Christianity, power and The New Testament

The stories of Jesus have always been appealing to those who are hungry for power and gold. Kings, tyrants, colonizers, slave traders, exploiters and fascists have all found encouragement in the Bible. Isn't this strange? How come that these kinds of people became so interested in the New Testament? They must have found something there that was very attractive, the question is what.

And the churches, Catholic and Protestant, why did they align themselves with these crooks? The Catholic Church endorsed the slave trade. How could the Jesuits in Senegal justify that children were separated from their parents and sold like cattle? How were they thinking? The Catholic Church supported the fascists in Spain? The Pentecostals endorsed the American terror bombings in Vietnam? A priest blessed the Hiroshima bomb. How do you explain all this?  

“In spite of a stronger condemnation of unjust types of slavery by Pope Gregory XVI in his bull In Supremo Apostolatus issued in 1839, some American bishops continued to support slave-holding interests until the abolition of slavery. In 1866 The Holy Office of Pope Pius IX affirmed that, subject to conditions, it was not against divine law for a slave to be sold, bought or exchanged.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_slavery

The inner voices

-It's only hundred fifty seven years ago since Darwin hit the final nail in God's coffin. Most people have not yet realized this fact. The church's role has declined dramatically since those days, yes, but people in general cannot accept the idea that life has no particular meaning or purpose. Not even here in Europe are people willing to drop their beliefs in a life after death. We can't just live and die like animals, like rats. Something wonderful must exist behind all this madness.

-What is more important to you, peace or truth?

-I prefer truth.

-And how will you find the truth, by reading books?

-How do you find the truth?

-I'm not looking for the truth. I'm looking for peace of mind.

-Where do you find peace of mind, in self-deception or marijuana?

-For me are depressing ideas self-deceptions, and ideas that make me feel happy and serene are truths. You can call my ideas self-deceptions and I can call your ideas depressing, but none of us can prove that the other is wrong. Therefore I choose the ideas that make me feel good?

-So, you are a relativist?

-I don't know what I am. You can call me relativist if that makes you happy.

-Many people in Germany became exuberant happy when Hitler came to power.

-I'm not a Nazi

-No, but you're asleep, spiritually, like the Nazis. People in a trance are dangerous.

-What an idiot you are. Even the Catholic Church accept Darwin's ideas about the evolution, but they think that there is a God behind it all. The process of evolution is planned and actively guided by God, they say. They have created their theory and the Hindus have other theories. There are thousands and thousands of different theories. Feel free to invent your own explanation. If your explanation makes you feel good or bad, is the litmus test.

-The idea that God actively controls our lives is truly frightening, isn't it. It must be an evil God who lets small children suffer and die in dreadful diseases. What kind of father is that?

-So, find a better explanation.

Agnosticism

-Do you believe in God?

-Depends on what you mean by God. Do you mean a person, a father,
someone who can help us when we’re in trouble?
No, I don’t believe that there is such a father somewhere.

-Well, do you believe in a higher power?

-What do you mean by higher power, some kind of electricity?

-I mean a higher force, a spiritual force.

-Ok, what do you mean by spiritual force?

-I mean some kind of immaterial force.

-Like magnetism?

-No, a spiritual force.

-What is a spiritual force?

-It’s very difficult for you to think outside the box, isn’t it?

-It’s impossible to think outside the box, I believe, because thinking is the box.

-So, this is all there is, what we can see and hear, touch and smell,
taste and think?

-No, of course not, we can only see and hear certain wavelengths. We’re limited, trapped. We’re like frogs in a well. We don’t know much of what’s beyond our well.

-So you accept, after all, the idea that there is a bigger world, outside of our well?
Maybe there’s a homely little pond out there somewhere, or a lake.

-Yes, maybe.

-Is it not strange that both these separate voices are created in the same brain?

-In our brain.

-Yes, in our brain.

Change

In 1633, Galileo Galilei faced the inquisition court. He was sentenced to house arrest and forced to recant his assertion that the earth revolves around the sun. It would take until 1835 before his book “Dialogue” was removed from the Catholic Church’s list of prohibited books. In 1992, John Paul II issued a declaration acknowledging the errors committed by the Catholic Church regarding Galileo Galilei.

It’s hard to abandon erroneous beliefs. Not only Catholics have this problem. Most people cling to all kinds of outdated erroneous beliefs and misunderstandings.

It was hard for the Germans to accept that Nazism was an evil ideology. They had loved Hitler so much. It was hard for the communists to realize that communism didn‘t work. Today it is hard for neo-liberals (conservatives as Americans say) to realize that also their ideology is a disaster. (An unregulated market fueled by the idea that greed is good can of course not solve the problems of global warming and environmental degradation. On the contrary, unregulated markets are the cause of the global warming and the environmental degradation.) The whole world is about to go under because of these idiotic ideas.

Some men cannot understand that their love is unrequited. Many smokers with serious lung problems refuse to give up smoking because then they wouldn’t have anything to live for. Many people do not leave their religious sect although they no longer believe in its crazy tenets and dogmas, simply because they have nowhere else to go.

What is wrong with us? Why is it so difficult to let go of stupidities and madness? Why are we so incredible stubborn?

Anyway, which convictions do you refuse to let go of? What do you refuse to realize? What do you refuse to see?

Relax. Sorry that I disturbed you. Go back to sleep. Hold on tight to your stuffed little teddy bear. Outside is nothing but howling winds and darkness.

Questionnaire

Which side are you on?
Can you imagine yourself on the same side as the Sheriff of Nottingham?

Where do you feel at home
among neo-Nazis
among evangelicals
hip hoppers, hippies
construction workers, artists?

Do you live as if life were a theater play?
Do you wear a mask?
Do you play games in order to fit in?

Did you sell your soul to a publicly listed company?
Did you sell your soul to the army, to a TV channel or to a university?
Were you decently paid?

Are you proud of your title?
Do you wear a tie?

Brain plasticity

A human being is a mixture of high and low,
love and hate, selfishness and generosity,
courage and cowardice, idiocy and wisdom,
just to mention a few constituents.

Those who say that selfishness is our true nature
are only capable of seeing a part of us.
It’s like saying that an elephant’s true nature is a trunk.

And those who say that our true nature is love
have also picked out just a part of the picture.

If we emphasize and reinforce only one aspect of our nature,
for example selfishness, through cultural and ideological indoctrination,
if we insist to reward and admire egotistical social climbers,
we will continue to create a very unpleasant and stressful society,
war and misery.

We ought to cultivate and reinforce our friendliness and warmth instead.

To be selfish or stupid is not your true self.
It is only a part of you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

http://psychology.about.com/od/biopsychology/f/brain-plasticity.htm

Letter to Richard Dawkins

Dear Mr. Dawkins

I have read a number of your books and I love them. It is probably more than 25 years since I read “The Selfish Gene” the first time. I think of myself as someone having a scientific outlook on life. I am not interested in religion, spirituality or New Age superstition. Evidence is of course much more important than belief.

However, I have experienced some very strange synchronicities in my life that I cannot understand.

I am convinced that synchronicities are real, paranormal phenomena but I cannot prove that I am right. Synchronicities cannot be studied with scientific methods because we cannot create them on demand. They are very rare phenomena and cannot be reproduced in laboratories.

Those who have experienced synchronicities or meaningful coincidences know what I am talking about, and those who have never had any such experiences (or never noticed them or rejected them) will think that I am just one of those millions of nutcases who are indulging in paranormal nonsense.

It is possible that I have deceived myself, absolutely. Illusions are common. But what if my synchronicity experiences are not illusions? And what if some of the many other synchronicity stories out there are also true stories? How can we find out? How shall we sift the wheat from the chaff? And how shall we interpret these observations? Shall we simply ignore them? Shall we ignore experiences and evidence that we cannot explain?

It is a pity that there are so many nonsense discussions about these things in the so-called spiritual circles. It is not possible to discuss synchronicity with New Age people, not with religious people and of course not with scientifically minded people. It is difficult to discuss these things with almost all pepople.

This is the reason why sincere people who have experienced synchronicities often avoid talking about them.

I think that you and your followers have never experienced any synchronicities. It can also be that you have had such experiences but that you never paid attention to them or maybe you explained them away because such phenomena are not on your map.