The Big Picture

I thought it was time to summarize what I have come to believe through reading, discussing but mostly deep thinking and receiving answers. To start with, you must forget almost everything the Bible, your parents, pastor and whoever told you about most things and be willing to ascribe new meanings to words you have long used, like God, Soul, Spirit, etc. I wrestled with using new words for these things, but decided to use the old words and figured if you are reading this, you can handle it.

What is God?  "God" is simply the interconnection of the spirits of all things with Souls to one another. I have likened it to a spiritual internet. From the great prophets in many cultures, well before Jesus, through Jesus himself, to many many brilliant connected theological thinkers since, it has been made clear that God is within each of us and we have a direct connection with and to God. Just because everyone calls it by this name, lets go ahead an refer to the spirit within us as the Soul.

God is not a separate being. We are God. We are all God together. We, connected and acting in harmony with one another without even knowing it, are God. We control God, not the other way around. We control our universe. You control YOUR universe. We use the Laws of Physics to do this.

Us.  We are composed of two parts. Our bodies and our Souls. Our bodies are very complex machines controlled by a very complicated computer. The Laws of Physics govern how it does what it does. Lots of the things that your body does, it does simply be operating properly. Heart beats, breathing, endocrine, lymph, waste and hundreds of other systems just function in accordance with the Laws of Physics. So the fact that a heart beats before birth does not mean the body has a Soul. I do not know when that happens.

There are all sorts of bodies out there that operate in this way, that may not have a Soul. The machine just functions by absorbing energy and functioning to stay alive until it dies. Plants just operate. Do they have a Soul? Are they connected to the God network? I don't really think so, but do not really know. Contemplate one-celled animals, reptiles, and amphibians; all of which are almost completely reactive critters. What about mammals up to dolphins and primates? Perhaps the complete balance of nature means that all of them are? Who knows?

Like any machine, it requires an operator for it to work. When your Soul enters any body, your body, whenever that is, you become the operator of that body. As the operator, you drive the machine. You choose where to drive it. Coolest thing is that by interacting with God, the spiritual internet, the super energy connecting all of us to one another, the super energy that wants all things to stay in harmony, you can change your universe to get what you want for YOU.

How does that Work?  Since you are always connected to the spiritual internet, you can tap into it. If you ask, the answer will be provided. If you need something, ask for it in a positive way, focus on it, believe with deep faith that you will receive it, and then act in accordance with the guidance from the spiritual connection we all share, what you need will come to you.

Nature strives for balance and harmony. That is not always good for any particular animal, as, of course many are inevitably food for others. Generally, however, food animals tend to reproduce rapidly and it tends to be the weakest among them who perish. So in essence, balance in the entire system is maintained.

Jesus noted that the sparrow never worries about where his next meal will come from. Assuming the sparrow is connected, it knows what it needs and has absolute faith it will find it and being connected, does without even thinking about it exactly what it is guided to do to find what it needs when it needs it. Except, of course, the weaker ones eaten by hawks or cats. Circle of life.

I saw a video that likened it to the genie in Aladdin, "Your wish is my command."  I think it is more like what Jesus said, "Ask and you shall receive." Jesus did not heal anyone. In the stories they came to him, asked for what they needed and because he was there and they truly believed in him, what they asked for happened. He even said that. He told them, because of your faith you are healed. He never said, because of me and my great powers, you are healed.

There are three requirements:

• Ask for what you need in positive terms.
• Really believe that it will happen. Faith must be strong to keep the spirit working.
• Do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do, always, all the time, no matter what.

The Power of Positive Thinking: The spiritual internet, God, is part of nature. It does not think. It is just a force, the force, creating harmony and balance among all living things.

Inexperienced soccer coaches often make the mistake of telling their shooters "Do not hit the goalie." This is a negative statement. The result is they hit the goalie. Zero percent will score. Experienced coaches tell them to hit the goalpost, knowing that most of the time they will miss the skinny goal post and a percentage of those will be inside the goal post for a chance at goal. The difference is the first is what NOT to do, which does not work, and the second is a positive action, which does.

If you are in debt, pray for, ask for, what you need. Do not ask to get out of debt. That is negative. If you want to lose weight, don't focus on what NOT to eat or do, but instead on what weight you are going to get to and what you will eat and do to make that happen. Cast whatever you need in the positive.

Do not be greedy. As Mick Jagger pointed out, "You don't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need." Mostly greed is something that you never really believe deeply enough that you will achieve. If you truly believe you will receive/achieve it, ask for that.

That being said, go for more than the minimum and ask for what YOU need. I own two houses I am going to sell soon. I acquired them for purposes of helping others, which happened, but not to my benefit. I did not ask for that. That is why good people sometimes do not get what they want. Because they think it is greedy or inappropriate to ask for it. They ask only for things that benefit others. Your wish is my command. Ask and you shall receive.

Believe:  When you truly believe and have faith that what you have asked for will happen for you, this reinforces daily, momently, what you have asked for to the spiritual internet, to God. It creates an imbalance that the force needs to balance to return nature to harmony. If you do not believe, there is no actual request and thus no imbalance to remedy. You may not get what you are asking for in a day, a week, a whatever, so faith has to be complete and constant.

Act:  Do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do. The world spirit will communicate to your spirit how to guide your body to remedy the imbalance. You must do all of these things all of the time or you will be fighting against the very thing you have asked for.

Why does that happen. Because the world spirit, the spiritual internet, God, whatever you want to call it, is driven toward balance and harmony for every creature in the system. It does not make decisions. It does not screw you over. It does not think. It just does. The system simply strives through natural processes to balance itself. You are simply letting it know how your world is out of balance and then doing the things required to re-balance your world.

You can be and have everything you need and want as long as you ask, believe and act.

Christianity is Simple (not easy though)

In my humble opinion (and I suppose since I write this perhaps humble is a matter of opinion itself), Christianity is not as complicated as so many seem to make it. Afterall there are a lot of people out there making a lot of money telling you what you are supposed to believe. It would suck for them if it was not very complicated.

So by Christianity I mean, what Jesus taught. That is in the four Gospels (and perhaps other writings if you like them). It is not necessarily in the rest of the Bible.

The Old Testament:  The God of the Old Testament is irreconcilable with the God of Jesus. The God of the Old Testament was viscious. If you take the Bible literally (which I don't), the first thing the offspring of God's first humans did was fight and kill and then run away. God later killed thousands in a flood, destroyed two cities, turned a woman to salt, killed every first born son of an entire country, killed the Egyptian army, and ordered the Israelites to kill every man, woman, child and every animal in Jericho, and punished the Israelites who did not do so. These are just a few of the murders commited by or ordered by the God of the Old Testament.

The God of Jesus is about love, kindness and non-violence. The God of Jesus is the love your enemy and turn the other cheek God. So, either there are two completely different Gods, which I suppose is fine, or the Old Testament is like the mythologies of the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Egyptians and other ancient peoples of the same time period, just stories of human-like anthropomorphized gods to explain things in nature they could not understand and the violent orders of violent leaders hell-bent on taking land from a foe. Nothing increases the subservience of a people in scary times than the much scarier fear of being smited by God.

So, to me the Old Testament is not relevant to being Christian. There might be some inspiring words and sayings in it, but it is not what being Christian is all about.

Paul:  Most of what is quoted from the New Testament comes from the letters Paul wrote, or allegedly wrote, to various rising groups of Christians. We quote Paul as though he was Jesus, but he was not. Paul never met Jesus while Jesus was in his ministry. He ran into him on the road to Damascus after the resurrection. So, everything that Paul knew about Jesus and his teachings came from what others must have told him or what he read in whatever was written about Jesus at the time, none of which we have now.

Paul was a man. Just a guy, like you or me, or perhaps more precisely your minister, priest or someone else who has dedicated his or her life to spreading what they believe to be the word of God as expressed by Jesus. He was hugely important to the birth of the Christian faith and arguably without him, there would be no Christian faith. He spread the "Word" to non-Christians all around the Mediterranean. This was not all that well received by the disciples, who generally believed that Jesus' teachings were for Jews. So without Paul, Jesus would just have been a prophet of a sect of Judaism.

BUT, he was NOT Jesus. Like the Old Testament, what he says has to be taken as inspirational, but not how to be a Christian.

Jesus:  So what did Jesus say Christianity is. To me, it is very simple. Hard perhaps to execute, but very simple. Here is how I see it and you are welcomed to disagree.

1. Personal Relationship: He explained that we have a personal relationship with God through the metaphorical Holy Spirit or Spirit of Truth. This was revolutionary. Jesus explained that you do not have to ask your priest, minister, a saint, an icon or anything else to intercede on your behalf with God. You can speak directly with God and if you ask for guidance, and listen, you will know in your heart what the right thing to do is. The priests and rabbis of the time did not like this message. Their careers depended on being the source of God's word for the people. Great rulers also did not like this. They waged wars and convinced the ordinary people to follow them out of fear that they are God's chosen ruler and God will smite the masses if they do not follow the ruler. This was radical but it is the core of Jesus' new religion.
2. Unconditional Love:  Jesus taught us to love everyone without limitations of conditions. This includes not just our families and friends but enemies, the poor, children, women, the diseased, the infirm and everyone else no matter who they are. These teachings are clearly inconsistent with the teachings of Paul which are often interpreted or translated, perhaps inaccurately, as intolerant of homosexuals, women and others. Loving unconditionally is difficult. It does not require, I suppose, for us to particularly like everyone. Bottom line, love everyone completely. Respect them. Care about them. Be real for them. But most of all love them for who they are, where they are and what they are all about, no matter how much they irritate you, annoy you or their positions are contrary to your own. That is what Jesus taught us.

Really everything else is a corrolary from those two. Non-violence is an extension of loving everyone, including your enemies; as is tollerance of others, foregiveness of others for everything they do for you or others. Love your spouse and don't covet those other's love, etc. If you love everyone, you cannot be greedy. You cannot take things from those you love. You cannot kill those you love.

I actually consider that everything derives from the first rule. Anyone who has read anything I write knows that I go by that first rule exclusively and it has never led me to any result other than the second rule. I ask God for guidance, to know what is the right thing to do. I feel that when I do this, and listen for the answer, I find I come to know in my heart what the right thing to do is. It does not always lead to great financial results. But in the end it makes me happy. I feel like my decisions help make others happy. I feel as though I live in harmony with others.

If Jesus actually performed the miracles reported in the Gospels, they were illustrative of the power of love for everyone, even people Jesus did not know at all. They could have been horrible people. He did not care. He loved them, period.

All of that stuff is window dressing on the very simple message of Jesus. The spirit is with you (wherever you believe it comes from). Ask and you shall receive relates to guidance, not stuff.

All that being said, following that one simple rule, followed by the second simple rule, is very difficult to do every day. Being a Christian is simple, BUT it is NOT EASY.

A New Religion??

A while back a friend of mine who reads this stuff asked if I was trying to start a new religion. It made me think about what the question really means.

There are a few "major" religions and hundreds or more "minor" ones around the world. Each major religion at least is divided into several subdivisions from "orthodox," to "protestant," to "progressive." Those are divided into different subdivisions, often by region, led by people with different interpretations of the main religion. Each of those sub-sub-divisions are practiced somewhat differently within each parish, church, synagogue, temple or whatever, depending on the thoughts and ideals of the spiritual leader. Within that are individuals and families of attendees who come from different upbringings whose core beliefs and practices vary from that of the local spiritual leader in the church they have elected to feel a part of.

Even those who profess to be the most devoutly orthodox often differ widely on the interpretation of the rituals and underpinnings of that religion. The Catholic Cardinals, about as high up in that organization as you can get, are followers of different versions of that religion. Apparently the new Pope is the first from the Jesuit group of religiously orthodox Catholics. One would think that if there was one religion that the followers of the oldest christian-based one would have complete agreement at the very top.

Then of course, the majority of the population, at least in the US, are irregular attendees at any church and have wildly divergent beliefs based on their own thoughts on the world. Almost 1 in 5 who answered the question admit that they follow no religion at all. Among that majority of Americans are atheists, agnostics, non-deists, deists, and a whole host of others who either do not believe in any god, are not sure if they do or do not, or could care less either way and never really think about it. I think most of us have "religions" or spiritual beliefs that change significantly through our lives based on things we read, things that happen to us, people we meet, ideas shared and significant moments that make us evaluate our lives.

So, when asked "am I trying to start another religion" with my weird thoughts on things, the answer is, I suppose so, yes. Mine.

Just like you have created your own belief system (even a determined lack of belief is a belief system). I am sure that yours is something that you are comfortable with and makes you feel good about your life day to day and within the grander scheme of things. And I don't expect you to believe ANYTHING I write, just as I expect you will not mind that I don't take as "gospel" anything you or anyone else has to say on the subject.

That being said, perhaps we can all learn from one another a bit more from time to time about the mysteries of life. I am listening and interested!!

Death

I suppose that following Easter is a good time to talk about death. As far as that subject goes, Easter is about the brightest moment for death in human history. Death intrigues me. It is counter to everything in nature. But, you say, every living thing dies. Ahhh, but does it?

One of the most basic concepts in nature is infinity. It is a concept that is very hard for most of us to get our heads around because we live in a finite world with walls and . . . well death. But in nature everything is forever.

Space is infinite. It never ends. There are no walls out there and if there were, there would be more space on the other side or the wall would have to be infinitely deep. Even though we cannot see it, space is infinite.

Space is infinite in the other direction as well. Every part of one small thing is made of still smaller things. Chihuahuas are made of molecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of neutrons, protons and electrons, which are made of quarks and other sub-atomic particles, which, scientists with very good eyes have discovered, are made of even smaller things. Actually that stuff is largely theoretical in that its existence is mathematical and proof involves smashing really tiny things together at nearly light speed in a super-collider in Europe (which I think is a fine place for it should anything go very poorly). The resulting collision creates these ridiculously tiny things for a nearly immeasurable instant in time. Nearly immeasurable, but not immeasurable, and so scientists can measure what happens in that instant. Pretty cool really.

At the ridiculously small sub-sub atomic level, things appear to behave rather weirdly. This is where we find things actng by the not yet close to being understood "rules" of Quantum Mechanics. Anti-matter and matter seem to inter-relate rather than annihilate. Particles seem to fly right through others without any effect whatsoever. Some seem to disappear and re-appear, though we cannot tell what exactly is happening. They may of course still be there, just not in a form we can detect. All those odd little particles, however, are composed of even tinier particles that, if we could figure those out, would likely help explain the erratic behavior of the ones we can detect, well so long as we could understand the behavior of the even tinier particles that they are made of. Infinity.

Time is infinite in both ways. There was no beginning and there will be no end of time. Even if there was a Big Bang, everything in that tiny dense thing existed before it went Bang. The Big Bang was not a beginning, it was a moment in time that led to our current status. Perhaps eventually everything will coalesce again and the Big Bang will happen again.

Numbers are infinite in both ways. You can count in positive and negative numbers and you will never reach the end. Fractions are infinite. Every number can be halved again and again. Every segment of a line marked by two points has an infinite number of points between them, no matter how close they are to one another. The decimals following Pi go one forever. The same is true of other natural numbers.

There are the long understood rules, if you will, that matter and energy cannot be destroyed. It can only transform between those two states or into other types of matter or energy. The amount we "started" with, at the Big Bang, is precisely the same amount we have today, had before the Big Bang AND will have throughout infinity into the future.

When a body dies, it decays, changes into dirt, is taken in by the roots of a plant, eaten by a herbivore, which in turn is eaten by a carnivore, which then has babies, and the cycle starts all over again through infinity. Or the organic matter is crushed over time and turned to coal or oil or diamonds and a pretty girl wears it until she dies and turns to dirt as her heirs fight over it. Regardless, the body parts' parts do not go away. Things change, but nothing changes.

As avid readers of my work know (all 3 of you), I consider the body to be a machine. It is a miraculous machine, but a machine nonetheless. Without an operator, like your car or this computer, it would just lie there lifeless - dead. I consider the operator to be our soul. I consider that to be a real thing. An energy perhaps with which we are not yet familiar. It seems to have mass because in repeated studies, when someone dies, within an instant of death one loses a small amount of measurable and unexplainable weight that is in excess of that exhaled or excreted upon death. This was first discovered over 100 years ago.

I have postulated that God is the connection of all of our souls to all others. The metaphorical spiritual Internet. The reason we can be guided to do the right thing by this "God" is that all of our souls drive the overall process toward universal harmony. We want balance. That is also a natural driver in nature and of the universe. For every action there is an equal an opposite reaction - balance. Crazy things happen when things are out of balance. Out in space, those are often terribly dangerous things. We create bombs, for example, by intentionally knocking volatile things out of balance causing a violent reaction. After the explosion, however, everything returns to balance. A new state of balance, but balance nonetheless. Nature wants things to be in harmony with one another.

When we do things that we know in our hearts are wrong, we are stepping or acting outside of the drive toward universal harmony. That is the essence of free will. We can violate the harmony of all things, and we do it all the time.

I generally believe that animals and anything truly living (not just animate but alive) has a soul. I think that most animals, excluding probably apes, porpoises and other more evolved creatures, cannot operate outside the harmony. They can only do the right thing. We call this instinct. We take advantage of this in training, repelling and hunting animals for our benefit and have for years. Perhaps that is evidence those animals have no soul, but are in reality just machines, but they can't read this so I don't really care about them . . .

So when death happens, the machine dies due to heart failure, cancer, a smashing by a bus, worn out parts or whatever. The matter and energy in the body transform eventually into dirt and heat, etc, and exist forever. The soul, it seems to me, also then must be infinite. It is, in my opinion, some undiscovered energy with mass. It is a real measurable thing, not a weird undefined magical spirit thing. It is what connects us to everyone else and into the harmony of all souls. (Just an aside, as physicists try to create the "Theory of Everything" if they leave this soul thing out, they will never get there.)

The soul, in my way of seeing things, is like everything else in nature; it continues on into infinity. That is the natural way of things. Balance and infinity. Harmony.

Easter

It is Easter afternoon and I sit here contemplating the importance of the Christian holiday just celebrated. As a child, of course, I thought it was all about chocolate bunnies and colored eggs and the like. Then as I grew up, Easter became a mysterious time about a miracle that I could never quite get my arms around. For those who have read much of what I write, it has become clear I am not one for miracles. Then my children were born and Easter again became the more comfortable day of chocolate, eggs and family. My children are now well past the age of such frivolous things, though I am proud to say they are not past frivolity by any stretch of the imagination, which they also do. I find myself at an age where what is real in spirit has become very important to me.

So what to do with Easter? I am now somewhat comfortable that the entire story was a marvelous ruse concocted by wise and well-connected men of the time for the purpose of accomplishing precisely what it managed to accomplish. I have also come to realize that this is the moment that the teachings of Jesus became permanent, real and different than the prophetizing of all of the many others of that time, the time previous and, for the most part, of all the times since.

The teachings of Jesus were unique. They changed the thinking of the world. They were about a personal relationship with God that did not require an intermediary. They are about love, unconditional love, for everyone including, and perhaps most particularly, our enemies. They are about our connection to God, referred to as the Spirit of Truth, that allows us to always know in our hearts, if we will only listen, what is the right thing to do. And it is just that simple and just that glorious.

Those concepts were not what the leaders of the church, then or now really, wanted to hear. After all their jobs depended upon the reliance of the masses.

If each of us are connected directly to God and can interact directly with God then why do we need them?

If the secret is so simple, love everyone unconditionally, then what mysteries remain for the religious leaders to hold over our heads?

But Jesus never wrote any of this down. His followers were simple illiterate men. Like so many others, his message was told by those who knew him, those influenced by him, those who followed him. Given the rather negative reception he received when offered freedom by Pilot, his followers were not in the majority by a log shot. His strongest disciple denied him three times. The objective was simple, cut off the head of the snake and the entire snake dies. Certainly, without the rest of the story, that would certainly have happened and we would not know the great vision of a great but simple man.

During the weekend, the focus at our church was about how we exhibit those basic principles. We were asked to contemplate those who have been victims around the world. Those who no one seems to love. Very powerful.


I spent a Saturday morning with several men discussing this time in the Christian calendar and what it means. The focus was on how hard it is to exhibit unconditional love.

While certainly we should contemplate these things at all times, I wonder if we would consider them at all had the "Easter story" not occurred the way it did?

So the moment that Jesus failed to dutifully remain in his tomb, however it is that he disappeared from it, and then when he then appeared to several people thereafter, whether risen from the dead or risen from the presumed death makes no difference, his status as immortal and the immortality of his simple message became inevitable.

It is a funny thing for me to to say really, but, thank heavens.

Why Risk It?

There is a new commercial for some sort of identity protection system, I guess, where a guy meets with a non-stereotypical medium. The customer has had his identity stolen. The rather slovenly, heavy and ordinary-looking male medium gazes into his crystal ball and sees that the thief is buying pre-paid cell cards and leather pants, "lots of leather." The customer moves to the medium's side and tries to peer into the crystal ball. The medium stops him and says, "You can't look into the ball, you're not a medium, it will tear a hole in the universe, or something."  The customer asks if he is sure and the medium says, "Why risk it?" The customer acquiesces.

As weird as I am, I immediately figured they were doing a spoof on religion. So often I read or hear about things required of this or that religion, and wonder, "Why do people think God cares about this stuff?" It dawned on me as I watched that commercial. It is because someone in a purple robe in a pulpit told them that if one did do it, or did not do it, or did it this or that way, then one would go to hell. Well, for the many, when the guy in the pulpit says something, then we do it. After all . . . . why risk it?

What troubles me is that much of what we do today that is called religion, we made up. Over the 2000 years since Jesus, we just made stuff up. Heck, the holy day, to the extent a day was recognized at all, was on Saturday. And Jesus, thought very little of the "Sabbath." This was a man-invented idea that Jesus realized God did not care one whit about. He got into a lot of trouble for that, because after all, he was asking them to take a lot of risks, ignoring the Sabbath like that. Jesus took risks to get away from the man-made pomp and circumstance and back to what was really important, a simple and direct daily relationship with God, as you understand Him or Her.

Paul expanded on what Jesus said on all of this. Paul pointed out that anyone who worships or considers idols to have any power at all is one of weak mind. Note that, of course, idols include the cross, the Madonna and all those things for saints that people pray to. We fast for periods of time, refuse to eat certain foods on certain days during certain times of the year, and do all sorts of odd things in God's honor. We made all this stuff up. God does NOT CARE that we do it. Paul explained that there are no special foods or days, and yet because the man in the pulpit says so, we do it. Why . . . well, Why risk it?

Some demand celebacy until marriage, consider homosexuality a sin, don't drink or dance, all because they think God will smite them or condemn them to hell if they violate these rules. The largely egotistical, testosterone driven males leading the various religions over time have created a whole host of these rules, and in many cases the only way to get out from under the curse if you did them was to confess to them, or their underlings, as though they possessed the power to free one's soul from eternal damnation. Today, fewer and fewer people follow these ancient rules, but in conversation one can glean that they are still a bit concerned that perhaps the guy in the pulpit was right. So they follow the rules when they can. After all . . . why risk it?

Because Jesus risked it. Moses risked it. Paul risked it. Mohammed risked it. Siddhartha the Buddha risked it. Gandhi risked it. Martin Luther King, Jr risked it. Bill Wilson risked it. John Wesley risked it. All the great people of all time, took the risk. Amazingly, every one of these people came from nothing. They were not famous. They were not sons of great people. They were regular people like you and me. What made them great? As to the thing they are known for, they each had the clarity of mind to say, "This is silly, God does not care that we are doing this, and we should stop doing it!"

In reality, all of these great people did not feel they were the ones taking the risks! They understood that each of us has a personal relationship with God. The rules are so simple that they do not need a hierarchy of great church masters to explain them. My biggest concern is that ceremonies, rituals, dogmas, and rules allow people to check the boxes of their spiritual lives without ever checking in.

• Went to church on Sunday or Easter or Christmas, check.
• Did the communion thing, check.
• Got the kid baptized, check.
• Ate fish on Fridays during Lent, check.
• Said some Hail Mary's, check.
• Attended the kid's Christmas pageant, check . . . that counts right?
• Prayed, check - yea it was for that par putt to go in, but still, I prayed, and I made the putt.
• Gave some old clothes to the Good Will, check. Got my tax receipt, too.
• Gave the pastor that big check in front of everyone, check.

OK, so now I am a Christian. Off to make money in any way possible. What is the bigger risk?

I suppose there is no harm in any of these practices, so long as we understand God does not care if we do them or not, and we are doing them because they are important for us and our connection to God, as we understand him. Jesus said that if we are going to fast, or whatever, then do it for God and without letting anyone else know that you are doing it. The Muslims fast during the daylight during Ramadan, and those who follow Mohammed's teachings, do it without letting anyone know or changing their ways. If fasting is important to their relationship with God, they do it, but for those who do it is not a way of checking the box. I am not a huge Paulian, but one of my favorite things he said was essentially, recognize that God does not care about man's created idols, saints, special ceremonies, days, foods and the like. BUT if that is important to someone else, do not judge them, but instead, when with them, respect their traditions and eat as they do, drink as they do and respect the things they respect.

Anyway, I am fairly sure that if you are not a true medium and you look into a crystal ball you will tear a hole in the universe. I mean . . .

Why risk it?

Miracles

I had a conversation with a Biblican (a person who believes that every part of the Bible is true - this as compared to a Christian who trusts in the teachings of Jesus) one day, and he was spouting off about all sorts of things and I stopped him and asked him this question (people hate it when I do that):

Would your faith be as strong if none of the "miracles" revealed in the Bible ever actually happened?

What if Moses did not part the Red Sea, God did not smite those living in Sodom & Gomorrah, God did not destroy the walls of Jericho so the Hebrews could get into the city and literally massacre every living thing in the town including women, children and animals, etc, etc?
What if Jesus did not feed the masses, heal the sick, cure the deaf and mute, allow the blind to see or raise the dead?
AND
What if Jesus never died on the cross, much less rose from the dead?

Well, the immediate response was not to entertain the question. It seems to me, I said, that if your faith depends solely, or really at all, on the occurrence of miracles, then it is not all that rock solid. If your faith, instead, is based on what you know in your heart to be true, then it seems to me it follows exactly what Jesus told us it would be. Do you:

• Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?
• Love everyone unconditionally, even your enemies?
• Forgive even before anything is done to you?
• Always strive to do what you know is the right thing to do?
• Believe in peace over violence?

Well, if so, miracles or not, you are following Jesus' basic teachings. How about that?

But since you have chosen to tune into this heathen diatribe I write, let's delve in on the whole miracle thing, shall we.

Scientists, mostly archaeologists, geologists, climatologists and anthropologists, have crafted plausible theories for many of the physical "miracles" of the Old Testament, assuming they even occurred.

• The great flood, which is in almost every theological writing from this area, probably occurred when natural global warming caused the ocean waters to rise high enough to crest the thin land bridges at the narrow mouths of the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea. The resulting nearly simultaneous cascade into these deep long valleys, eroding the entrances even wider, resulted not only in massive catastrophic flooding of the towns located in the valleys (see ruins from this time period at the bottoms of these Seas) but then washed violently up on the other side, flooding the entire area we refer to as the Middle East. Perhaps Noah was an early climatologist and saw this tragedy coming. Sort of the Al Gore of his day.
• Sodom & Gomorrah were probably destroyed by parts of a huge meteor that scientists know flew over that area, raining debris over a great distance, the bulk of which pounded ultimately into the European continent.
• There are rocks known to nomads of the Sinai desert today that if struck by a staff will ooze water for them to drink. Certainly Moses, a denizen of that desert, knew this as well.
• I still contend Jericho was an inside job.

Ahh, good ol' Hebrew miracles. Probably just stories to explain natural things they did not understand glorified over time, but Jesus healing folks, well that certainly was real. Well, maybe . . .

What if, like most of what he did and said, these were not events but merely metaphors. Jesus' revelations about our personal connection to God, how we should treat one another, etc, certainly opened eyes that could not see, opened ears that could not hear and freed tongues that dared not speak. He changed people. He fed the spiritually hungry. He brought them to life with faith and a revelation that THEY were the sons and daughters of God. That they were important enough to have a real personal relationship with God. That they did not have to listen to the rabbi's and well heeled whoop-dee-doos at the Temples. That the Holy Spirit would guide them directly, if they had eyes to see, ears willing to hear, mouths willing to speak and a faith alive and well. While there is a great deal of repetition in Matthew, Mark and Luke about where Jesus went, there is remarkably less redundancy in terms of describing his miracles. He only ascends into heaven in one Gospel. Only one guy thought that was cool enough to make his book?

These are really amazing accomplishments. It is not every day a dead guy comes back to life, except in the plethora of zombie movies, and I sense it was not told quite that way back then. Why is there no independent or contemporaneous writing from others at the time about them? There were Greek and other scholars writing about all sorts of things at this time. Much of our current philosophy (like heaven and hell) were already being theorized and written about. We have stories about people who spoke, made a difference, did cool stuff and even performed miracle from this time period and before. Significant strides in mathematics, science and literature occurred in the 500 plus years before Jesus was even born. There were some very literate people, but no one wrote about these amazing miracles when they were happening.

This would make sense if these amazing miracles were merely metaphors from a wandering philosopher. It also explains why they were potentially converted in later writings to actual physical miracles. As time passed, the point of the moment was adjusted to fit the story-teller's needs or word of mouth, over the 30 - 50 years until the books were actually written, just changed the meanings honestly and inadvertently, as so often happens.

But certainly Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected. Hmmm, was he? Today we would look at that story and say, "The most logical answer that does not involve magic is probably the right one." It reminds me of the cartoon where the physicist is showing his work to another. There are complicated equations scribbled on each side, and in the middle connecting the two are the words "And then a miracle happens." The other physicist is not impressed, nor would we be if someone walked up to us and told us he was resurrected from the dead, even if he was a really Jesus-like persona - Martin Luther King, Mohamed, or Gandhi, for example.

Consider this alternatie ending:

• Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus were huge supporters of Jesus and big wigs in the Hebrew hierarchy. They were the wealthy elite.
• Late in his ministry, Joe and Nic go to Jesus (and perhaps his trusted friend Judas as well) and tell him that the Sanhedrin is going to come down on him hard and want to have him killed.
• "This would be good for the movement," Joe notes. Jesus and Judas nod nervously. "Yes. A martyr is always a plus," Nic explains. Jesus and Judas look at one another. "It is inevitable," Joe points out. At this point, I am fairly sure Jesus asked, "Umm, excuse me guys, but while certainly good for the movement and all, do I actually have to die." The two men are taken aback. They ponder this for a moment, and perhaps speak off to the side in hushed tones while Jesus and Judas stand uncomfortably in the middle of the room. When the two powerful men return, they had crafted a relatively simple plot to save Jesus' life, AND BONUS, make him an even better martyr than the last guy! "Brilliant." Judas exclaims. Jesus breathes a sigh of relief. It still does not sound all that great to him. "We will handle everything," Joe comforts and turns with Nic to venture to the patio to work through the details, as Joe's servant escorts the two wanderers out the front door. 
• So, according to the plan, Judas dutifully arranges for the government to find Jesus and arrest him. This was, as they noted, inevitable, but they wanted it to be done in a place where they could control the situation and the story.
• They probably did not bargain for the brutal beating Jesus underwent, but they did ultimately arrange for someone else to carry his cross for him.
• They paid at least one Centurion to give Jesus a bitter tasting sedative common at the time, through a sponge at the end of a spear that knocked hm out cold and made him appear dead.
• They paid a Centurion not to kill Jesus with the spear. "Merely a flesh wound now," Joe explained, "but make it look good." Nic added. 
• Unlike the others and custom at the time, Jesus' legs were not broken so that he would die faster. Why was that? Anomalies beget good conspiracy theories.
• Joe and Nic come and bargain, probably for an additional price, to have Jesus removed from the cross before sundown on the Sabbath so that he can be buried. He is dead to the eyes of the generally uncaring and now richer Centurions there, so they take him down. There is no doctor there to verify he is dead and that good zombie play was on at the theater and they now had money for tickets and, perhaps, a date.
• He is taken, and in witness of many wailing followers, is placed in Joseph's tomb. Under the guise of burial ritual, healing ointments are placed on his wounds and they are dressed. 
• As it says at the end of Matthew, though denied as a lie by the author, Joseph, Nic and the team return that night, knowing no Jew would be out on the Sabbath, pay off the guards, roll back the stone and take Jesus away to be healed. Remember Jesus was a regular breaker of the Sabbath, so why would his followers not behave that way as well?
• Early Sunday morning, before anyone else can get there, Mary Magdalen, a probable co-conspirator, brings another woman as a witness and creates the story that an angel rolled back the stone and Jesus rose from the dead. Each story is a bit different as it evolved with the telling.
• Most of the wounds, while not insignificant, were only flesh wounds. Others, such as the nails through his hands and feet, would have healed in time. The Roman tradition was to place the nails through the wrists and ankles, often breaking bones. The Bible says the nails were driven through his palms and feet, where the damage could be less severe. Who would notice? Later "doubting Thomas" puts his fingers into the resurrected Jesus' palms, not his wrists, to feel the nail holes there.
• If the paid off Centurions held back on the spear plunge, that wound would not have been too bad either.
• He is healed through medicines used at the time, not miracles.
• He returns to appear before the uneducated disciples and many others who followed him and is deemed to have been resurrected from the dead.
• Often he is not initially recognized. Probably because being discovered would be a bad thing for Jesus and the movement.
• People scoff, so the story of his ascension is created in the region where it is required but does not evolve where it is not required.
• The plan works. A new unifying, individual-based, personal relationship with God religion is born because of a great miracle. So regardless of its truth, the story is critical to the growth of Christianity. 

That is not too far afield to have happened. There are plenty of clues in the Bible itself, which is rather interesting. But perhaps the Bible story is true. Either way, whether it happened or not is not relevant to the question!

To me, the real question is,

If NONE of the miracles in the Bible are true, even the most important one, is your faith still strong enough to believe and follow the simple teachings of Jesus, or more accurately, what you know in the honesty of your heart is right?

OK, now I really have to dodge those lightning bolts.

A Process of Understanding God

It is fun for me to think through spirituality in a logical and scientific way. My mother posits that once we die, that is all. Body and soul turn into dust. That is Old Testament and a very legitimate way of looking at things, but for me, the math, the science does not work.


Jesus said that we connect directly to God through the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Truth. In the end, that connection is all that matters. See Matthew 12:31-32 and Mark 3:29, and John 16: 12-15. (I use the NIV).

Prayer is the way to connect to the Holy Spirit. Not to ask for things, but to ask for guidance. That is what I came to call the "Harmony," mostly because non-religious people (aka Mom) freak out at words like "Holy Spirit" because of the layered history of misinformation placed on that and other Biblical words.

That is where I created the words at the top of this blog, expanded to what they are today:
"Do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do, regardless of your feared earthly consequences and regardless of what your minister, mom or friends say you should do, because that is the Spirit communicating with you and to do so will keep you in harmony with all (originally God's people, but now) all souls."

In the Old Testament, God had emotions. He got mad, frustrated, sad, happy, etc. I thought, does God have emotions? As I have read it, there is a lot less of this in the New Testament, but the Father is still said to be happy or angry from time to time. He just does not show it with major catastrophes.

In the Old Testament, God could move physical things and make weather and floods happen. Can God control physical things like that? Again, there is very little separating of rivers or destroying of towns or leading the Jews in battle in the New Testament, but Jesus does heal the sick and even the dead.

In the Old Testament, God guided people through deserts, talked to them through bushes, in dreams and directly almost face to face. Does God act like that? There is not much of that in the New Testament.

In the 2000 plus years since Jesus, there has been almost none of any of that stuff. Perhaps I missed it.

So then I had to ask what came to me as the core question no one discussed, "WHAT is this God?" I spoke to ministers, who had no answer. "It is enough to have faith that there is a God." they say. I thought, well then why not lots of gods for all the things we used to have gods for. Of course we still have them, Mother Nature, Father Time, and all the saints, for example. Books I have read refer to God. No explanation as to what we are talking about. Amazingly, no one I spoke to seemed to even sit down and ponder this question, "If there is a God and only 1 god, WHAT is God."

I went back to Jesus. He said that the Spirit of Truth is all that matters. Well then, what composes this spirit? How can I prove it exists at all? I derived my Proof of God analysis which is posted earlier in this blog. I thought it through over many years, but also spoke to some physicists about the science side of it. Basically, and you should go read it in its entirety, it proves there is an operator of our machine-bodies that is not physical or energy as we currently understand those concepts, but something different - our spirit, our soul - but not scientifically different.

And, we know that the spirit of life that makes us alive and conscious and able to drive our machine-bodies, leaves us when we die. That is the essence of death. Since we know through science that things do not go away, matter and energy cannot be destroyed, just altered, that similarly total spiritual existence must survive our deaths. Everything we currently understand about physics and biology are located there in the corpse. But dying people have been weighed just as they die, and there is an infinitesimal loss of weight just as the person passes away. Interesting. To me, and other theorists, this is the spirit of life leaving the body.

People who have died on a table report that their conscious selves leave their bodies and can see their corpses laying there on the table being resuscitated. (Note that doctors still heal death) They report seeing a bright light and following it. I am a deep believer in "ghosts." I grew up in a haunted house. We experienced them first hand. I believe that these are the spirits of a former life, the driver of the machine-body still hanging around for some reason.

As much as I contemplate it, the math and science, as I have delved into it, does not allow me to conclude that the soul dies and disappears from existence upon death. To me, like all energy and matter, it survives, just in a different form.


So then what? Off to heaven with God? Well that returned me first to WHAT is God. Is he even a He? Of course not. Does he sit on a throne with Jesus beside him in some kingdom in the skies (see Zeus)? I did not see that. It is mythical and does not fit my scientific analysis of this situation. There is no physical kingdom in heaven with pearly gates that we go live in when we die, and similarly no hell. That is magic and we no longer believe in magic, at least I do not.

I did the analysis in my brain and through readings of the Bible and other books, some on other religions and some on scientific issues, and over many months I came to believe that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, the spirit of life was just that, a spirit and that is truly "God." This, in my mind, is a provable aspect of our overall physical existence, like other as yet unexplained things such as anti-matter, dark energy, quantum mechanics, and the Big Bang. Actually adding this sort of unpredictable spiritual quotient of life helps to explain a lof of equations that do not otherwise stay on point unless they are focused on inanimate things in space. Even there, we find entropies that miss the calculations. Are those the effects of this life spirit? Beyond this entry to contemplate, but I am sure I will get to it some day.

I concluded that each of the spirits of life that occupy our bodies while we are alive, are integral parts of the larger Spirit. All living things from Amoeba and bacteria to humans that have a spirit of life running their body-machines, and I do not know when that happens, are part of that Spirit. That is why we have a direct connection. That is why the "holy spirit" guides us. Not because it is a mysitical power or a magical guy in the sky. It is because that Spirit is the essence of the driver of our machine-bodies. That is why, in my opinion, love is the connection and not greed or desire.

Note, we are not integrated into that Spirit, but connected to it. We can chose, perhaps more than any other creature, to not follow what we know would keep us in harmony with all other souls. We can ignore the connection to the spirit. Our brains are phenomenal computers, which we can use to do the right thing, our own thing, or what others say we should do. We have choice. Our drivers have the wheel. They do not have to listen to the Spirit in the back seat if they do not want to. I suspect most people do not.

I believe that if we could tap into that spiritual internet of all of the souls in the world and perhaps well beyond, we could make life on this earth amazingly better. If we were guided by the overall love of all souls for each other, perhaps things like war and greed would go away. Perhaps we would learn that war and greed are not bad things, but part of the balance of life. Who knows. Not there yet.

So what happens after we die. I have had people ask me whether we stay as ourselves or are swallowed up into a larger spirit and mixed in and lose our individual identities. That would be the same as what Mom postulates. We, as separate humans, go away even though the spirit essences continue. Perhaps parts of our spirit are bundled randomly into a new life spirit as it enters into another newly born machine-body. Or perhaps our same life spirit survives into life after life or reincarnation like some eastern religions believe. Hmmmm.
Lots of next things to think about.

What is "Heaven?"

I have heard my father-in-law, who is struggling later in life with some significant illnesses, say many times that he is ready to die. It has made me contemplate end of life like never before. What I found out, at least for me, is that I do not fear death. Mostly it is because everyone does it eventually. It seems quite the trendy thing to do really.


I contemplated what happens after we die. I suppose that is the biggest fear of those facing death in the relatively near future. I believe in a concept of God that is rather simple. To me God is all of the spirits of all of the souls in the world. This explains the trinity. God is the Father because the souls of my ancestors are all part of that spirit. It is the son, because the spirit permeates all of the living souls on earth all the time. We are all the sons and daughters of God, because we are the living embodiment of all the spirits that make up God.

Most important to Jesus is the Holy Spirit, which Jesus called the Spirit of Truth. Jesus explained that you can ignore or disbelieve God and you can ignore or disbelieve Jesus, but the Holy Spirit must be listened to. The Holy Spirit is the connection between our souls and the universal spirit of all souls we call God. When we connect to that Spirit; when we ask for guidance; when we listen carefully; when we are open to hearing the answers to our prayers, we are connecting directly to God, to the spirit of all souls current and past, we are truly in harmony with all the souls living and not.

I believe that our bodies are just machines that our souls occupy for a lifetime. When we die, it is simply time for us to leave our failing machines behind and rejoin the Spirit, rejoin those who have died before us, but I do not believe we leave our connection to those still alive. We become part of the Holy Spirit for those we love.

Our souls are connected to those souls forever. The Holy Spirit is the voice of those who care deeply for us; those who have gone before who want to guide us, help us, and show us the way when we are lost. Someday, when the time it right, we all will rejoin the spirit, but we will not leave those whose souls remain in their bodies. You will still be there helping to guide us and all those who you love and who love you. It is a common seemingly known truth. Yes she is dead, but she has not left you.

Jesus showed us that we are here to serve; not to have our feet washed by others, but to wash the feet of others; to love our family, no matter what they do; to love those we are mad at, those who are mad at us, those who perceive themselves as our enemies, and perhaps most of all, those least fortunate. I believe that never changes. I believe that when you have found the ability to love so deeply that you love everyone no matter who they are or what they may have said or done, and through such love, learn to forgive completely without expectation of anything in return, you have found heaven. It does not matter whether you are here on earth or your soul is part of the Spirit in the next world.

I was speaking with an alcoholic and she mentioned that part of the 12 steps is to make a moral inventory of your life, to confess to God, as you understand him, and at least one other person anything that troubles you about your past life, and then to make amends to those you honestly feel you need to forgive or those from whom you wish forgiveness. She queried, “What religion would require such a thing?” I said, “All of them.” We just don’t tend to do this because it is uncomfortable. It is the essence of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. Jesus told us to confess our sins and repent (to recognize the wrong in something you have done and be sorry about it, make amends to those you have wronged, and change your ways), and the Catholics formalized the process. It is a critical part of Islam and I am sure most other forms of worship.

I believe this is an exercise guided by the Holy Spirit, connecting to those souls who have gone before you, those who love you and want to guide you and help you on your path. Most important, however, is that this is a personal exercise. The evaluation is not what would others think? It is, “What do you, in your connection with the Spirit, honestly believe?”

Someday, when the time is right, your soul will cross over. It will not go to hell. There is no such place. It will join the Spirit which is all of the souls of all who live now and all who have lived before, and you will be responsible to love and guide those souls still in bodies here on earth.

I have a very simple prayer I say all the time. It goes something like this.

“God, the Spirit of all Souls, thank you so much for all the wonderful people and things you have brought into my life. Please help me to love them all. Please provide me guidance as I go through life. Please help me do what I know in my heart is the right thing to do, no matter the consequences or fears, for I know that guidance is from the Spirit of God and you who love me will not lead me astray.”

Be happy, for being happy is your decision. Be at peace and know that the Spirit of all of the souls of all who love you are still with you and available if you let them in. Be in harmony with all those around you and love because love is heaven.

Guest Post from Mom: Response to My Prior Post "Bible Stuff"

Good information. About 19% of Americans now are self- declared "nones". This term is being used to describe both non believers in god and believers who do not associate with any religion or describe themselves as religious. Many of these "nones" are on the evolutionary path toward being non believers, secularists, humanists etc. and are moving away from a belief in a higher power.

Why? Not sure but many find that there is a disconnect between the messages of love that are supposed to be the basis of Jesus words in the new testament, and the judgementalism, bigotry, and outright hate expressed by many who say they are religious. [Interjection:  Philosopher Anne Rice refers to this as Conflicted Religious Identity Syndrome (CRIS) and is reflected by people who are increasingly "quitting Christianity" in favor of following the loving, all-inclusive, serving and peaceful teachings of Jesus and other great philosophers. Sadly today, Christianity and Jesus are often not synonymous.] It has been shown that religious people respond to crisis such as floods, hurricanes etc. in a humanitarian way, reaching out to others to help, but often return to a false piety in their daily living.

Organizations such as the Rationalist Society, Freedom From Religion, etc. are there for people to think through their beliefs from a different perspective. These and many others, support those who were reluctant to "come out" as it were, as atheists and non believers for fear of rejection by society. Now people are talking, sharing, and reasoning together.

I do believe for some, religion serves a real purpose of support and help in need and to feel someone cares about them in their daily lives. They form communities of like believers who share ritual and connections. Often they continue to believe out of fear of not believing. However, for some reason or other, the "nones" are now the third largest "religion" in the world behind Catholics and Muslims.

Can it be that organized religion has failed to resonate with so many because they recognize that religion is not required for good and moral living, that it has failed to carry out the pious messages from the pulpit and been used to promote the antithesis of love? Or has religion simply become irrelevant and meaningless as anything but adherence to a set of rules set up by a denomination to keep a flock together?

Under all the preaching, pontificating, evangelizing, analyzing, praying and struggling, is the simple need for community. How that comes about and survives will be more important to the future that ancient texts and stained glass windows. Since nearly one third of all young people describe themselves today as "nones" it seems the world is moving in a direction away from church and will need guidance and support from groups other than churches to provide community, love, and help.

This is a challenge for us all.


Mom   Disclaimer: The foregoing message, while interesting, is the opinion of the author (Mom) and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of this station, its parent companies, or of any of its affiliates, including its siblings, children and wife. Love to all.

Bible Stuff

I often converse with  people who are strong believers that the Bible, cover to cover, is the "word" of God. I personally do not believe that, and there are many reasons why. Mostly, I suppose, I don't believe it because neither Jesus nor Paul believed it.

On several occasions, Jesus violated the Sabbath. Mostly he cured people on the Sabbath, but he also instructed his disciples to get the group food from the fields on the Sabbath. The Pharisees were appalled. Jesus pointed out that God would not want people to avoid doing good things on the Sabbath, like pulling an ox from a ditch or feeding the poor.

Jesus and Paul both quoted Old Testament writers incompletely, editing out the parts extolling violence and exclusion, and retaining only the peaceful and inclusive part. The Old Testament contemplates that the Hebrews are the "chosen people" and all others are unclean. Jesus and Paul both clearly believed that all people on earth are "Chosen" people under God. That was extremely difficult for Jewish hierarchy at the time to take. It seems a difficult concept for many "Christians" today.

While Hebrews were unique and special in the eyes of the Lord, Jesus explained that those who follow Him are chosen to serve everyone else. We are to wash the feet of all others. We are to serve. We are not better than anyone else. In fact, it is our job to care for "the least of these."

Paul makes it clear that there are no special days; no special foods; no special anything. God does not care about such trivial issues. All rituals are simply man-made for man's personal satisfaction. Paul did ask us to respect others for whom a day, food, etc. is ritualistically important. God is the love in your heart for others. Both explained that one's connection to God is personal and direct.

Honestly I do not even understand why believing that the entire Bible is true is important to people. The Old Testament is just a history, and an admittedly embellished one at that. The stories of the Hebrews, handed down verbally over time, were written down after the Judeans (now known as Jews) were kicked out of Judah (capital city Jerusalem) and exiled to Babylon. To keep the exiled Jews' spirits up, and keep them feeling chosen despite their predicament, the stories were written down so as to show that if they do what their God says, good things happen, and when they do not, bad things happen.

In the early years, the Hebrews had no king. God was their king and he resided everywhere there was a tented temple set up according to the rules. Moses, Aaron, Joshua, etc, down through Samuel, were merely successive interpreters of what God was telling them. The demise of the Hebrews began when they decided they wanted a human king. Samuel tells God this is what they want and God's feelings are hurt. God explains that this is a bad idea and that human kings will be selfish and power hungry. He, of course, was right.

Saul, the first king, was good. David was beloved, but imperfect. He ordered one son killed so that his most beloved son could succeed him. Solomon was wise, but he began the years of increasingly bad kings. There were 13 tribes of Israel, each with different parts of Canaan, the Promised Land. One of the tribes made up of the descendants of Judah (the Jews) lived in Jerusalem. They demanded their own king. The other tribes became known as the Israelites and they demanded their own king. Then the two sets of descendants of Israel began to fight one another. God became an after-thought.

The Babylonians invaded and the Jews (not the rest of the Israelites) were exiled, just like when it all started, but not in Egypt this time. Eventually, the Persians beat the Babylonians and sent the Judeans back to Judah. You would think they would have learned, but of course they did not. They created a king, a hierarchy of Godly people and a path to God that had to go through those holy folks. The Romans invaded and eventually (in 70 AD) destroyed Jerusalem and kicked the Jews out again.

Why are the ancient theological mythologies and musings from a failed and defeated society, whose philosophy Jesus tried to fix, so important to modern followers of Christ? I have never understood this.

I suppose the main appeal is the idea that God created everything. Jesus refers to God as the creator, but does not mention that he did it in either of the two ways it is portrayed in Genesis. I think the fact that there are two creation stories is, at a minimum, evidence that they are just stories.

If you want to believe that God created everything, fine, but there is no logical reason to need to believe that it happened in 7 days, or in a Garden somewhere. By the way, the second creation story, the Adam and Eve story, is the Hebrews' story of their own holy beginning, not of all humans. There clearly were other humans in the story living in a town called Nod, where Cain went after killing Able. The most unsung member of the family, though, was Seth, who is actually the father of all Hebrews. Noah down to Abraham are descendants of Adam and Eve's third son, Seth. Just a side note I think is kinda cool.

So, could there be a higher power contributing to the evolution of humans? Who really knows? If you believe that, go ahead, but this does not conflict with science and there is no reason or logic behind contemplating that the world began only a few thousand years ago.

Oh well.

Love

The election is over, so no more Obama Facts or pretty much anything else related to politics. Just random, and shorter, thoughts from now on.

Since I believe in the Harmony, the idea that "God" is a "spirit" that connects all souls to all others, I will be writing about what that means.

Perhaps it is no surprise that in every religion's core beliefs, loving one another is the ultimate way to stay in Harmony with all other souls.

Ultimately, though, there are no absolutes. The "Golden Rule" is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Therefore, the measure is YOU.

If you want to be loved deeply, then you need to love deeply.
If you want someone to take risks to love you, take risks to love others.
If you want others to care for you, care for others.
Etc.

If you don't want or give love, or take any risks to love others, or really care very much for them, do not expect others to love you, or take risks to love you, or care very much about you.

So, love everyone, regardless of who they are and what they have done to you.
The measure is not them.

The measure is YOU.

ObamaFacts - Recessions

There have been eleven "official" US Recessions since the impact of the Great Depression and World War II.

Recession of       Dates                  President at Start   Worst Unemp.
1949              Nov 1948 – Oct 1949      Truman (D)        7.9%
1953              July 1953 – May 1954      Eisenhower (R)  6.1%
1958              Aug 1957 – April 1958     Eisenhower (R)  7.5%
1960–61        Apr 1960 – Feb 1961       Eisenhower (R)  7.1%
1969–70        Dec 1969 – Nov 1970      Nixon (R)          6.1%
1973–75        Nov 1973 – Mar 1975      Nixon (R)          9.0%
1980              Jan – July 1980                 Carter (D)          7.8%
Early 1980s    July 1981 – Nov 1982      Reagan (R)        10.8%
Early 1990s    July 1990 – Mar 1991       Bush I (R)          7.8%
Early 2000s    March 2001 – Nov 2001  Bush II (R)         6.3%
Late-2000s     Dec 2007 – June 2009     Bush II (R)        10.0%

Of the 11 post-War recessions, only 2 started during a time when a Democrat was President. One could argue that perhaps in some of these the downturn actually started during the prior administration and the actual economic effects were not felt until the next Presidency.

• How many months must a President be in office before the recession is considered on his "watch?"
• Below is a list of how long it was between inauguration and the first recession under each President.
• Presidents Kennedy, Clinton and Obama all inherited recessions that began in the prior administration. All were over within 5 months of their inauguration.
• No Republican President inherited a Recession begun during a prior Democrat administration.

Each of these Presidents was sworn into office in January.
President                 Date in Office               Months until 1st Rec.
Roosevelt/Truman           until 1953
Eisenhower             January, 1953 - 1961                 5
Kennedy/Johnson    January, 1961 - 1969      No recessions
Nixon/Ford            January, 1969 - 1977                11
Carter                    January, 1977 - 1981                36
Reagan/Bush          January, 1981 - 1993                  5
Clinton                   January, 1993 - 2001       No recessions
Bush                      January, 2001 - 2009                  2
Obama                  January, 2009 - present.    No recessions

You can click on each of the recessions above and go to the Wiki site that will tell you more about each one and why it happened.

The National Bureau of Economic Research decides when a "Recession" begins or ends. The NBER defines a recession as, ""a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales" http://www.nber.org/cycles.html

Seemed interesting.

For a graph of the recesions go to:  http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/fredgraph.pdf?&chart_type=line&graph_id=&category_id=&recession_bars=On&width=630&height=378&bgcolor=%23b3cde7&graph_bgcolor=%23ffffff&txtcolor=%23000000&ts=8&preserve_ratio=true&fo=ve&id=USREC&transformation=lin&scale=Left&range=Custom&cosd=1948-12-01&coed=2012-09-01&line_color=%230000ff&link_values=&mark_type=NONE&mw=4&line_style=Solid&lw=1&vintage_date=2012-10-01&revision_date=2012-10-01&mma=0&nd=&ost=&oet=&fml=a&fq=Monthly&fam=avg&fgst=lin

Courageous Faith

It is all well and good to say, "Follow your heart." or "Do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do." It is a whole different thing to actually do it.

The hard part about faith throughout time has been that sometimes it is quite difficult or risky to do the right thing. There are consequences. Sometimes those consequences are scary.

Assume there is a person in your class or at your place of employment who is a bit different. You feel in your heart that the right thing to do is to befriend that person. You do not just think it is something you should do because it would be nice, or something you feel guilty about not doing, because the person has no friends. Neither of those are reasons in and of themselves for you to act. No, in this case, you actually know in your heart that befriending this person is the right thing to do for you.

Well what does that mean? Well, if you believe what I am writing, then you have to befriend this rather odd person.

Yikes, but consider the consequences.

• There is a very good chance that this rather odd person will latch onto you like glue and never let you out of her sight. You are her only and bestest friend forever. You are not sure you could handle that.
• There is a decent chance that your other friends, who you know consider this person to be a bit more than "a bit odd," will, at a minimum, have a harder time including you in things for fear you will bring "Her" along.
• If you do go with your old friends and your new rather odd friend finds out that you did not invite her along, she will be hurt, and you don't want to have to deal with all that.

Lot's of potential consequences of doing the right thing. In the end, you have to follow your heart, trust your instincts, believe that the spirit is guiding you in the right way, and take the leap and befriend the person. It will probably end up being one of the greatest decisions you have ever made, though many of the expected consequences will happen, and you will have to deal with them, and you will grow as a result.

For me it is often that Oreo cookie that I did not get to taste. Maaannn, chocolate cookie and that cream filling and . . . . . well I can dream, can't I?

Sometimes the consequences are significant. Perhaps a law must be broken to, say, improve civil rights in this country. Your life could be risked to topple a dictator, to defend the nation, free enslaved people or to protect your rather odd friend from a mugger. There are amazingly couragious people who every day brave the consequences of doing the right thing, doing what they know in their hearts is the right thing for them. They hear their calling. They understand the risks and because they know it is the right thing for them, they act.

Generally our consequences are less grave. Perhaps social embarrassment when going out of your way to applaud a magnificent performance in the middle of church, potential loss of a "friend" who you suddenly find to be a bigot, time away from people you love to move a cause forward or help the homeless, financial costs to support a charity or position, or just the loss of the joys of Oreo cookies to keep your weight loss moving forward.

I find, as I talk to people about this, that a significant impediment to doing what the Spirit of Truth, as Jesus called it, tells them is the right thing to do for them, is their own Christian church leaders, or their wife, grandmother or mother, or those they go to church with. "I don't really understand what the fuss is about, but I can't support gay marriage because I would be ostracized from my church and friends if I did."  "I am a Republican/Democrat because my entire family is, so I just vote that way because it is easier." "Even though I love her, she is Jewish and my Irish family would disown me if we were married." Luckily more and more people are breaking those bonds, freeing their minds and doing what they know is right, damn the consequences. While political issues often don't sway us, love conquers all.

I have found that usually when you do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do, things ultimately go well, or not as bad as you thought. Not always right away and not all the time. Thousands of people have given their lives and freedoms to free the enslaved, help improve equality, and drive out oppressors. Perhaps the result for them was not so bad. What about the wounded who survived? It amazes me how many would do it all again because it was the right thing to do and losing a limb or two is a physical loss, not a spiritual one. Still others curse the day they joined the military, though at the time they were sure it was the right thing to do. Hmmm. Consequences.

Not everything is our personal burden. It is not the right thing for many of us to do the things others feel compelled to do. We should not feel guilty that we are not doing something for the homeless, for example. We do what is right in our hearts for us as to others, and that, no matter what it is, is our calling. Most people have no interest in babbling on about spiritualism and, based on the readership of this blog, even fewer care to read about it. Nonetheless, I feel compelled to write it down and perhaps one person will benefit. Perhaps that one person is me. Who knows.

Having the courage to do what we know in our hearts is the right thing to do, all the time and despite the consequences, is what keeps us in Harmony with all things.

Love to all.

Harmonic Balance

If everyone was in harmony with everyone else, wouldn't that be incredibly boring? Wouldn't we all agree with one another? Wouldn't that be the Stepford Wives or something?

The answer is no. Nature is about balance and so is the Harmony. Just like the two sides of a scale, there must be equal amounts on each side for it to balance. In Asian terms, there must be yin and yang. The Harmony needs people to be on all sides of an issue, different personality types, balance against our comfort level, etc., so that it balances and remains in harmony. Diversity is a key component of harmonious balance.

I think of it in terms of what are called "normal distributions" which when graphed show up as "bell curves." If you remember back to high school math or science, a bell curve looks something like, well, a bell (see image at left). The line starts close to a floor (x axis) and gradually rises slowly at first and then faster until it begins to level out at its highest point. It then goes back to the floor or x axis on the other side of the midpoint in an exact mirror of the first side. Under each point on the curve is the number of people who got that particular grade, answered a question a particular way, have a certain characteristic, believe a particular way, etc, as compared to all the othes. The midpoint is the highest point on the bell and more people share this characteristic than any other point on the curve, but that point does not represent a majority of all people. A majority of the people are within this taller part of the curve, but they are all over under that curve and are equally balanced on either side of the center point. See for more mathematical explanation  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution.

It is called a "Normal" Distribution because most things in nature are distributed this way. In the current climate, consider politics. Most people are independents and fall in the middle, the bigger part of the bell curve. Most of us are not right squarely in the middle. We tend to feel more drawn one way or the other. On the edges are the more hard core Democrats and Republicans. All the way out on the edges are the true philosphically unusual. All are critical. This balance creates harmony.

The reality is that "Democrat" and "Republican" are concepts far too broad for the way I see the Balance in the Harmony. We need to consider every single issue and way of thinking. One person may be truly pretty far out on the edge on one issue, say saving baby seals, and be quite toward the middle on almost every other issue, perhaps even leaning toward the other party on most everything else. In the grand scheme of things, this balance creates harmony.

It is not all about politics, but about everything. Religious and spiritual beliefs, intelligence, eating and exercise, tolerance, need for power, care for animals, interest in science or art or history, and even speed in the 100 meters. For every Usain Bolt on the very far edge of that curve, there is someone of the same age who cannot walk at all. Most of us lie somewhere in the middle. Speed is normally distributed across the population. While Usain Bolt is way out on the edge in terms of speed, he may be quite in the middle in terms of the vast majority of the other issues in life.

I think of the harmonic balance, the Harmony, as a 3-dimensional bell curve. An infinite number of bell curves around the same central axis (the vertical line above) representing the normal distribution of people on every single issue there is. That is the harmonic balance.

For it to work, there have to be those who set the two edges. They define the issues. They crystalize the concerns, because they care more deeply about them than anyone else. For there to be a 100 meter dash, there has to be someone passionate and gifted enough to want to be the fastest person in the world. For anyone to care about the baby arctic seals, there has to be someone passionate and courageous enough to go up there and document their story. There has to be the driven, passionate small set of people on each extreme or there is no issue. There has to be the gifted and the challenged for us to recognize there is a need. The rest of us listen to those on the extremes and those near the extremes to understand what the issues are, what the concerns are and why we should care. Over time the bell curve may move toward one end or the other as more people gravitate toward, but often not all the way to, one extreme or the other.

Consider a hot issue at the moment - marriage. Not that long ago it would be unheard of in America to marry outside your historic heritage. Irish immigrants married other Irish immigrants. Germans other Germans, etc. Eventually that restriction broke down as those on the edge married outside their herritage. Of course there remained those who hated the idea on the other extreme, but that position lost followers and the entire curve moved slowly toward more lenience in marriage.

Then the issue was marriage outside the faith. Jews married Jews. Catholics were excommunicated if they married non-Catholics. Similar fates, if not as official, resulted as to other inter-faith marriages, even among protestant faiths, and of course even in those situations the woman was expected to convert to the man's faith. Eventually that issue too became less relevant as the curve moved more toward tolerance and away from those who held fast to the old ways. Ther are those who still profess religious purety in marriage, of course.

Then in the 1960s the issue of inter-racial marriage became a hot issue. It was against the law in many places. The government acted to force change in this attitude, but eventually it was the people whose spirits make up the Harmony, who moved the normal distribution farther to allow more tolerance to allow anyone to marry anyone they love regardless of race, creed or national heritage. There remain those on the other fringe who despise all of these marriages as wrong and impure, and there probably always will be.

The next step is Gay marriage. Again the bell curve is moving slowly toward tolerance in allowing anyone who loves someone else to marry that person. Again there are laws against this in many States. The Harmony will likely continue to move the curve in that direction as more and more people follow their hearts and do what they know God is asking them to, and not what their father, pastor or neighbors think.

It takes the activists on the edge to create the issue. Both edges, for and against. For most of us the issue is not relevant and without those passionate few championing the cause from the edges, the issue would not exist.

All the while there is the next edge, it seems. And all the while there are those on the other edge fighting any movement toward that edge. Perhaps the curve will not move. If it does, perhaps that will be as far as it ever goes. On every issue there are many ways of thinking; many arguments; all of which are right for the person who honestly in their heart belives them to be true for them. The balance around everything is fluid. There is no one right answer. There is only what is right for each person, individually. That is the essence of the Harmony. 

They key is that what you feel, what you believe, what you do and how you act has to be true to you personlly. It cannot become your belief because your church pastor said so, your mother said so, your neighbors say so, your friends, or peer group say so. There is a lot of pressure on each of us to believe or do whatever makes things easy for us at the moment, and we perceive this as harmony, but we know inside that we have lied to ourselves and it never sits quite right. We ignore it, but living a lie never feels better.

Why is that? Because whenever we fail to do what we know in our hearts is the right thing to do, FOR US PERSONALLY, we are ignoring the voice of God, however you define God. To some that voice is the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Truth through which God speaks to everyone and provides them with the truth for them, according to Jesus at least. For me it is my connection to the "spiritual internet", the Harmony, the spirit that gives us free will, that connects all of us to all others. The spirit that causes everything to remain in balance and thus in Harmony.

Do what you know in YOUR heart is the right thing to do and you will remain in Harmony with all living things.

Proof of God - Reprise

Mostly God is something or someone that you take on faith, but does that have to be the case? Some 20 years ago now, a non-practicing Jewish friend of mine began me on the quest to prove "God" exists. God, in our various mythologies, is given the power to change things. To see the future. To control everything. Over the course of the next several weeks, we will explore that some more, but first we have to prove that a God actually exists.


Scientists have a hard time with the idea of a God, and yet it is actually science that helps to prove God does in fact exist. Perhaps not the old guy with the beard sitting on a throne in the sky, but spiritual presence beyond physics and science that we all know in our hearts exists.

Life has certain characteristics of inanimate objects. Generally to accomplish tasks it follows the laws of physics. We can only lift a certain weight off the ground if several aspects of physics are in play: we have the right leverage, we use the right balance, and the chemical reactions in our muscles provide us with adequate strength to overcome the desire of the object to remain at rest. Our nerves work using a series of chemical reactions which in turn cause muscles to react, pain the be registered, etc.

That part of the body is the machine. We have heard it many time. We have a soul and we have the machine that is the body. We can repair and replace parts of the body machine like we repair and replace parts of a car. We can rewire it of block the effects of the wiring with things like paralytics and pain relievers. We can put in a new motor. We can even create artificial parts or use parts from animals.

The machine operates entirely on the rules of physics that govern the operation and actions of every inanimate object in the earth, the world, the universe.

Consider another machine. An automobile, for example. It is very complex. It often has a computer brain that does a great many things to make sure the vehicle operates properly. But not being alive, when turned off it cannot do anything.

All inanimate objects are completely predictable. Consider the pool table. Several balls on a felt table with bumpers and pockets. There are many forces at work, all completely predictable. So simply predictable that with a bit of practice most of us can create the right amount of force in the pool cue to cause it to strike the cue ball with the proper force and at the proper angle, taking into account the friction of the felt on the table and the reactions of the bumpers, to cause a colored ball to find its way into a pocket. Great pool players can do this so well that they can set up the other balls on the table to make sure they can make another shot, followed by another until the table is clear.

Bowlers can send a ball down a oiled lane with a hook into the pocket to predictably knock over 10 pins. Great bowlers do this with greater frequency. It is wholey predictable that if the ball is thrown right the pins will fall properly leaving none.

Golf, basketball, baseball, auto-mechanics, hunting, and every other endeavor man has created relies on the complete and total predictability of working with inanimate objects. The best even allow for physical forces difficult to predict, like allowing for the wind. We all know if they knew the precise wind speed and angle throughout the flight of the arrow, for example, the great archer could completely predict where the arrow would land. This is the simple stuff that even you and I can understand and even get right once in awhile.

The laws of physics, however, not only govern physical objects, but also energy, light, sound, dark matter, dark energy, anti-matter, and a whole host of weird things that physicists find in nature. They find them, however, because they calculate their existence in advance using math and the laws of physics. Then, once theorized by brilliant minds, they are found in nature just as predicted. Black holes with bits of anti-matter at the edges. Planets circling stars with a slight wobble as the planets rotate around them in eliptical orbits. Dark matter and dark energy, which are much larger than their counterparts in terms of the universe and its contents. Neutrons, electrons, quarks, and particles smaller still. (Note that these smaller particles are very odd and behave according to an as yet generaly not understood set of additional "laws" referred to generally as Quantum Mechanics, but that is too deep for this).

No one has actually seen any of these things. The light we see from the universe is millions of years old at the youngest. Planets are too small to see. Atoms, much less sub-atomic particles, are too small to see. We find them and prove they exist using the predictability of the laws of physics.

The Big Bang Theory is based on predictions. Scientists can see that everything they observe in space is moving. When they use the laws of physics and trace these movements back in time billions of years, everything ends up in one place. Hence the theory that it all was once in one place and then suddenly "bang" it exploded into existence. The cool thing is they can determine what elements were caused first and how the remaining ones were caused over time. It is still a theory, but it is based on the pure predictability of inanimate objects.

But, Houston, we have a problem. Living things, and humans in particular, have the power to violate the predictability of the laws of physics. While living things USE the laws of physics to accomplish tasks, unlike inanimate objects, they are not bound by them.

"What on earth do you mean?" you ask.

If the laws of physics applied, from the moment of the Big Bang forward the actions of every single particle of matter would be completely predictable and would continue to be forever. Out in space, this is true.

Think about that for a moment.

That would mean that I am typing this because the particles in my fingers that began a path at the moment of the big bang caused me to type this.

That would mean that you are reading this because at the moment of the Big Bang every single particle in you was destined to be where you are right now doing what you are doing right now.

That would mean that there is no free will whatsoever.

Lots of things in the universe are predictable from the moment of the Big Bang, which is how they figured it out.

We know both subjectively and objectively that we do have free will. Biologists will confirm that living things decide to move, which causes particles to change directions from the path they were set on when the Big Bang happened, or from last week or seconds ago.

We can decide to move when we desire to move. We cause our body machines to do things, suddenly and without any required action-reaction sequence. Yes we then use physics to our advantage to make the body-machine, automobile-machine, cell phone-machine, etc do things, but we decide how and when to operate them and what they will do. The automobile does not move until we cause our body-machines to get into it, turn the key and make it do things. When we get into that car, we have simply augmented our body machines to allow our body-machines to do things it could not otherwise do, but we are still operating one machine so that it operates the other machine (and sometimes while texting on yet another machine we cause a crash and injury to both of the other machines in the process).

So what is it that gives us the ability to cause our body-machines to move in ways that violate the pure and lovely predictability of the laws of physics.

That, my good friend, is what we refer to as "God." This is a physics-proven fact. The ability of living things to use physics to accomplish things, but to violate the laws of physics to start the process. The difference, the intervention, is life. Life is spiritual, not physical. It is real. It is quantifiable. It is measurable. But, it is free and unpredictable. That spiritual component of life is "God" unless you want to call it something else, which is fine with me. I call it the spiritual internet or the Harmony. It is the Holy Spirit to some. It is the "force" if you are a Star Wars groupee. I just proved its existence, you can choose the name you like best.

More when my particles get around to it again.

Post Script: Interestingly, well at least to me, I read an article by a physicist who notes that on earth, in particular humans, have so changed things that the predictability of pure physics is interfered with. For example, if left to their paths after the Big Bang, that table and chair you are sitting on would likely still be growing or would have fallen in the forest to be eaten by bugs, that steel in your lamp would still be ore and the gas in your car would still be petroleum in the ground. It would have followed the path it was destined for when the Big Bang begun.



So not only do we change things within our own body-machines to make it do things, but we have moved particles from the path of their predictable physics-based destiny to a location of our chosing, using physics, but moving the particles completely in violation of the laws of physics.



The theory of the butterfly effect contemplates that every movement that we make that changes the natural movement of these particles, even the beating of a butterflies wings, changes every particle everywhere in some way. Physicists call it chaos or entropy. Basically stuff that cannot be explained because humans messed with it. That is why physicists stare out into untouched space.



This physicist has noticed, however, that there are things in space that are showing a bit of this. Stars and stuff too far to be effectively altered by anything we have done are exhibiting a touch of this chaos. Since the light we see from space is older that human-kind itself, whatever we are sending out there will not be effecting the light we see coming to us for millions of years.



So that means that something else is causing particles to stop following the rules of physics way out there in the universe, and it started way before any humans existed. Hmmm. Think about the implications of that observation.