The purpose of most religions is to make us “better” than we currently are. The biblical premise is that all human beings are fatally flawed, not good enough, and in need of major improvements and control of their “human nature.” Without this continual overcoming of the evil self, growing into a better kind of person and changing, one runs the risk of not being good enough to spend eternity, due to their inability to change during a fairly short life, in a hell of punishment. . . Scripture goes to great lengths to remind us all that our fundamental human qualities are deceit, wickedness, jealousy, anger, lust, and greed. Personally, I think it is one of the most useless and controlling lies ever foisted on human beings by religion. Of course, this is how we can act, but that is not who we are at all when we are given the freedom to be authentic and feel safe to be.

We are called “worms” and least of all in this great book of encouragement. Even the earliest leaders, prophets, and apostle types knew that they had to degrade themselves as less than human to show that they understood that they were worthless as unregenerate human beings. Only when one realized that they were a piece of poo, could they guide people who were really poo. If you couldn’t utter the words, “I am not worthy,” you would never be a CEO of the Bible. The Apostle Paul pointed out that he was “the least of the Apostles” and that “the things I do not want to do, I do, and the things I must not do.” He made his problems everyone’s. He came to the conclusion that he was just a miserable human being, just like everyone else. He reminded others that they were blind, wretched, poor, and naked in heart and spirit. He even said that he had to beat himself into submission, except after preaching to others, he should go crazy and be a castaway. It appears that he did not have the confidence “in the blood” to make up for the differences between what he was and what he felt he needed to be.

Jesus is also reported to have said that humans must become “perfect, even (in the same way) as your Father who is in heaven is perfect.” There is no challenge to be better than one is at any given moment! Of course, this is not possible and it is not possible or plausible in any way “I am now converted and filled with the Holy Spirit”. You have never met a Christian who has achieved this goal in life. I’ve known some who act like they have and I’ve known some who agonize over not being able to, but I’ve never met one who has actually done it, whatever that means. Actually, I think they would be a strange human being.

How did we get this way? Well, of course it was due to the “fall” in which Adam and Eve, our real and true first human parents, created by God out of clay and ribs, got nervous and ate the forbidden fruit. We have all been blamed for this event and must spend our lives under the blood sacrifice of a more perfect human/god and then continue the struggle to be “better” until we die. That’s when we discovered that we understood being bad enough to be good enough to live forever. Redemption of human beings through blood sacrifice and execution have always been the preferred solution to man’s depravity. Membership in the club usually costs ten percent or more of your material income and membership in the only true one of many churches. I am not being disrespectful to the life and teachings of Jesus, but few understand how that has been woven into a story that Jesus himself would have cringed at.

I remember as a teenager when it was “time for you to be baptized” I was told that I was all these miserable things and that I needed deep and sincere repentance and of course a savior. The minister took me through the Ten Commandments and asked if he understood that I had broken EVERY ONE of them during my short life and was therefore sentenced to death. I was an 18-year-old mother, good girl, good home, fairly accommodating, a little guilty and shamed about parenting, but not a big stoned nasty sinner with three illegitimate children. And yet here I sat convinced that I worshiped other gods (money, success, human hopes and dreams), somehow always taking God’s name in vain (Mom and Dad would have washed my mouth out with soap… I only learned swearing and such after being in the ministry) and worshiping on the wrong day of the week along with having to repent of keeping the wrong Holy Days my entire short life.

I was in some deeply perverse way a murderer, adulterer, thief, liar and covetous of all the goods of men and women. When I said that he hadn’t actually killed anyone, they told me that he hated and that’s the same thing. I admitted that I hadn’t had sex with anyone at the time, but my lust covered that up too. I wanted to say, “well, no, I hadn’t really done that either,” but that wouldn’t have been advisable if I ever wanted to get baptized and have a future with the group. He told me to come back another day and repent more deeply of my nasty, mean, wicked 18 year old self. Of course I made it in time and joined the “you’re still not good enough” club for the next three decades as a pastor who then spread the good news of human depravity to thousands and reminded them that while they might think they’re kind people, they are under the sentence of eternal death, those stinking Adam and Eve brought us all no matter. However, I grew up a bit and concluded that the story of my guilt by association with Adam and Eve was not literally true. Human beings have evolved for the most part as good science has pointed out. I’ve had my own genome mapped back 60,000 years to all of our African origins. I don’t think it’s very fair for humans to pay a literal and eternal death penalty based on a mythical story and not literally real.

Have you ever considered the fact that you and I may have been born right the first time? What if the simplest and most spiritual goal a human being has is to become their own genuine, authentic, self? What if our purpose in life is not to jump through hoops set by others, who think they know, nor to strive and strive to dramatically improve upon who you are? People don’t change much throughout life, regardless of their religious affiliations, and while it’s an improvement to stop killing yourself with sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine along with assorted other body-killing habits, it’s okay to be yourself. .

Is it easy to be yourself? No, not in our culture and certainly not in many others where not being a mere cog in the tribal wheel can get you killed in a very bad way. One of the simple truths of life that most humans have long forgotten or never knew is that we are all one and the same and all smaller parts of one thing. I don’t pretend to know what that is, but let’s just say we are all one in the same consciousness trapped in a limited five-sensor carbon-based wetsuit for now. As Mike Adams said in a recent article on The Discovery of DNA Variability, Holographic Blueprints, and the Symphony of Life… “We are, in fact, an expression of the very phenomena we are trying to understand, and if we read poetry DNA correctly, we will realize that life itself is not about accumulating wealth, things, or power over others, but about discovering oneself. And the “I” does not exist in isolation. in every way imaginable, intertwined. We are all made of the same stuff, crafted from the same patterns in nature, and indeed formulated from the same musical notes played in five billion unique yet compatible melodies. this discovery, Western science has concluded that we are all more different from each other than previously thought, but I think it is evidence that we are all just unique verses of the same universal poem”.

That is a far cry from humans being mere wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked worms in need of major rehabilitation at the hands of prophets, priests, and shepherds. To say that we are born right the first time and that we don’t need to be born again or reborn goes against the meme, which is the mental virus that we were all taught as children. Our parents taught them and their parents before that. It is the idea that we are all defective at birth because of a non-event in the life of our first parents Adam and Eve, not literally. It’s the idea that even if you’re a pretty good person, you’re full of vanity, jealousy, lust, and greed that, unless paid for by a perfect blood sacrifice, demands that you spend eternity in hell burning forever, apart. of God or permanently. dead. It is also not true and it is not what a genuine human being actually needs to become the monkey on his back.

What a liberation it is to simply recognize that we are all one and the same smaller parts of one big thing. It is just as difficult to live an authentic life as it is to live a life of false submission to the will of others. It’s easy or not easy depending on the need to please everyone or seem to agree when you don’t, be true to yourself and for yourself, I don’t mean ego. I mean faithful to the conscience that dwells in the container that we too often confuse with the self. You are not your body. That’s just shipping and a container for a short time. You are not your brain. That is a receiver of information and memories that can, in fact, come from outside of a larger you and me than we can imagine. You are not your mind, which is that thinking brain that spins into the angry past or projects itself into the anxious future when it has nothing better to do in the present.

How much misery and striving to be all one can really be has religion heaped on the faithful. Not many will leave the warmth and comfort of the boxes they were born into by chance and explore ideas that are not acceptable to the tribe or the church. But some will. They could be labeled “heretics” or perhaps more benevolently, “ahead of their time.” In the past, those who were ahead of their time were often burned at the stake. Getting out of the box of religious dogma is difficult and many times you are left alone and on your own. The ones in the last box don’t usually follow them. You can be your authentic self as it presents itself to you and risk a lot but gain a lot, or you can put on the mask and be more comfortable but devouring antidepressants for the rest of your life. That seems to be the way to the fact that being oneself is the simplest spiritual truth that exists for a genuine human being.

Politics, fear, guilt and shame are some of the reasons why human beings behave badly. Feeling insecure can cause a lot of damage. All of Iraq is falling apart because of fear and self-preservation, not because of some inherent evil that is the true, ongoing, daily nature of man. When people feel safe, appreciated, respected and listened to, you will be amazed at how much good can be achieved. If Chicago were Baghdad, these same fears and survival skills would rear their ugly heads in the neighborhood.

What is the simplest spiritual truth that a human being can come to recognize? While there may be many, the simple acknowledgment that being authentic in thought, word, and deed is okay is near the top. If even the fact that I tell you that makes you feel uncomfortable, then you can know that it is not far from being a truth that you, as a sentient being, must consider in the time you have left to live in your limited five senses, moist to carbon base. follow.

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