, in order to gain converts who he could not
explain the reason behind the laws to. Instead of telling older males they could
forego a painful adult circumcision, but should begin circumcising the newborn,
he told them they could do away with circumcision completely, for example.
Jesus also did not know or pass on the health reasons behind the sanitary and dietary
laws, or his other disciples would not have given in to Paul's interpretation of Jesus'
message. This is also evident in the gospels when he defends eating without washing
the hands first. Although his point about what comes out of people's mouths is also
true, he was wrong about washing the hands. It is also not clear if he understood
about contagion and the spread of infectious diseases in crowds, as in the Temple,
something Moses apparently had some knowledge of.
Periodically, in all societies, there are convulsions that take place and the law is
temporarily discarded or ignored because people lose their understanding of the
purpose of the law and presume they know better. Likewise, in all faiths, the simple
understanding from the simple truth is finally lost, and the followers base their
belief on faith alone, which leads to suspicion and hatred of others who do not do
exactly as they do. Neither of these are healthy situations. One leads to anarchy,
disease and death. The other leads to oppression, war and death.
Ancestral wisdom is based upon observation and experimentation, which is science.
Our science has evolved, and pork can be safe to eat, but shellfish are still
always dangerous and the moral law has not changed. People thought it had, with
antibiotics and birth control, but with sexually transmitted diseases epidemic, and
as deadly as ever, they now know it has not. Not only has the Creator given people
AIDS to deter promiscuity in the age of antibiotics, we also know that hedonistic
promiscuity leads to broken homes and disturbed children that rapidly grow into
disturbed adults, and societies composed of disturbed individuals rot away.
The purpose here is not, cannot, be to point out the flaws of all the sects of all
the faiths, major and minor. How many sects of how many faiths there are can hardly
be imagined.
The CORE of each sect is true. There is One, and the way to a true understanding of
the world, the only path to true spirituality, is through communing with that One
by rolling up our eyes and focusing within in love and a "holy" spirit.
From there the many have strayed in
many ways, as lesser people tried to interpret ancient wisdom so it suited their
own thoughts, desires, and ability to understand. The message of the great teachers,
Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus, etc., was always a simple one.
This is why their message spread so quickly: even the small child could understand.
Basically it is what we all tell our children. "Don't do that, but do this, or you
will get sick or be hurt". When the children mind their parents, they usually fare better in
the world. As long as we trust our parents and ancestors, and listen to the ancestral
wisdom in their admonishments, we fare better. When we think we know better and
go our own way, ignoring their wisdom, we suffer unnecessarily. Why is the world
dangerous in these things, so we need these "laws"? Just because that is the way
the world was made, which makes it "God's plan". God knows why pigs carry
trichinosis and we don't need to know why. We just need to know the danger is
there, and that knowledge is the gift of our ancestors.
So I will try to simply state the law and why it exists for the benefit
of mankind. I will also not deal with dietary law and laws of cleanliness.
Considering modern science, these laws should be self-evident in today's world, and
are easily obtained through governmental sources. If these sources should be
unavailable, the Torah, or Old Testament of Moses contains excellent guidence,
especially when read in modern English, as in the New International Version,
as our modern health laws are mere extensions of his and we now know all the
scientific reasons behind his.
Modern law has enhanced the laws of Moses in that we now know that red meat must be
cooked to 150 degrees F, not just "well", while pork and poultry must be 165 - 175
degrees F, to be safe to eat, for instance, and that pork, if cooked well, is safe,
even if infected with trichinosis. I should note that trichinosis, though eradicated
in the western world, still infects pigs in many areas of the third world. I have
heard an American chef recommend eating pork rare, but will never try it, myself.
It is in the moral law that man meets God's plan. The physical health laws, diet and
cleanliness, bring health for what are now obvious reasons. The reasons behind the
moral laws have become cloudy, and they are the laws that allow for mental,
emotional and spiritual health, as well as physical and financial health,
and peace between neighbors.
Whereas there is an awareness of the physical health dangers in promiscuity, the
mental, emotional, and spiritual detriments are rarely considered. So, too, when we
consider things like revenge and vengeance.
Traditions
Traditions are extremely important to human happiness. Although they often become
convoluted and clouded, they maintain core truths. If everything were to fall apart
tomorrow, it would be the people of tradition with the edge for survival. This is
because tradition, in spite of its weaknesses, contains the health, dietary, and moral
laws that maintain a people in good health. Though I am not an orthodox Jew, I would hate
to see them disappear because within what they do lies the wisdom of our ancestors.
Each of the great faiths has such traditions. Most of them are so similar as to be the same.
Within the traditions women have support as women from other women, and men from men, too,
which relieves a lot of stress.
Christianity is in crisis because the Roman concept of Jesus as a god doesn't sit well
with what we now know. Unfortunately the so-called "enlightened" generation didn't work
within their respective faiths to alter the basic concept of Jesus regarding spirituality,
and instead simply abandoned their churches, along with their traditions. This has led
to a general cultural collapse in the West.
And, yes, Jesus was made a Roman god by Constantine. Great coup for Constantine, terrible
blow to the humble Jesus, who wanted us all to know what he knew. By making Jesus the
one-and-only Roman god, Constantine took that away from everyone. Jesus the god is
Jesus the Roman god. If the Romans tried to put Jesus' image in the Temple, Jesus
would have cast it down.
The cultural collapse in the West is also, primarily, a spiritual collapse. Again, this is
because of the Romanization of Jesus as a god or the only begotten son of god. As an
avatar, in the Hindu or Buddhist tradition, he makes perfect sense. If Christianity hadn't been
Romanized, the faith could have developed as a branch of Judaism, which is what it is, as
is Islam.
If you are a person without tradition, it is difficult. To me the most important tradition
is communal worship. It is around this core activity that compassionate support comes. If
you pray with people anywhere, you will find a lot of support of all kinds there when you need it.
As I don't want to be affiliated with a church, I have not been doing this, but miss it
dearly. I make up for it by increased time communing with my Creator.
If you are without tradition, consider these:
The United States government has the best dietary and health guidelines available. They
actually include the laws of Moses, but not as regards Kosher slaying. If it all falls
apart, get a Bible and follow the laws of Moses. Don't worry about the kinds of birds,
just don't eat carrion eaters and shellfish eaters.
Morally, the Ten Commandments can't be beat. That's why they have been around so long. But
the moral traditions of each great faith are valid.
In the early days of Christianity, the followers would gather together on Sunday, the
first, not seventh (the Sabbath), day of the week to talk about what Jesus had said. This was not
sitting in a church and going through ritual prayer. They didn't "take communion."
Instead they did a "pot luck" and ate and drank together in Jesus' name and celebrated the coming
of the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven where all sins were forgiven. This is
why the letters of Paul have so many admonitions against drunkenness and fornication. Because
a lot of early Christians figured they could do what they wanted and still be forgiven,
they lived a wild communal lifestyle.
In essence, it was Paul who first started undermining the traditions of Judaism.
That, along with the Romanization of Jesus, has led to the nearly complete collapse of
Christianity we see today. When Paul convinced the disciples to do away with circumcision
and the dietary traditions (laws) of the Jews, in order to gain converts, he began the
slide to today, where marriage is no longer a sacred union, but dissolvable on the
slightest whim of either partner.
We are witnessing the dissolution of a partial Judaism.
In Islam, the only major difference I see (other than how people pray and other outward
trappings) is the prohibition imposed by Mohammed on alcohol. This prohibition makes sense
for the people it was given to, the Arabs, as most Arabs have a single functioning liver,
like most Native Americans, and alcohol is poison to them. The Jews, by contrast, have only
.05% single functioning liver rate.
People with a single functioning liver only process the alcohol once in their livers and
that chemical is extremely toxic and devastating. In people with double functioning livers,
the alcohol is processed twice and that chemical gives the normal drinker his pleasant
"high" True alcoholics are those people with single functioning livers. Other over-indulgers
are merely gluttons and "problem drinkers".
In any event, tradition is an important part of any culture. It is its core. In the West,
traditions have been abandoned along with Christianity and, sooner or later, they must be
replaced. In the United States, this is evident in the emergence of what can be called
"Secular Religion", where the government is trying to take control of what should be
religious issues. Thus, to teach "safe sex", clearly a religious issue, but also a health
issue the government thinks it has a duty to teach, they also teach
sexual tolerance, another clearly religious issue. The government is under stronger pressure
to provide charitable relief (welfare) to people because the churches don't. This should
be the provenance of the churches, not the government. But because the churches are
failing, the government is being forced into the religious spheres and we are seeing
the emergence of the "State Church", a super-church that does not even respect, and
abrogates, the sacred marriage vows of the legitimate faiths it rules.
In the United States, the agenda of those people who have lost their traditions and want the
state to teach about those things the faiths used to, and that of those who still hold a
faith are in direct conflict. If not resolved, this will eventually reach a boiling point.
Those without tradition are trying to use the government to establish new traditions. This
makes the government the State Church and that is totally unacceptable as regards the
separation of church and state. It also forces all faiths to follow the dictates of the
government, even if, as in marriage, it violates their beliefs, and that is a totally
unacceptable suppression of freedom of religion.
If you have lost your traditions, I suggest you celebrate any tradition that appeals to you.
The birthday of Jesus is a great one because, even though his name has been soiled, he was
a great man, though humble, who ushered in the whole age of Romanticism. And he was a great
avatar. Like Buddha, Krishna and Moses. Celebrate him! Find what you can to celebrate with your fellow man in
the spiritual sense. Celebrate good men who did the world good.
MARRIAGE
People wear clothes for various reasons, but the primary purpose is modesty.
We cover our sexual organs so we do not arouse those we do not want to arouse and who
do not want to be aroused. We mate in private for the same reason. The denser the
population, and the more we come into contact with strangers, the more important this
becomes. We also normally mate for life everywhere.
The marriage is in the children, not the money.
Once children are conceived and born, the "marriage"
is consummated in flesh, blood and spirit and cannot be undone. Two people
literally become one person in the person of the child. THAT is the
"marriage". The marriage ceremony is only a public expression of that intent so
the others in the community know the union is clean and involves lifelong
commitment. Until children are born, no matter how many years have passed
since the intent was spoken in the marriage ceremony, no marriage has occurred.
The marriage ceremony only establishes a union of honorable, clean, healthy, intent
and, until children are born, can be annulled without shame if no children are
conceived. This is not true if the couple only fornicates and uses birth control.
If there is no intent to create children, there should be no union in ceremony or
legal commitment. The marriage ceremony should only be performed, vows of intent
taken, and contracts entered into, when the couple wants to merge themselves together
in a child. That speaks of
love and is just cause for celebration. All else is just fornication.
In the West, prior to the time of Jesus, a marriage could be terminated by a male just by saying
"I divorce you" three times in public. From the male point of view this made sense back
then when life was hard. Females are difficult to live with. Their monthly cycles and then
menopause put a lot of stress on men who are more stable emotionally. This is especially true
during menopause, when the womb is no longer viable.
All cultures have traditionally been male dominated, which obviously makes it the
"natural" way, and males have tried all kinds of solutions to their female partners'
emotional volatility. All over the world men have isolated women during their periods
in one way or another.
Jesus said these divorces were no longer acceptable and made the husband responsible for the wife
for her entire life. This change ushered in the Age of Romanticism and chivalry
in the West.
The West has now legalized divorce by either party for any reason and found that women
institute divorce 7 out of 10 times, more frequently when they are approaching menopause
and more often than not for frivolous reasons like "He's not growing anymore."
They do this because the courts tell them they have no responsibility and that men are
pigs who deserve it. They then tear the man from his children and home and rape him
financially so the wife can go merrily on her way without having to fulfill her
responsibilities to him
anymore. This is worse than male behavior before the time of Jesus and a terrible
symptom of a society gone totally selfish, where no one has social responsibility and
the children are, literally, damned. A lot of this is due to an LSD induced
megalomania in the society, especially the 60's generation.
Marriage is a difficult state from the point of view of both sexes. That is why
successful marriages require unconditional love and self-sacrifice. This is done for
the sake of the children and society as a whole. Those who deny this obvious truth
tend to be selfish, self-serving individuals who don't want the concept of self-sacrifice in
their lives. Most of these people hide their true intentions behind atheism or a phony
"compassionate liberalism" that allows anyone to behave in any way so they can, too.
Really it is just selfishness.
The different faiths have developed different concepts of the family, but they all
recognize the importance of the family unit. It is central to all societies. Why?
Because that is the natural way for mankind. It is the way the world was made. It
is an integral part of the fabric of creation, so it is the Creator's plan for man.
What culture can remember back to a time when there was no family?
The vows taken in the marriage ceremonies are for life. They are lifelong commitments.
This grew out of the necessities of life in the Creator's creation, where male
must provide for female and children, while female bears and succors. This is the
natural way mankind has developed everywhere. It has not changed, in spite of modern
conceits in some societies.
Every society considers fornication a "sin"; as unhealthy. This is because fornicators
tend to be promiscuous people because they do not respect the special nature of intercourse.
Because they tend to be promiscuous, they also spread disease and are unclean. Sexual
intercourse should be reserved for its purpose, which is reproduction: for "re-creation",
not "recreation". Why? Because
promiscuity spreads disease. That is the way the world is made. That makes it part of
the Creator's plan. Certainly the sexually transmitted diseases deter promiscuity.
That is just the way it is. Although it might be nice to be physically intimate
with everyone we love, it cannot be in an emotionally stable society because that
is not our natural way, or instinct. The young rebel against it in their hearts.
The lifelong commitment required by all societies is not just based on the physical health
of the community. It is also based on the emotional health of the community.
Broken homes lead to poorly nourished, emotionally damaged, mal-adjusted,
children who grow into the same kind of adults, accelerating society's decline.
Divorce is not an un-doing of the marriage if there are children. It is nothing more
than the disassociation of the male and female. It does not lessen each parent's
responsibility to the children and should be avoided at all costs. Divorce should
only be granted when one parent threatens the life or health of the other, or if one
becomes permanently incapacitated through illness or imprisonment. Whenever possible,
each mate has an obligation to care for the other in his or her respective roles throughout
their lives. The male owes the female for issuing him children, and caring for his
and their domestic needs. The female owes the male for providing for her and her
children throughout their lives. The mutual commitments do not stop when the
children are grown, but continue unto death. In this way the male is rewarded for
his lifelong efforts, and the female hers. This also acts as an example to the
children, encouraging them to work through the difficult times in their
relationships, and contributes to the financial and emotional health of the entire
community. Divorce impoverishes households, which undermines the economy, which
undermines the security of the entire community.
Promiscuity threatens the life of not just the spouse, but the
children and should not be tolerated. The person whose immoral behavior brings on
the dissolution of the union should, at a minimum, be rewarded in no way and be
left at a subsistence level so the rest of the family unit do not suffer for that
person's indiscretions. If the promiscuous offender is put to death, as is the law
in many cultures, society must aid the remaining family as needed.
Brutality can not be permitted, but the male is the natural head of the family and
must have reasonable physical disciplinary powers over his children and spouse.
As in all other aspects of society, physical force to maintain order should only
be condoned as a last resort, but not all people can settle their differences
peacefully, or behave rationally at all times, even the most intelligent.
Although we like to think a lot of ourselves as a species, we are still just what
we are, and we have to recognize that. Denial is even more dangerous to the public
welfare, regardless of "intellectual" ideals.
Females are as violent as males and this dominance by the male is the result of
the development of the species, whereas the male is normally the larger and stronger
of the two. Studies have also shown that females who get violent are more violent
than their male counterparts in that they use a weapon much more frequently.
This is often to make up for the difference in size, which makes them afraid to
strike with their bare hands. This fact requires even more latitude for the male on
the part of the law, or the courts become constantly clogged with domestic issues it
has no legitimate business in and only make worse.
There must be a final authority within the household and the male provides the most
stable emotional base. The female has emotional problems monthly until she goes
through menopause, which is a prolonged period of instability lasting years.
The female must have the same disciplinary powers over the children.
Governmental agencies and authorities should only intervene in a family's affairs
as a last resort in extreme situations.
There is no such thing as a "no fault" divorce. Societies that allow this encourage
the disintegration of the family because all marriages go through difficult times:
males are prone to wander at any age and females become emotionally unstable during
menopause. If there is a divorce, society must demand there be a good enough reason
to put the children's health, development and financial security at risk.
Self-sacrifice is an essential element of becoming a parent. This is why marriage is "sacred".
A society that does
not put its children's interests first is a selfish, evil society and crumbles
from within because such children put themselves first, too. Selfishness is a poor
example to set for a parent who expects its children to take care of it in old age.
Successful marriages pass through three stages. The first is the period of romantic
love: the honeymoon. The second is a period of struggle, or conflict, when each
partner tries to make the other "more" perfect: to change them. The third stage is
mutual acceptance: unconditional love. Again, governments that facilitate the
breakup of marriages going through the difficult stages are evil in their
influence. Marriage vows are considered "sacred" because they ARE difficult
to keep. A government that does not enforce the RELIGIOUS
marriage vows of its population is evil in its influence.
Divorce impoverishes all the
parties involved, unless they are wealthy, which most are not, and severely injures and
hampers the children. In the West, the male is despised and is wrenched from his
children, regardless of who files for the divorce or who is failing in their
responsibility. This is the result of many things, as discussed elsewhere, but
is a critical element in radical feminism, which is an anti-male, bigoted movement,
perpetuated by hate and ignorance.
There is no consideration for the male's feelings in the West. He is wrenched from
his home and children and impoverished. The male loves his children as much as the
female, but he is denied their daily presence, forced to live in poverty, providing
an inadequate "second home" when they are allowed to visit.
Likewise, there is no consideration for the children. Children need both a male and
female parent. This is how people learn about each other and how to live with each
other. Both elements are essential for a happy, well-adjusted, childhood and
adulthood. When there are a father and mother, both have more time to nurture the
children and attend to their needs and education. They also eat better, get better
medical care, and prosper better in general when their financial
situation is better. Divorce impoverishes them, too, and THEIR
welfare should come first. They are the very future of humanity!
Again, a government that encourages the dissolution of marriages through financial
gain, as with females in the West, or through ease in general, as in the West and
in Islam for males, is evil in its influence and leads to an unhealthy society
physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and financially.
I said above that women are as violent as men are. Contrary to public opinion and myth,
this is true. Just as many wives abuse their husbands as husbands abuse their wives.
I am speaking here about physical violence, not verbal abuse. As men are less verbal
than women (the average woman speaks 20,000 words a day, the average man speaks only
7,000 words a day), I expect women are guilty of more verbal and emotional abuse. This is
reinforced by the common perspective in all cultures that this is the case.
It is commonly accepted, usually with humor, that a woman can not stand to see a man
resting. We laugh at what hurts and this is a truism, which is one of the reasons
why most men die five years younger than their female counterparts. Stress kills
and causes early aging.
I am emphasizing this because I once had a feminist tell me that the reason women
initiate 7 out of every 10 divorces is because men are abusive. This is a feminist
myth. Even the San Francisco Chronicle, the most liberal paper in what is probably
the most liberal city in the United States, which is one of the most liberal
countries in the world, ran a front page article on the subject in the summer of 2002
or 2003 that said just that (apologetically). (I'm sorry I can't quote you more
references for what I say, but I've read
and studied so much, I could not possibly keep track of them all. All I can say is
that I am very selective about the sources I accept. I'm very well educated, critical
and have a high IQ.)
Men and women are NOT equal. They are the same in many respects, but they
are not "equal". Their life force, or "soul" is the same, but "Man" does
not = "Womb-man". They are not made of equal parts.
One is the result of two XX chromosomes joining, and one is the result of an
XY combination. Simple algebra says "XX = XY" cannot be correct unless "X = Y",
which it does not.
In a female, one of the X chromosomes atrophies, so really a female contains only
one X chromosome (it is a 50/50 chance of being the father's or mother's) and the
connecting genes from the other X chromosome, which provide characteristics of the
other parent.
The male possesses 80 more genes than the female because he
has two active chromosomes, the X and the Y, instead of just one.
A female is an X and a male is an XY. Again, "X" does not = "XY" This
means males are literally "genetically enhanced" females,
giving them inclinations and abilities the female does not possess, primarily
because she does not need them if she has a male counterpart.
This is why males are stronger and more emotionally stable and rational and is
another reason males make the best ministers or priests.
That is a BASIC difference. A government that ignores this difference,
or claims it does not exist, is evil in its influence.
Male and female are equally precious to the Creator, however, and it is the
Creator's life that animates both, and governments
need to keep this in mind in the formulation of laws and granting of liberties.
They also share the same unhealthy inclinations and weakness in the face of
temptation.
Women lie more than men. They learn to do this because they want to maintain the
peace. They also learn to be more deceptive in their appearance than males, who
tend to adorn themselves much less. I believe this difference in level of honesty
and integrity is an important difference the courts must always consider.
The fact that women initiate 70% of divorces speaks directly to this difference.
Women are more emotional and prone to irrational behavior. They go through radical
mood changes with their hormonal fluctuations. But they are just as greedy and bloody
as men; just look at the reign of any queen. When a society tells their women they
can dump their men and keep their children, and still be supported by that man, they
naturally get rid of the man when they go through an unhappy period. People who
think women are morally better then men are ignorant, prejudiced bigots. That
side of us, unfortunately, is basically the same.
Another important difference between men and women, however, is that women have
historically been dependent on men for their survival and the survival of their
children. They have evolved, therefore, into seducers. Where most men are content
with vain expressions limited to hairstyles and dress, women use make-up, padded
underclothes, and other falsehoods to "capture" men. This is lying at a basic
level of being. Women lie about what they actually look like and what is actually
beneath their clothes. They also lie to preserve the peace in a group,
where a man is liable to be more confrontational and straightforward.
The source for this is a book titled "You Just Don't Understand", by Deborah Tannen.
The book was on the New York Times Best
Seller List for a long time and it should be easy to find. It was
written by a female linguist who studied males and females from birth, expecting
to find that differences were the result of culture, rather than inborn, and found
the obverse: our differences are physical, not cultural; evolutionary, not
incultrated. We are created "equal" in the Creator's eyes, but that does not mean
we are the same.
Again, a government that doesn't recognize these differences is evil in its influence.
It is enforcing unnatural laws based on bigotry and myth.
The individual filing for such a divorce is actually at fault for the
pain and hardships they are placing on their spouse, children, and the
community as a whole, which must deal with all the myriad burdens dysfunctional
individuals, coming out of broken homes, place upon it.
Governments that do not treat the marriage vows taken within any of the faiths
that make up its population as legal, binding contracts, are evil in influence
because they encourage the dissolution of families over trivial matters.
Once two people have children, it can not be said, "We have nothing in common
anymore". As long as people have living children, they have the most important
thing in common: the best interests of their children. They also have their home,
finances, future security, and (loving) memories in common. After a bitter
divorce, both parties tend to avoid thinking about their happy moments together,
and this can encompass a long period of life, which is more or less erased. Likewise,
memories and experiences are not shared with the children because they are hurtful
to remember and talk about, and the parents tend to deride each other, rather than
praise each other, to their children.
Another excuse commonly used by women is, "You are not growing anymore". They perceive
things this way because they are constantly undergoing biological and
emotional changes far in excess of what their men are experiencing. For them to
injure their men over this is immoral. For society to condone it is evil. Men and
women change at different paces through life, but both end up more similar than
different in old age. Women become man-like younger than men become woman-like.
Patience is required. This is especially true of men, who must
deal with the monthly fluctuations in their mate's mood and Menopause. Indeed, it
speaks well of men that only 3 out of 10 divorces are initiated by them, especially
considering that males remain hormonally sexually driven to a far older age than
females. Long-term loyalty to the spouse is stronger in males and this is why
marriage laws have held such importance in a predominantly, universally, male
dominated world.
Society needs
to consider this in the formulation of laws about marriage and child custody.
I like the Kenyan divorce model the best. In Kenya, in a divorce the husband keeps
custody of the children. As men must work, this extra burden of raising the
children alone keeps the male more committed to his wife. Since the wife (mother)
doesn't want to lose her children (future support), she is more careful, as well.
Women who have children out of wedlock have failed to secure their children's future,
both financially and in mental health, by failing to secure them a committed father.
A child needs both a male and female parent to develop normally. Children raised
by a single parent often turn out to be a burden to their parent, rather than a
blessing, because they are dysfunctional in adulthood.
It is currently impossible for two people of the same sex to "marry" themselves together.
People "marry" themselves together in children; in flesh, blood, and spirit. To
have a civil or religious ceremony announcing that intent, and the responsibilities that
come with it, is pointless and only
serves to undermine the credibility, in the eyes of the young and other members
of society, of the legitimate ceremonies and contracts between males and females,
who will indeed "marry" themselves together in children, and are therefore
undertaking serious, "sacred", life-long commitments for the benefit of those
children, as well as themselves. There is no real marriage without procreation.
In the very near future, however, it will be possible for two people of the same
sex to merge themselves in the person of a child. At that point, it must be accepted that
these two people are "married" together in flesh, blood, and spirit, and they, too, must
be allowed to be married in cermony.
All of this is meaningless, however, if marriage itself is meaningless. If there is
"no-fault" divorce, instead of divorce only under the most extreme circumstances,
marriage itself becomes moot, and society must accept the fact that it will soon be
peopled by those who have been severely damaged by divorce and are ravaged by the sexually
transmitted disease epidemics found in all promiscuous societies.
Infertile couples who maintain their loving relationship through adoption are to be
commended. This does not apply to homosexual couples (same-sex - see below).
As I mentioned elsewhere, the Creator loves the Jeffry Dahmers as much as the Buddhas' and
Jesus'. There are people who have both male and female sex organs. One in five million
women carry the X chromosome, technically making them men, but if their womb fully develops,
they can have a virgin birth. Some people have two Y and one X chromosome (only one
chromosome would be dominant, the other two would appear atrophied). Some people have two
X and one Y chromosome. Again, only one would dominate.
Historically speaking, those individuals with other than strictly heterosexual sexual
drives have been scorned, derided and persecuted for their promiscuity and subsequent
health risk to the community. Historically, all promiscuous people have faced the
wrath of their fellow citizens because of the public health risk, homosexuals more than
heterosexuals because of the types of sexual acts they perform. Adulterers, adulteresses,
and male homosexuals are all "put to death" in Biblical cultures.
The point here is that the real enemy of mankind is promiscuity. It doesn't matter what
type of relationship it is. If the homosexual/bi-sexual population can be assimilated
into a non-promiscuous population through enforced monogamous relationships,
then the public health is protected. Because it is not yet possible for two people of the
same sex to procreate together, they should not be allowed to "marry", but should be
allowed "civil unions" that state they are monogamous and committed to each other for life,
and not leading promiscuous lifestyles.
The reason homosexual couples should not be allowed to adopt is not a matter of their
worth as people, or their capability to love, but rather it is a matter of the welfare of
the child. When two homosexuals are capable of merging themselves in a child, which is
just around the corner, that child is theirs and is their genetic material. That child
will be able to understand its parents and its own circumstances better than a child who
is of different genetic material.
Even when homosexual couples can reproduce and "marry", they will be a source of mockery, comedy,
and derision, at least for the foreseeable future. This is an unfair burden to place on
an adopted child when there are heterosexual couples available for adoption. It is sad,
but there is no way around this one fact. "Gay rights" movements and all, even the most
liberal comedian makes fun of the homosexuals. It is not likely this will ever really change,
but might with scientific advancement. In the meantime, it is not just unfair, but criminal
to place a child in a homosexual home where it has no genetic connection. Of course this is
not the case if one of the partners is a genetic parent. In that case, the child belongs with
its parent.
Jesus and Bar Abbas
Pilate gave the Jewish population a choice between two lives. It was Passover
and he was going to let a prisoner condemned to death go free. He let them
choose between Jesus Ben Joseph of Nazareth and a man called Bar Abbas.
In the Christian New Testament, Bar Abbas is called a "murderer". In these times
he would be called a "freedom fighter" or "terrorist", depending on your point of
view. The individual he killed was a Roman soldier and he did it to try to help
bring about the end of the Roman occupation of Israel.
In effect, the Jews were deciding on two different courses of action in deciding
which of these two men would live. They could choose between Jesus, a pacifist who
preached embracing the enemy, and Bar Abbas, the warrior who would fight overwhelming
odds. The majority of those present chose Bar Abbas and his way.
The followers of Bar Abbas and his kind finally brought down the wrath of the
greatly superior forces of Rome and the Jews were dispersed throughout the world
for 2,000 years.
The followers of Jesus conquered Rome in 300 years, killing no one, but with many
martyrs.
People are still making the choice between Jesus and Bar Abbas all over the world
today. The outcome will be the same. In the end, the violent will lose and the
peaceful and compassionate will prevail, for that is where man's heart lies,
everywhere I have been in this world.
Osama Bin Laden and his type follow the ways of Bar Abbas and have doomed themselves
to infamy. I said earlier that Al Qaeda was attacking the West to protect the health
of their families. I said this because the most resentment I felt when visiting
Muslim countries was towards Western culture (drugs, sex and rock & roll), not the
West's foreign policy. I therefore believe most of the members of Al Qaeda and other
such groups are motivated primarily by that.
Osama Bin Laden, however, openly admits he is primarily motivated by his hatred of
the Jews and Israel. Hatred of the Jews was forbidden by Mohammed, as was their
slaughter. This would reduce Bin Laden to just fighting for land, outside the
dictates of Islam, IF he was just championing the Palestinian cause.
But his rhetoric is explicit in his hatred of all Jews, and this makes him no more
than a very dangerous bigot, like Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Osama Bin Laden is a
mass murderer, and nothing more. He adds nothing helpful at all to the international
and interfaith dialog. He is the worst expression of the times.
I follow the way of Jesus in that it uses words, understanding, and
compassion instead of weapons. Only these things can bring true peace.
This brings us to the current conflict between the faiths. I hope my Hindu and
Buddhist friends will excuse me if I use the three branches of Judaism in my
examples, as, being so closely tied together, they present the easiest
examples. As I was raised in that tradition, it also makes it easier for me to
find examples.
The conflicts between the faiths branching from Judaism, and spreading
eventually into Hinduism and Buddhism, arise from differences in how people
worship and who they revere and respect the most. They result from focusing
on the details of the dogma, rather than what is being practiced and experienced,
which is holiness in all faiths.
When Societies Clash
The biggest question is, "Who will prevail?" Will the West "win" or will Islamic
fundamentalism "win"?
The answer is that neither prevails. Each will alter the other so two new entities are
evolved.
The next huge spiritual revival will begin in the West. This is because the West is in
the worst shape and needs it the most. Islam is a fine faith. But as with everything, its
radical extremes are not. The extremists cannot stop mankind's technological advancement
and it is that very technological advancement that liberates females from their daily
chores and creates the need to find other constructive things for them to fill that time with.
Females need to be educated and be allowed to show their faces.
But females are the seductive of the sexes and this puts men in a difficult, unfair,
position. This is one of the reasons the Creator has equipped males with superior physical,
emotional and rational attributes.
This requires female modesty in the workplace. Unfortunately, this modesty also requires
an averting of the eyes because female eyes are either challenging or seductive to males.
Since males are usually larger, instincts come into play to dominate the female and this
can get very ugly if she is challenging. If she is seductive, the male is either seduced
or strongly resents the attempt at seduction and despises the woman.
As a male, I can tell you that female "equality" will never exist. Indeed, I can tell
you that simply as a person who has eyes and knows the two are not the same. This is not
to say that some women cannot do what the best of men can do. Some can. But like the
difference in intelligence levels between the races, where anyone in any race can be
more intelligent than anyone else in any other race, but generally there is a distinct
difference between the races in general, so to is it between men and women. (In general
intelligence, IQ, the races rate Asoid, Caucoid, Hispoid and Negroid, with about a 5%
point difference between each. I know in the current atmosphere that this is not
politically correct, but I am not about that. I am about facts.)
So that even though the Black race lists lowest, it still produces geniuses at the highest levels
and no one of any race should feel insecure or inferior based upon their race. Neither
should any person judge another merely upon their race. If one goes back just 15 generations,
about 2,000 years, he will find he has over 30,000 ancestors with, believe me, many
surprises in genetic make-up.
The difference between male and female is much greater, and this puts a lot of stress on
both in a mixed school or work environment. Both males and females suffer in co-ed schools
when they are less attractive. Mixing males and females in schools creates an added
social stress that distracts from the educational process in a large way because human
sexuality and its instincts begins at birth: really, at conception. Nearly every
endeavor in sexually separated education has shown that both males and females do better
in education when separated. This implies that, as a general rule, they will also do
better at work if not distracted by the other sex.
Even Islamic women in the most fundamentalist nations wear makeup behind their veils and
at home for their husbands. This is a woman's way. To be a woman is to want to be seductive.
This creates a lot of difficulties in the mixed workplace. Unfortunately, so does mannish
dress and behavior, which most men find to be inappropriate aggression on the part of the
female. It is a male's instinct to dominate the female. It is also the female's instinct
to submit to the appropriate male.
A spiritual revival in the West, which is as inevitable as the rain, and a technological
liberation in the most conservative Islamic nations (really, worldwide), will result in a blending of the
two, just like the blending in our gene pool. The planet is rapidly becoming one now,
and a true flowering is at hand.
Regarding the conflict between Sunni and Shiite, the Prophet would be very angry that these
two children he has spawned are killing each other. If he had been more specific in
designating a successor these problems wouldn't exist, but it could be they are healthy
for Islam. If a single faith had been established with one person at the head, like
in the Catholic Church, over time it would be inevitable that Islam be corrupted because
a corrupt person would eventually come into power, as happened in Catholicism. The
Sunni/Shiite dialog and the absence of a head cleric helps to keep Islam honest. Sunni and
Shiite need to understand that they must simply agree to disagree about some things
like any sibling would do to keep peace in the family. They need to accept the fact
that the early Caliphs of both sects were flawed men. The proof of this is that the
Caliphate was actually sold at one point.
Regarding the conflict between Muslim and Jew, and Muslim and Christian, the Prophet would
again be appalled. He taught that these three should live in peace as they spring from the
same well. His problem was with Jews who derided Islam. There is very little difference
between Islam and Judaism. The ban on alcohol Mohammed imposed was fitting and proper
for the Arabs, as they have a very high percentage of single functioning livers, like
Native Americans, and alcohol is a poison to them. Other dietary law differences, like
regarding the eating of camel meat, are mostly cultural.
In Christianity, the conflict between Catholic and Protestant would really anger Jesus,
"The Prince of Peace". If they did what Jesus actually taught, and indulged their holy
spirits instead of fighting, the peace promised by Jesus would prevail. The primary
problem in Christianity is the paganism established by Constantine, who made Jesus a
Roman god and crushed all the other myriad sects that were flourishing before then,
like the gnostics, who were maintaining a teaching much closer to what Jesus taught, and
establishing a central church power in Rome in the person of the Pope. Christianity
will continue to decline until the paganism is rejected and Jesus is "un-deified" and
simply recognized as the great teacher and prophet he was. Jesus wanted to be followed,
not worshipped and elevated above all. He was a humble man who washed the feet of his
followers.
The rapid decline into corruption of the Roman church, with all its paganism, caused
this rift to begin with and the fragmentation has continued since because no one has
got a grasp on the true teachings of Jesus. Most of them still accept him as the
"only begotten son of God", which is the pagan, Roman, teaching. For this reason alone,
Christians, like Muslims, have to simply agree to disagree.
The biggest threat to peace today is the conflict between extremists in the
Islamic world and the western (mostly "Christian") democracies. In fact, there is no
peace and war is in progress. This conflict is not about money, but culture.
The Islamic extremists want all women veiled and the Western democracies want to
give all women the vote. The anthropological view is that everyone should just leave
everyone else alone, but this is just not possible anymore. Human technological
advancement has turned a world of nations into a world of suburbs. Even though we
still have some residual war, we are really already one world of different cultures
like a city like New York is a city of different cultures. Peace through law
enforcement is coming. We are becomng one through technology and the tyrants, would-be
tyrants and war-makers will not survive much longer. We, the meek, will simply not allow
it to go on much longer.
I want to dispose of the secular, governmental, issues first to unwrap the deeper
issue.
Arnold J. Toynbee,
probably the world's most renowned historian, noted that every great
society begins as a Republic. Republics degenerate into Democracies.
Democracies degenerate into Dictatorships, Dictatorships degenerate into
Anarchy, and out of the Anarchy a new Republic is born.
Historically speaking, therefore, the western democracies
are in their late stage, being attacked from without and within, and are on the
verge of martial law and dictatorships. In this day of rapid communication, I do not
think many of the dictatorships can last for long, which means anarchy is not far
away.
If the western democracies went through a spiritual revival, and stopped the internal
discontent, this process might be slowed or halted. The Internet might provide this
revival in time, but that is doubtful.
One of my reasons in writing this site is to try to get people in the West to start
talking about what will come after the dictatorship, in the hopes to forestall the
anarchy, out of which no one can predict what will grow. The only society I know of
who postponed the decline into anarchy is Rome. This is because Augustus Caesar
re-established the republic at the end of his rule. Interestingly enough, he also
banned kissing for 11 years because of an epidemic of venereal herpes on peoples lips,
and imposed strict moral laws reminiscent of all the great faiths. He did not live
by them, himself, but he exiled a daughter to a solitary island life when she did
not either. He was very strict about it.
I begin with this because the democracies believe that they are the peak of
civilization and are feeling a commitment to spread their form of government
everywhere, enfranchising all. They are including this as part of their influence
anywhere they are gaining control through justified or unjustified military action,
as well as through normal social and commercial intercourse.
They are wrong in feeling justified in spreading their degenerate form of
government.
It seems to me that the pro-democracy movement is moving at such an accelerated pace
that the whole world will be democratized in a very short period. This is both good and bad.
The good part is that more people will be free to express themselves and, as I have found
most people to be peace-loving, I expect we will finally have a world government and the
long thousand years of peace everyone is expecting.
The bad part is that democracies have traditionally not worked. The politicians become
mere panderers and the population votes itself both the moral and financial treasuries,
eventually destroying the civilization.
It is my hope that as the world's democracies merge into one "country", probably through
the United Nations, that those who frame the new government make it a Republic, so voting
is a priviledge earned through age, education, marital status, financial status and moral
status. For instance, an adulterer should not be allowed to vote.
In this day and age in America, I would expect a voter to be at least university educated,
25 years of age, and married.
I would also expect all combat veterens, people who had been in actual combat,
not military clerks and others in the services who do not experience combat risk,
to be enfranchised, as well as all rabbis, mullahs, priests, ministers, gurus, etc.,
from any legitimate faith.
The education requirement could be lowered in countries where widespread education is
not common, and the voting age lowered in countries where the life-expectancy is lower
and where people marry younger, but the principles should remain the same. Wisdom
comes with age, responsibility for others, and experience. To have a voting age of
21 years when life expectancy is 42, as it was in 1900, or 38, as it was in 1800, makes
good sense. Back then people were married and had families in their teens. And they
died young. Today we marry much later and live to be 78. We should also now
delay the age to vote so people who are wiser, and, yes, age and responsibility do
make us wiser, are controlling the direction of the society. Youth, bless it's heart,
does not know better, even though it may feel better about the world. It takes age to
know the many ways living kills and the true challenges of the world.
The failures of the so-called '60's generation is
proof of this. "Do your own thing" is the basis of the decay in western culture. It
epitomizes the selfishness permeating the West. Put
all of the surviving (yes, many are dead) Woodstock participants back in the same setting
and you will find very few willing to act the way they did the first time around.
Age has made them wiser.
In a true Republic, only certain property owners vote for representatives. This restricts
voting to a certain group of prosperous, and supposedly well-educated, individuals.
These individuals also often possess strong spiritual values in any society.
The United States was founded as a Republic, but has long since been a democracy,
though most of its citizens do not realize there is a difference.
It is hoped that in a Republic, politicians speak their minds and run on honestly
debated issues, rather than pandering to as many special interest groups as they can.
When the general public is enfranchised, people vote so as to ease their lives,
both through public welfare assistance and through the relaxation of the moral laws,
creating a more hedonistic, self-serving society with low moral values.
The current morally degenerate condition of the western democracies demonstrates this.
Their rampant divorce rates, dysfunctional children, high drug use, and epidemic
sexually transmitted disease rate are all direct evidence of this.
This is because in rich societies people tend to be more hedonistic and selfish, putting
their own momentary happiness above even the welfare of their own children. Thus the
lack of concern for the welfare of the children, and the parents' unwillingness to
self-sacrifice for the sake of their children, in the matter of divorce in the western
cultures. Of course much of this can also be accredited to the collapse of Christianity
and the loss of its moral values.
Theocracies also do not work because it is difficult for clergy seeking enlightenment
to understand the majority who do not, and the government becomes too extreme in its
restrictions on living, wanting everyone to be saintly in behavior. None of the
great teachers in history would willingly accept a governmental leadership position.
They were all spiritual men who renounced the material world. Mohammed, who was put
in the position of having to fight in war, but who obviously preferred peace,
possessed the same spirit. One cannot commit to the Creator and the World, too, and
spiritual people who take on governmental positions must make too many compromises
or become too harsh trying to bring everyone with them on the path to enlightenment
through government.
The Taliban, though admirable in intent in their own minds, were brutal, cruel,
and uncompassionate in practice.
Though the conflict seems to be between these two failed governmental systems, the
cause is much more basic. The Islamic societies have a wide range of different moral
values, as practiced, but the core moral values of Islam, like in the Catholic Church,
remain intact and most in the Muslim world try to live by them.
In the western democracies, the predominant Christian faith has broken into over
3,000 sects, some of which ordain practicing sodomites as ministers, including major
sects.
Combined with a democratic government, this has led to a total breakdown of the
enforcement of the moral law in the western democracies. This is reflected in the
obsession with sex in western media.
At prime fault here is the judicial system in the United States, which has misinterpreted
the intentions of the founding fathers of that country regarding the separation of
church and state. They did not intend a Godless state, but a non-sectarian one.
They would not have recognized atheism as a religion, though they respected the
right of someone to have no religion and to be an atheist, as long as they obeyed
the moral law, which protected the public health. In their times, it was obvious
that the foundations of society rested on a belief in the Creator, no matter how
expressed. The courts in the West, like Paul of the Christian scriptures, have put
individual liberty above
the public interest, thus denigrating the quality of life of the individuals
who they are trying to give liberty to or save from suffering. This is misplaced,
ignorant, altruism. It is the heart ruling the head.
I ask those in the west this: If someone walked into your living room and dropped
their pants or lifted their skirts, and performed a sex act in front of you and
your children, what would you do? This is the problem faced by Islamic societies
and is why people will drive airplanes into buildings to protect the moral values
of their children. This is what the Muslim world thinks of western movies, television,
etc. They are being overwhelmed by western culture, which IS diseased, and in
their panic are trying to destroy today's equivalent of Rome at its worst.
The Western world has been trying to use their scientific advances to get around the
moral restrictions placed on them by the Creator through nature, i.e., disease. They
have failed in this but do not want to admit it. But many of them want to believe
science has replaced nature and the Creator, and they want to spread this belief.
In effect, the west wants to replace the Creator with Science in the mosques of Islam.
This is the same as Caesar wanting his image in the Jewish Temple.
In the west, human rights, compassion, and understanding are of huge concern. The
compassion of Jesus has come a long way. The intolerant have much to learn here.
This should include, however, a respect for the Islamic countries, or any culture,
where the western lack of moral values is not respected but feared.
This does not justify the actions of those in Islam, or any faith,
who would terrorize those of another. There is no true conversion through the sword,
only the heart and mind makes for a true conversion. Common sense, not intimidation,
is what always prevails. People follow what they understand and respect.
I remind all again of Jesus and Bar Abbas. Any religion that must rely on the sword
for conversions has reached its peak, lost its momentum, lost the message, and will
be met with adequate resistance at its borders to halt its growth. After that, all faiths
go into decline.
Flowers wilt.
The western world will find no peace until it undergoes a moral revival or finds a
way to isolate unreceptive, healthy (moral), cultures from its unhealthy (immoral)
cultural influence.
Those in Islam who would protect their people through the sword will only create mass
suffering. The only way lies in true conversion, which comes only through dialog. It
would be far more productive to buy advertising promoting moral values, than it is
blowing up buildings. Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.
Within all of this conflict lies another; the Israeli/Palestinian issue.
Abraham would cry over this conflict, as all concerned are his blood.
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is not an issue of Muslim versus
Jew, it is a conflict over land.
One can go back over time for reasons for revenge and vengeance, with plenty of
good examples to be found on both sides. Until both sides are willing to put these
incidents behind them, and deal with the present only, no solution can be found.
Peace can only come through letting has-beens be has-beens and proceeding from there.
Mohammed taught that the Jews, Christians and Muslims should live in peace as long
as one does not try to force its ways on another. This is because all these faiths
spring from the same wellhead and worship the same Creator. People of all faiths
should respect each other because all are seeking the same truths.
There is no right or wrong in this conflict. Both sides are right, and both are wrong.
In the eyes of the Creator, the righteous thing for the Palestinians to do would have
been to accept the Jews into their homes and country after the holocaust of World War
II. The Jews, on the other hand, keep trying to expand their hold on parcels of land.
The current Israeli policy of closing some settlements to make way for a Palestinian
state is very commendable, especially in the face of continued Palestinian violence.
The Jews now find themselves advocating the way of Jesus while pitted against the
Palestinians, who are following the ways of Bar Abbas. Even more ironically, the
Palestinians have a Prime Minister named "Bar Abbas", who has been an active advocate
for peace with the Israeli's. The Creator does have a sense of humor, just like us.
Jerusalem is a holy city not just to the Jews, but to the Christians, Muslims, and
other spiritual people, as well. As the Jews now control Jerusalem, and Christianity
and Islam are sects of Judaism, all using the Old Testament, I suggest they
make the city an Israeli city as far as territory goes, but that the city be governed
as an Interfaith
Holy City with a Republican government made up of representatives of all faiths.
In the United States, the central government is housed in an independent district,
Washington, DC, and I suggest the same thing for Jerusalem. I know this gives the
Jews final authority over the security of Jerusalem, but that is the present
geo-political reality and is the shortest route to peace.
On the other hand, it also gives other religions a voice in the governing of the city
and guarantees the safety and sanctity of their holy places and presence
in the city.
When a Palestinian state is established, I would recommend that each nation agree
that the citizens of each can buy real estate in the other. A reasonable limit could
be placed on how much property could be sold interstate per year to avoid abuses.
This would allow the Palestinians who crave their ancestral land a peaceful way
to regain it. It would also allow the Jews to be in areas they would like to be in,
that they do not have current access to.
It would also slowly cause a peaceful integration as neighbor learned about neighbor,
and population densities shifted. When each country reached an agreed upon ratio
of one to the other, the two nations could finally be united. This would warm
Abraham's heart, as he is the father of both nations, and it would make both nations
"great" in the eyes of the world, as promised to Abraham by the Creator.
The Palestinians have suffered gravely in the immigration of the Jews after
World War II. But the Jews came in desperation after mass slaughter and what followed
would not have happened if the Palestinian Muslims had followed the dictates of Islam
and provided comfort for their cousins, as dictated by Mohammed. The Creator cares
not if something is a lot to ask.
Muslims were also an enemy of Nazi Germany and did not suffer the same holocaust
only because their numbers were less in Europe and Nazi influence did not get to
dominate life in the Muslim countries long enough for Nazi hatred to decimate the
Muslim population in occupied countries.
I see again two paths here for the Palestinians. The first is suicide bombings by
people barely out of childhood. This is a disgrace to all mankind. That anyone would
sacrifice their children over land grudges is unthinkable in civilized societies and
the Palestinians are reviled worldwide for this practice. Recourse can only come
through civilized behavior. Teaching your children to blow themselves up for the
sake of cultural and religious myths, like "virgins" in heaven, is barbaric and the
civilized world despises it. It undermines Palestinian credibility. How can one regard
a people as civilized who do this to their children?
The Palestinians have a just cause, as do the Jews, but co-existence has to be t |
