Can I get a witness: writing for social change

Social change. That was the topic of a discussion held by the James River Writers and the Richmond Times-Dispatch on May 27. The panelists included Michael Paul Williams, a columnist with the RTD; Emily Troutman, a journalist with AOL; and Linda Beatrice Brown, an author of fiction. The host was Maya Payne Smart, a freelance journalist and author.

I was hopeful, in the beginning. I went in knowing that I would be surrounded by introverts. Writers. Artists. The best and the worst kind of people. But I was still hopeful. The event was titled, Can I get a witness: writing for social change. The title in itself is enough to energize anyone with even a vague notion of the importance of the written word. For me, words don’t lie. People use them to lie. The words we use as writers more often reflect our own level of honesty within ourselves. Our own self-knowledge is between every line.

I was a bit uncomfortable, as it was held at the Children’s Museum and I was much more interested in the abstract artistic visions that adorned the walls and in exploring the ambulance that sat in a lonely corner than snob-hopping with the literary elite of Richmond. I don’t mean to sound crass, but Richmond, in all its small-city glory, wreaks of cliques. Not that it’s bad, but it’s annoying. As I gathered the handouts and prepared to make my way into the room, there was a stack of note cards and a small, hand-written sign asking attendees to write down their literary accomplishments. These would then be read aloud at the intermission. I thought about it, hesitated. The whole concept seemed masturbatory. Of course it was done with the best intentions, but I couldn’t help but feel that this event wreaked of sycophants. Come intermission time, no names were read. Perhaps everyone felt as I did or perhaps I was in a room of amateurs. Or, most likely, people felt the need to be modest in a room where intellectual judgement is the status quo.

Like a good little lab rat, I wandered into my labyrinth seeking the cheese and trying desperately to avoid any external stimulus that would negatively impact my mission. It quickly became apparent that what could have been a rally call to excite and engage socially aware writers was actually a watered-down saccharine melange of industry-saturated sentiments flanked by polite attention-seeking questions and pretentiousness. One of the panelists had been to the Congo, and made sure that the crowd knew that by reminding them every chance she got.

Racism.

The only social issue that was discussed was race. Nobody even mentioned the oil spill in the gulf, and the lack of real reporting covering the event. BP could dump a ridiculous amount of rocks and cement on top of the damn thing and it would be plugged. But no, they need to salvage the well. They need to find a way to have access to the oil, that’s why it’s still flowing. My goodness, it doesn’t take a scientist to tell you that. But media won’t budge on it. Why? Because it’s too touchy and the BP scientists have enough of their own “data” to fuel a legal battle that would bury the media outlets, not to mention reduce the advertising revenue to the media from BP.

The panelists, who represented mainstream media, touched on humanitarian issues, but nothing else. Not one of the panelists said what social issues needed to be addressed, aside from the racial issue. I wish I were black so I could feel the freedom to talk freely about race in American culture. Any white person who talks about racial issues seems to be a racist. If they are not a racist, it’s easy to construe them as racist. It’s the default stereotype.

But I’m going to out on a limb here and speak my mind. If people have a problem with racism, than stop seeing race. If people think that remembering slavery and segregation is a means to understand our current situation, where does it end? I am so tired of the “remember slavery” sentiment. Since the dawn of mankind, human beings have enslaved each other. Why do Americans with slave ancestors seem to dwell constantly on that fact, as if talking about it will magically make racist white people see the error of their ways? All people, all colors, have the capacity to hate and to love. Almost all cultures throughout history have enslaved their brothers. Where does “remember slavery” end? In America, apparently, it ends in America, the toddler in the global family of culture.

Make no mistake about it, racism transcends every gender, color and belief system. I have met white and black racists, both who scared me at the depth of their ignorance and the strength of their convictions. And when a person talks passionately about the horrors of racism, perhaps it’s best to look inside one’s own self before bantering on about the hate that came from an era of pure greed, fear and human indecency. If we have a problem with racism, we need to look inside. Do we allow our hatred of racism to create racist sentiments in our own minds? Without even knowing it, by casting the first stone we fail to see the stone that waits to be thrown at us. Do we, when we talk about the horrors of racism, use our own hate of this hateful act to create in us a racist mentality? The answer is undoubtedly yes in a vast majority of people. Even though we like to talk about the importance of turning our cheek to our enemy, it’s much more gratifying to poke out the eyes of the one who blinded our vision.

Do we, when we talk about ignorance and oppression and slavery, instill those realities into our brothers and sisters, to fight fire with fire? Obviously not in the same form, but slavery of the mind, ignorance of the heart and oppression of truth? Not intentionally, because our hearts are filled with good intentions, but as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with them. Did Hitler know he was evil? Yeah, right. He thought he was doing God’s work. Good intentions paved the way to his demise and built a wall of mistrust against the German people that still stands today in the eyes of many.

Do we talk about the ills of racism while we also ignore attraction to other races? Is it a cultural thing, or is it our own internal racism? Do we judge a man in a beard who wears a flowing robe and a quirky hat and speaks English with an accent? Do we judge a group of men, small in stature and dark-skinned, working on a building and speaking Spanish? Do we judge the woman with small, narrow eyes who waits for us at the convenience store? Or the man with the dark turban who takes our change at the toll booth? Or the lady whose face is covered in a burka? Do we make assumptions and pass judgement based strictly on looks? Of course we do. It’s human, and it’s racist. Perhaps it’s not violent racism, but it’s the seed of discord that is sewn by us and harvested by our children. It is what has kept humanity separated from itself since the dawn of evolution, and it is what prevents us from being a human race instead of a conglomeration of man-made races.

It doesn’t seem right to constantly bring up the civil rights movement and slavery. The panelists didn’t even mention Native Americans. Not a single word. European invaders completely erased at least seven nations in the Americas. Not tribes, nations, each nation consisting of a diverse group of peoples and languages and customs, completely lost to time. At least African slaves had a part in society, at least they had value, albeit it was inhumane and profane and disgusting, at least they were not systematically annihilated, at least they did not experience genocide. Oppression, murder, barbaric treatment, lack of respect, yes. But if we’re going to talk about the history that people need to understand to make better life choices today, why didn’t anyone mention the plight of Native Americans? To talk about social change, and to mention the two things that constantly remind white people of their duty to make-up for their perceived ancestors’ stupidity is childish, irresponsible and only serves to deepen the racial divide.

You want to end racism? Stop talking about race. Stop using race in conversation, stop separating people. You are trying to elevate society but you are using the methods of the magician who sold you his bag of tricks. You want to kill racism? Elevate your mind, look inside yourself, see how you yourself use race, how you talk about slavery and segregation and what you are really saying. Yes we need to know our history, but do we need to be bombarded with a single aspect of history so much until we’re desensitized by it? Do we have to hear about slavery in America when some countries are experiencing racial injustice as we speak? Where a woman in Saudi Arabia can’t talk to man she’s not related to unless she’s with a chaperone? Where a shoe shiner in India will never realize his dreams because of his social ranking? Where a Chinese Muslim will never have the respect of his secular brethren? What about this racism? Yes, it exists in America, absolutely. But talking about its existence doesn’t make it go away. Tell me a story about a murder and people will still kill. Now, this is not to say we shouldn’t talk about these things, but, everything is relative. American slavery lasted a few hundred years. Some groups have been slaves for millennia or more. It’s all relative, and slavery in America is a small part of the history of slavery in the world.

That said, it is important to note that Africans have been one of the most marginalized peoples in the history of our world, and the devastation of colonialism and imperialism has permanently scarred our motherland, the cradle of humanity. History and ignorance does not end in America, and western powers are accountable for their vast and corroded influence on indigenous peoples from foreign lands. How they do this is a topic for another day.

The question today is not one of slavery, racism or segregation. At least not in the traditional sense. Today, our enemy is slavery of the mind. To paraphrase Bob Marley, we need to emancipate ourselves from this mental slavery, this societal cancer that manipulates our desires into perpetuating the status quo, into becoming a de facto supporter of the power structure by our ignorance of it.

Of primary concern for me, regarding the “social change” panelist discussion, was the fact that the speakers represented corporate media, the status quo. If you subscribe to the fact that greed is a systemic problem in our society, than you must know that corporate, mainstream media will never be a vehicle for social change. Real and necessary social change would erase the need for corporate mainstream media. Even our fiction writer, with all her freedom to reach out, chose not to discuss the real and necessary social changes that need to occur and how, as writers and journalists, we discuss the topics that will inspire in people the desire to change.

And let’s be honest. There’s no such thing as objective journalism. Journalism is storytelling. That’s it. If you’ve ever played the rumor game in elementary school, we all know how stories mysteriously become embellished. But, journalism is also a search for truth, as Mr. Williams attested. But, as an audience member pointed out, truth is relative to our experience and each person understands truth as it relates to their own opinions. We read what we agree with so truth doesn’t make us afraid of ourselves. Most people are this way, at least. Most people are like this because of the profound and paralyzing fear that inhabits our society on a global scale. A true, primal fear that we suppress with all our materialism, hobbies, “responsible living” and “philanthropy.”

So, with all this cynicism, what’s the point of it all? If truth is relative and journalism is the pursuit of truth, than journalism is relative? Yes. Objectivity is a means to an end, it is not an end in itself. Objectivity is showing all sides, but our choices in who talks the most, who leads, who follows, who reacts, who comes out as the winner, our story structure and style and the facts we choose to follow other facts all contribute to the message that the writer is trying to convey. It is not the reporter’s fault, it’s our nature. Reporters are also subject to fear.

I thought it was only fair to ask the panelists how they deal with the fact that they represent corporate media and how they dealt with that kind of censorship. Of course, in the guise of the crowd my question came out quite offensively. Here’s how I would have liked to have reacted:

“Here we are, talking about social change, and nobody, not one of you, have mentioned the fact that our country is facing the most serious crisis of consciousness it has ever faced. Ever. I say that because in the past, our crises were obvious, if not to everyone, at least to those who were affected. Now, in the genius of our system, we are so easily blinded by what is truly important, our blissful ignorance has absorbed our souls like a slow cancer that we welcome with open arms because without the cancer which dulls our senses we would have to face the real world and its real pain. Karl Marx had it wrong, it’s not religion that is the opiate of society, it is consumerism. But I’m not going to rant about the ills of society and human depravity. You talk about starving children in Africa? You talk about this problem this country has with that country, and you think that you spend a few weeks or a few months abroad and you write a few human interest feature pieces and you attend some UN conferences and you have lunch with NGOs at a fancy restaurant, talking about how people need food, you think you’re serving a cause? All this self-righteousness is like pile of bullshit rotting under a mound of rank flesh. Mr. Williams you are quite honest, even in your evasiveness. You have an air of acceptance, a resignation that you’ve learned to deal with the fact that you work for Media General. I do respect you for that. And I respect all of the panelists as human beings and professionals. But. Oh, but. But you, (name omitted), have a moral dilemma about giving ice cream to some fucking kids on the street? Are you effing kidding me? Get over yourself! You are not the welcoming arm of God for these people. (If you were at the meeting, you would know what I am talking about). You are not a spiritual crusader doing what’s right for the sake of what’s right. Only for the glorification and satisfaction of your soul that you are doing something you think is good and right.

You see, it’s not the things we read about in the paper or watch on TV or hear on the radio that are our real problems. Our real, true and honest obstacle to social change is ourselves. It is our pride, our arrogance, our greed, our lack of humility, our exacerbated nationalism and jingoist attitudes, our lust for objects, our passion for our creations (food, cars, travel, etc), our self-worship, our good intentions that leak evil consequences, and especially our false use of religion and beliefs to deal with our fear. Human beings will never change unless we decide to be human. The amount of change that needs to take place is mind boggling. Human beings are so far away from what is real, we are so wound up with what’s new, the new toys and gadgets and living quarters, what’s the new green, green living, carbon credits, bring your own bags to the grocery store, eating organic if you can afford it, ecotourism, technology and human body integration, writing a book about writing a book, who’s who in the movies, who did what in what country, who adopted the blackest baby with the most flies on its head, where the best deals are, who has the biggest TV, the fastest computer, the biggest harddrive, the smallest keyboard, the coolest mobile phone, the tightest ass, the biggest lips, the juiciest hamburger, the greasiest fries, the smoothest talkers, the biggest walkers, the Joneses, the Joneses, the Joneses. And that’s only here in America. These types of problems exist everywhere, they’re just manifested differently.

Wealth and ice cream

I would like to now take a moment to talk about the wealth of “developing” countries. We, as westerners, look at a nation and define a people as “poor” based strictly on material wealth, as if that is the only measure by which a people’s worth is considered. Disgusting. The qualitative importance of a people is never an economic matter because it doesn’t affect global policy and it is of no benefit to “global stability” or the “global economic interests.” I’m not going to rant on about how western countries only invade the countries where there is an economic incentive to win. I’m not going to go into a tirade about how the IMF and World Bank (what a presumptuous name!) put countries into debt and offer no planning strategies that are specific to that region and culture. I’m not to talk about how every true democratic leader that has emerged in the developing world was instantly opposed by the U.S. government because a truly democratic leader is an enemy to U.S. interest (see P.E. Lumumba, et all). I’m not going to talk about that. But I am going to talk about a story that our panelist who was in the Congo talked about.

She mentioned a story about kids who walked up to her car asking for ice cream. She had a moral dilemma, as the ice cream in the car did not belong to her and she wanted to give the young boys an ice cream. But what’s funny, is that if she were never there eating ice cream in the first place, they would have never run up to her car. If westerners had never invaded and flooded Congo with its practices and diseases, ice cream would have never been introduced in Congo. Or if it was eventually introduced, most people would probably be able to afford it because they would have developed on their own and not under the knife of an oppressor or under the post-oppressor stress and pressure from countries with a golden tongue and a sneaky eye. You talk about knowing your history? Are you effing kidding me? Her dilemma is over giving a kid some ice cream? And then, suddenly, in a flash, her eyes were opened by her friend who used common sense and gave the kids his half-eaten cone for them to share? And she thinks it was her judgement which she passed on them, that she expected each of them should have their own cone, that that was her dilemma? My god! What a pretentious load. It was sickening. And when the thing was over, the sycophants emerged. I tried talking to the one woman who made sense to me during the meeting, but even she was eager to meet the Congo-advertising journalist. Networking, they call it. It should be called hook setting, or maybe frenzy feeding, or no, even better–parasitic orgies.

So, it ended, with my hand high in the air and the attitude of the people on stage obviously averse to even acknowledging me. I left, not really wanting to talk to anyone because it seemed like no one there even addressed the real issues that need to be changed. Sure we talked about ignorance and racism, but those are only symptoms of the grand disease of our society–our self-deification and our fear.

We will only be human when we can all live like our Christ, our Buddah, our Mohammed, our Gandhi, our Martin Luther King, our Mother Teresa, our monks, priests, imams, ascetics, single mothers, estranged fathers, orphaned children, diseased infants, and damaged soldiers who have risen above the physical world that dominates our mind and are now in the elevated realm of the Way. We can not be happy, we can not have change without a revolution of our mind, without an emancipation from our mental slavery. Until we realize that we are living in Babylon, until we unplug our hearts from the system and only use it as necessary and not as a necessity, until that day comes when we don’t see color, we don’t hear blasphemes, when there are no disgusting tastes or foul smells or violent touches, until we live in that world in our minds and hearts, until we are free from our desire to control everything, until we are free from our fear of each other and our true selves, until that day, we are slaves to the status quo, and we will never be free, and we will never have “social change.”

Can I get a witness?

Surely, i must be the most stupid of men

“Surely I must be the most stupid of men, bereft of human intelligence, I have not learnt wisdom, and I lack the knowledge of the holy ones,” Proverbs 30:2-3.

Wisdom is the most elusive of virtues. The very thought of having it seems to take it away, as if it’s intrinsically ironic, cursed to never be possessed. I like to think I know a little about a lot of things, but in truth I don’t know a damn thing. Let's consider the existence, or non-existence, of an all-knowing and omniscient being we in the west call God. Voltaire said (in French of course) that if God didn’t exist it would be necessary to invent him. But, Voltaire also considered the existence of God a fact not based on faith but on reason. And make no mistake, Voltaire believed in God’s existence. My non-contextual rebuttal to his statement would be that, for me, an imaginary God is better than no God. It may take me a while to prove that, but bear with me if you like, or move on to something more adjusted to your taste.

There is one religion. It’s not Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddahism, Taoism, Hinduism, Rastafarianism, Humanism or any other -ism. It’s just the Way. I’m not trying to create a religion, only to share what I think I know. You be the judge.

I also think that Jesus Christ walked the Earth and was God in the flesh. Now, even Christians have a hard time understanding that Christ was God, as most of them consider Christ a part of God, a son of God, as in the holy trinity. This is of course true, but it lacks the fundamental understanding of eternal existence. How can our finite minds truly comprehend eternity? Is it even possible? The first law of thermodynamics states that matter is neither created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction. But what does that even mean? If nothing is created or destroyed in a chemical reaction, and chemical reactions are the pulse of all life in the universe as we know it, then all matter is a recombination of atoms, a recycling of molecules, a reformation of basic life elements. I may be 30 years old, but my atoms are as old as the universe.

Now, I am not eternal, as my molecules were created somehow (in my mind, by God) at some point in time. A point. In time. That is how we understand just about everything, isn’t it? Our environment, our experiences, our knowledge, it all has a beginning and an end. It is finite. So, first we must grasp our true physical nature before we can even think of trying to understand eternity and eternal wisdom.

If the universe is 13 billion years old, than we are all 13 billion years old (We should all be getting the senior discounts everywhere we go and AARP should be raking in the dough). The atoms that form my physical body were perhaps a tree at one time, perhaps a person, a bottle, water, a rock, a cloud, a star, fire, dust. From dust to dust. When I die and my physical body decomposes in the dirt. If I were to allow my body to be buried directly in the dirt, eventually I would decompose, my molecules would be absorbed into the earth where a fruit tree might grow, taking up my molecules to grow its fruit. Then maybe a person comes by and grabs the fruit, taking my molecules and making energy, then poop. Dust to dust to dust to dust. In some traditions it’s called reincarnation.

But that’s still only the physical world, only a point in time. Now, let’s consider the imaginary God. What does an imaginary God represent? Eternity. Without the concept of an imaginary God, the concept of eternity does not exist, because without God, without eternity, everything is based on a point in time. With the imaginary God, there is the concept of eternity. An athiest would perhaps argue that eternity does exist without God. But this concept of eternity is only a vague abstraction at best, as it does nothing to answer the question of eternal wisdom. It also begs the question, or rather the idea, that everything, the universe, life, our planet, everything began at a point in time. Reality, in an atheistic worldview, is based on structured time. Even if it is unanswerable, as for the agnostic, the search for the answer lies in the idea of time. Of course, the open-minded atheist may argue that time is relative to space and that time can be bent and manipulated, even overcome, perhaps, if by anything, through the brute force of human invention. Science (which by the way is not separate from God, but only seeks to understand God’s language–nature [see Darwin]) offers us finite solutions with finite possibilities because it is based on finite principals. It is safe and rational because it can be seen and tested and proved and retested. Even with quantum physics exploding the doors of contemporary science, it still only proves that what we know is only a fraction of a percentage of what there is to know. We are all wise in our own eyes until we see in our reflection that we have no eyes.

Now there is, of course, the question of language and semantics. How many names does God have and why am I using the word God to describe God? Call it laziness, lack of wit, contempt for ingenuity. I merely think that the word God represents eternal wisdom and love, the never-ending flow of energy that blows life into nothing to create something. Eternal. The name doesn’t matter, as one day I am sure that we will have an opportunity to ask God what names God prefers. Pronouns for God are also superfluous, as the word “superfluous” is also superfluous.

The imaginary God is simultaneously personal and abstract. God is the mystery that atheists ponder but refuse to acknowledge out of sheer rebellion, fear and repulsion from religion. The imaginary God is everything and nothing. Imagine for a second, what our perceptions are based on. Our five senses. If we were born without the capacity to see, hear, taste, touch or smell, what would our reality consist of? How would we generate thoughts if we had no language to represent thought? Would we even be human? How could we communicate in that senseless world? Ironically enough, the physical world, as mathematics is beginning to prove, is only a fraction of the realities that are possible. But we are obsessed with consciousness, and there is no other understanding of reality aside from physical perceptions that we can accept because we are truly incapable of stepping outside of our five senses and into the eternal light.

So imagine the imaginary God in a world where God does not exist. What does that God stand for? As I mentioned, God represents the eternal, the no-beginning/no-ending life force that is the reason for everything. Or, imagine a world where God does not exist. The closest thing to God in this world would be mathematics, which, through numbers such as pi, create the illusion that there is infinity. In any number system, you are bound by rules, by a finite set of parameters that must be adhered to. With any man-made creation, there is a finite limit to its abilities and use. Such is the world where God does not exist. Limited solely to the ingenuity of mankind and the tumult of nature which exists solely as a giant cosmic accident. A belch in the creation of universe.

But in the world of the imaginary God, where human beings use the (imaginary) eternal connection to them to transcend the physical world and become a true saint (read Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mother Teresa, and all the Dalai Lamas, monks, ascetics and regular joes and joans who used that (imaginary) connection to the eternal to elevate their consciousness beyond the ego and into the realm of pure servant to humankind. That, to me, is the human way. Unfortunately we have not lived like humans throughout our entire existence. We try, but we fail, as we are our own worst enemies. The bombs we build to protect us from evil only make the evil create bombs to protect it from us (which, in the eyes of whom we perceive as “evil,” we are actually the evil ones. When was the last time a dictator committed genocide or human atrocities and knew that it was evil? On the contrary, good intentions [Hitler, Milosovic, Lenin, etc.] mask the reality of evil.) Few people are evil for evil’s sake. They consider themselves doing good for humanity, ridding the world of “evil” through evil means. As Gandhi said, an eye for an eye leaves both sides blind. We are all wise in our own eyes, until we realize we are in fact blind.

Which brings me to humanism. A beautiful, secular way to put morality into one’s life while maintaining religious neutrality and spiritual autonomy. I met a young lady once who told me she was a humanist, and I asked her what that meant to her. She told me that it meant to do good for the sake of goodness, to treat people the way you want to be treated, the golden rule. When I asked her what “good” means, she said of course something that helps people, or does something positive for society. One can imagine the Socratic questioning method continuing ad nauseam. If I ask her what kinds of things are positive for society, we will engage in that catch 22 that will inevitably leave her frustrated that her point was never made, and myself equally frustrated because I never enabled her to better understand her point. The real question here is this. Is her good work actually doing good for someone else? If she, in her eyes, is helping someone, is she in fact helping that person? Or is she, rather by virtue of the intended goodness in her act, merely serving her own desire to do good? It’s the karmic butterfly effect. Our actions, good intended or not, have consequences that we cannot possibly fathom. If we give a homeless person money, how do we know it’s good to do that? If we help an old lady cross the street, how do we know it was good? Maybe she hates to be touched. Maybe she has a contagious disease. Maybe she’s crazy and all she does is cross the street all day. But should we not do good because it’s impossible to know the consequences? Of course not. But, we should only do good because it is right, meaning that we do it with great love for ourselves and our fellow human being because of the undying and sacrificial love shown us by our Creator. Of course, a humanist will say, “That’s what I do!” But without God in our life, our knowledge of who we are is stunted and we will never know the full depth of existence through our eternal creator. Again the argument will be, “But how does that make what you do good and what a humanist does not good? Just by a belief in God?” Not the belief in God, but in the pursuit of the understanding of the eternal love God has for all life, especially the stewards of the earth, human beings.

I’d like to interject a bible proverb if I may. “The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge.” This statement used to confound me. I used to take it to mean, one can not know anything until one knows God. This is partially true. But the beauty of great literature such as the bible is that the words are alive, always changing and growing, yet staying the same the entire time. But the depth of this statement was made clear to me by Van Til’s Apologetic, which is a heavy treatise on the virtue of Christianity. Van Til argues that the fear of God precedes knowledge, but is also placed in front of God, that is to say, knowledge only exists because God has allowed it to be in our lives. When I profess I know something, the fear of God must be present before my knowledge, or else the knowledge is useless, vain, and an extension of my ego rather than an emulation of my eternal creator to whom I owe all my knowledge.

Say for example, my friend Mark went skiing and was chased by a bear down a mountain and barely escaped with his life. A few weeks after he tells me, I get into a conversation about bears and I remember Mark’s story. But because I’m in the presence of people who I want to impress for some reason, I might embellish the story a bit, make it more exciting, maybe add in that he got bit. But if Mark were there, I’d have to tell them how he told me, or allow him to tell the story, because the knowledge came from him. It’s his, and I have no right to disrespect him like that. Such is the nature of all knowledge with God. We must respect the eternal wisdom (God) whenever we profess our knowledge, and know that God is the source of all true wisdom.

No other fear exists when one fears God. This is no license to do whatever one wishes if they believe God wants it to happen. This is where true knowledge of God is important. God wants us to love one another, to give without expectation, to love our enemy, to pray for those who persecute us, to give to those who ask, and to live a quiet and contemplative life. God shows us the eternal plan for us time and time again, but we constantly ignore God’s wishes and pursue our own interests, like religious expansion, nationalism and the pursuit of material wealth. Ninety-nine percent of the people who say they believe in God do not live as though they believe in God.

I am not here to change people. People are individuals, especially in western society and deeply in American society. If we were not individuals, if we did not view our personal selves as special by virtue of our consciousness, then we would not have 50,000 religions that serve to confuse more people than a French restaurant menu. If Christianity served the teachings of Yeshua (Jesus), there would be no Christianity, only people serving God through selfless action and humble hearts. If Islam served the teachings of Mohammed, there would be no Islam, only people serving God through selfless action and humble hearts. And on an on through the religions we go.

But I can not talk ill of religion, because through it mankind has gained its most profound insights, if not directly, than as a a result against its power. Many a Bill Maher fan will complain that religion is the real culprit behind the world’s problems. And yet, to me, it seems that this argument is only partially true. Religion, to me, is humankind’s attempts to reconcile our infinite nature. Not, eternal nature. I will offer a semantic argument here, so forgive me, but I see infinite as having a beginning with no end and eternal as having no beginning and no end. So, religion is our attempt to reconcile our infinite nature in connection to the eternal life force.

Religion is a tool, a spiritual hammer. It can be used to build a house or kill someone. Unfortunately for us, our minds are so trapped in the physical world that our understanding of God is limited to the physical world. That is why we are so confused by religion, because it is intended to show us through physical means the nature of eternal wisdom and our infinite spiritual state. That is far too much for us to handle with our finite concept of reality, so we constantly twist it and bend it and use it against our enemies in the name of God, but the whole time God is showing us his love in his creation and in certain people. If God actually chose to speak to each one of us individually, the entire human race would go insane. My goodness, we can’t even understand what other people say about God, how in the hell are we supposed to understand God! If we are such egoists, that we think the existence of God is negated by the fact that religions relate the word of God as spoken to a few individuals and God, if God exists, should speak to everyone in the same fashion, than that egotism is exactly why we have the problems we have today. And, by the way, God does speak to everyone, but in a subtle and universal language called nature. We are just too ignorant and proud to see it.

“For what can be known about God is perfectly plain... since God himself has made it plain. Ever since God created the world his everlasting power and diety–however invisible–have been there for the mind to see in the things he has made. That is why [non-believers] are without excuse: they knew God and yet refused to [believe in] him as God or to thank him; instead they made nonsense out of logic and their empty minds were darkened. The more they called themselves philosophers, the more stupid they grew, until they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for a worthless imitation, for the [creations] of mortal man.” Romans 1:18-23

For centuries, Catholics would not allow lay people to read the bible as the Vatican feared it was blasphemous. Conceptually, I agree, because if the bible were truly the word of God, how can we expect everyone to understand the word of God? If God is all-knowing and eternal, whose wisdom crosses all boundaries of our wildest imaginations, than how can people be expected to understand God’s word, if it indeed exists? If people can’t understand a high school dropout’s poetry (Lil Wayne), how can we expect people to understand eternal wisdom?

But no human being has the right to oppress any other human being, for any reason, in my opinion. No human being, or group of humans, has the right to dictate what knowledge the masses is allowed to learn. Oh wait, I just described our public school system. But that’s a topic for another day.

So, this imaginary God. This God, even though it only exists in our minds, allows for our minds to at least accept the idea of eternity. Why did it have to be God that created the universe? Why couldn’t it have been an accident? But what preceded the accident? The agnostic questions come from a good place, but they can not use time-based reasoning as an argument for the origin of the universe. The only way for anything to be created is by a creator. Call it God, call it whatever you want. But ignoring the eternal is ignoring the very heart that beats within us. It is denying that heart the blood that carries its oxygen. It is denying our mind that connection to creation that burns deep in all our souls. It is killing the pulse and rhythm of the world, the music of our spirits, the beat of our perpetual blissful existence. To deny the existence of God is to forego all the knowledge in the world to human imagination, as if a tree is nothing, but an automobile is everything. If knowledge is based strictly on experience, than there is no knowledge, because no two experiences are the same and there are an infinite number of experiences that can take place along the line of time. This knowledge is useless because it is finite and will one day end, no matter what human invention we create to preserve it, it will end. But the eternal knowledge, the eternal wisdom, even if it’s imaginary, takes the mind to infinite possibilities of knowledge. Understanding the illusion of the physical world allows for the reality of our infinite nature to take hold, and opens our minds to the possibility of eternal wisdom. Imaginary or not, God exists, and my mind is better for it, how about yours?

some questions

How do we define truth? How do we understand the nature of reality? How do we experience the nature of existence and eternity? Who are human beings? What is our responsibility? Why is there so much pain and suffering and hatred in the world? Why do we define ourselves using physical/cultural characteristics? How is the physical nature of our bodies related to the infinite spiritual nature of our true being? Why is the physical world used to judge spiritual matters? Why do we use human standards and arguments for the sake of truth, when truth is spiritual and outside the realm of the material world? Why do we judge based on our five senses? What would our perception of reality be without our five senses? What is love, and how do we love? Why is love so difficult to practice yet easy to understand? How do we define wealth and poverty?

What is the nature of religion? How is religion used and for what purposes? Who, or what, is God/Allah/Yahweh? Why do people judge and hate in the name of God? Who was Yeshua, son of Mary and Joseph, and reputedly of Divine origin? Who was Abraham, father of Ishmael and father of Isaac? Who was Mohammed? What is the Bible? What is the Qur’an? What is the Torah, the Talmud, the Kebra Negast, the Gnostic gospels, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Tao Te Ching, the Book of the Dead? What is a church? What is a temple? What is a mosque? What is the real, true significance of place, in a theological context? Why do we sin, or rather, why do we commit acts against ourself that seem to elevate our place in society, but only serve to distract us from the reality that we are depraving ourselves from spiritual food?

It is Allah who causes whomsoever He wills to grow in purity... (Qur’an 5:49)

Indeed, when [non-Jews], who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts... (Romans, 2:15)

Whoever submits his whole self to Allah and is a doer of good, will get his reward with his Lord. (Qur’an 5:18)

There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil... honor and peace for everyone who does good... For God does not show favoritism. (Romans 2:9-11)

The Way that can be experienced is not true;

The world that can be constructed is not real...

Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way,

Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.

- Tao Te Ching