[Please note: The “journey” to Realization has seven, clear-cut steps that must be taken in an exact order. The third step requires that persons first play a religious role or a spiritual role. Both must be transcended to continue, but either (or both) can serve as a step; however, it is far easier to move beyond a spiritual persona than a religious persona.]
F.: If the kind of supernatural or magical thinking that is fostered by religions could be compartmentalized, then all the misery caused by persons who have been religiously programmed and indoctrinated over the ages might be innocent enough. It might even seem childishly humorous or even “cute” in some provincial way. Unfortunately, the facts reveal that such distorted thinking (which results in distorted, destructive behavior) has caused too much misery and false sense of separation and devastation over the centuries to be humorous or cute. For 87% of Christians worldwide to believe that Mary was a virgin (even though she got pregnant and gave birth to several children) might be dismissed as childish or unsophisticated thinking, but when that same group believes that the destruction of 9-11 and of Hurricane Rita were god’s work, then they will seek neither true cause nor rational response. The problems will continue when cause is assigned to "an angry god."
Ninety-nine percent of all Jews believe that a god had Moses lead their ancestors to “holy” land that the god “promised” to them. (In fact there was no 40-year exodus. Moses simply took a pagan tale of a god with a magic rod who led his followers to a land of “milk, honey and wine”; then Moses inserted himself into a tale that was 500-years old in his day and wrote his version which is now considered part of a “holy” text.) For those Jews to ignore the true origin of that story and to take it literally might be humorous except their belief that a god promised them that land has resulted in over 4000 years of “holy wars” and divine-sanctioned killing.
100% of Islamic males interviewed recently really accept their religious programming and are certain that if they die killing Christians or Jews that they’ll get an eternal orgy as a reward. That picture of heaven not being “a happy hunting-ground” but “a celestial humping-ground” would be humorous if it had not inspired 1300 years of killing by Muslim males in order to earn admission to a never-ending sex romp.
Are there no basic truths in any religious teachings? Of course there are. The teachings of Jesus Christ included the Advaitic wisdom that he presented during his final three-year “ministry,” but Christians don’t discuss those teachings. Instead, they’ve engaged in a 2000-year debate over virginal vs. vaginal birth. Some stories in the Torah might have modern-day relevance, but Jews and Judaeo-Christians focus on old laws that restrict diet, that call for the killing of homosexuals, and that endorse the killing of wives found not to be virgins. With the focus on the magical, the mysterious and the miraculous, nothing real will be ever seen by those indoctrinated with dogma. Yet your original e-mail claimed that religions were “advantageous.” How can belief in lies ever be an “advantage”? Lies cannot be detected and truth cannot be grasped unless all magical thinking and all beliefs in man-made dogma and concepts are cast aside. Then, each individual can focus on finding the truth that is within…the truth that no man or woman or book can state.
Look to some of the specific instances of misery and ignorance in the relative existence that result from such magical thinking. Find people who don’t know how babies are made and you’ll find people so subsumed in the beliefs programmed into them by religion that they’ll blame flooding deaths on an angry god rather than on poorly designed levees and government agencies that ignore warning that flooding is imminent. Find people who have been so indoctrinated that they assign a religious cause to everything and you’ll also find people who are blind to government policies that inspire attacks by foreigners and who instead blame the attack on a god who hates “non-Christians, gays, and liberated women.” Develop a population of people so ignorant that they believe in virgin birth and in a god that kills through use of violent weather systems or through the use of foreign agents and you’ll have a population that assigns cause to events that have no relationship to the real cause at all. And find people that assign cause to events that have no relationship to the real cause at all and you’ll have a population that never finds viable solutions for the problems they face.
Again, magical thinking might be considered “advantageous” or innocent enough—maybe even childishly humorous or even cute in some provincial way—until it is seen that illogical, magical thinking can set an entire population on a course that ultimate sets them up for far more problems than can be imagined. Problems are prevented or solved by rational analysis, not by irrational people who think magically and supernaturally and therefore miss all opportunity to find cause and effect relationships that can solve—and many times prevent—the misery that persons suffer. The relative impact of magical thinking is overwhelming because idiocy, ignorance, and irrationality cannot be compartmentalized. Its impact is not restricted to the buildings in which the supernatural thinking is programmed into the masses. Instead, their distorted thinking and bizarre perceptions are taken outside their "holy" buildings and are allowed to impact every aspect of personal, local, state, national and international interactions of the bizarrely-programmed persons of the planet. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
Ninety-nine percent of all Jews believe that a god had Moses lead their ancestors to “holy” land that the god “promised” to them. (In fact there was no 40-year exodus. Moses simply took a pagan tale of a god with a magic rod who led his followers to a land of “milk, honey and wine”; then Moses inserted himself into a tale that was 500-years old in his day and wrote his version which is now considered part of a “holy” text.) For those Jews to ignore the true origin of that story and to take it literally might be humorous except their belief that a god promised them that land has resulted in over 4000 years of “holy wars” and divine-sanctioned killing.
100% of Islamic males interviewed recently really accept their religious programming and are certain that if they die killing Christians or Jews that they’ll get an eternal orgy as a reward. That picture of heaven not being “a happy hunting-ground” but “a celestial humping-ground” would be humorous if it had not inspired 1300 years of killing by Muslim males in order to earn admission to a never-ending sex romp.
Are there no basic truths in any religious teachings? Of course there are. The teachings of Jesus Christ included the Advaitic wisdom that he presented during his final three-year “ministry,” but Christians don’t discuss those teachings. Instead, they’ve engaged in a 2000-year debate over virginal vs. vaginal birth. Some stories in the Torah might have modern-day relevance, but Jews and Judaeo-Christians focus on old laws that restrict diet, that call for the killing of homosexuals, and that endorse the killing of wives found not to be virgins. With the focus on the magical, the mysterious and the miraculous, nothing real will be ever seen by those indoctrinated with dogma. Yet your original e-mail claimed that religions were “advantageous.” How can belief in lies ever be an “advantage”? Lies cannot be detected and truth cannot be grasped unless all magical thinking and all beliefs in man-made dogma and concepts are cast aside. Then, each individual can focus on finding the truth that is within…the truth that no man or woman or book can state.
Look to some of the specific instances of misery and ignorance in the relative existence that result from such magical thinking. Find people who don’t know how babies are made and you’ll find people so subsumed in the beliefs programmed into them by religion that they’ll blame flooding deaths on an angry god rather than on poorly designed levees and government agencies that ignore warning that flooding is imminent. Find people who have been so indoctrinated that they assign a religious cause to everything and you’ll also find people who are blind to government policies that inspire attacks by foreigners and who instead blame the attack on a god who hates “non-Christians, gays, and liberated women.” Develop a population of people so ignorant that they believe in virgin birth and in a god that kills through use of violent weather systems or through the use of foreign agents and you’ll have a population that assigns cause to events that have no relationship to the real cause at all. And find people that assign cause to events that have no relationship to the real cause at all and you’ll have a population that never finds viable solutions for the problems they face.
Again, magical thinking might be considered “advantageous” or innocent enough—maybe even childishly humorous or even cute in some provincial way—until it is seen that illogical, magical thinking can set an entire population on a course that ultimate sets them up for far more problems than can be imagined. Problems are prevented or solved by rational analysis, not by irrational people who think magically and supernaturally and therefore miss all opportunity to find cause and effect relationships that can solve—and many times prevent—the misery that persons suffer. The relative impact of magical thinking is overwhelming because idiocy, ignorance, and irrationality cannot be compartmentalized. Its impact is not restricted to the buildings in which the supernatural thinking is programmed into the masses. Instead, their distorted thinking and bizarre perceptions are taken outside their "holy" buildings and are allowed to impact every aspect of personal, local, state, national and international interactions of the bizarrely-programmed persons of the planet. Please enter the silence of contemplation.
TOMORROW, THE REVERSE IS DISCUSSED: HOW RELIGION “ABNORMALIZES” THE NORMAL
