by Tom Valentine

A lazy column, but interesting to see the varied responses to serious questions: I am reminded of a handbill posted above my desk:

“There are no experts. But you may become one of them.”

Moha

Religion is but a tool, a moral compass, do you blame the gun when someone is murdered ? i understand and respect that at some point you as an individual may decide that you don’t need that compass, I ask the same respect and understanding if i choose to not let go of it, an anti-religious inquisition is raging in Europe and north America, under the guise of secularism but going way past that scope, forcing people to abandon their faith in public places and such, infringing on basic freedoms, I see no difference between the catholic church middles ages inquisition and this new age atheistic one.

Another note tacked to my office wall, came from a noted physicist commenting on recent cosmic discovery

“We are still confused, but for better reasons and higher purpose.”:

(This next comment basically inspired my recent Christian faith columns:

Truth Seeker

Interesting read, but what is religion…what are its roots? Should we question everything in a day and age when everything appears to be contrived? Our thoughts are built on the backs of our forefathers who in some small way were just puppets to the establishments they were servant of.

At some point should we be asking bigger questions like does religion still serve us? If not, can we toss it aside and write a new book? Our thoughts/religion tells us that such a thought would abandon God, but what is God? Do we have it all wrong? What if God is not a man in the sky watching our every move, but we are the embodiment of God, which makes up the universe?

Nature and the universe has intelligence (divine order if you will) but humanity seems to ignore it because we still embrace religious rhetoric that wants to dominate and control it. That same mentality appears to want to control humanity as well.

Consciousness is an interesting thing. You have individual consciousness, group consciousness, regional consciousness, national consciousness and global consciousness…and likely universal consciousness that we have yet to discover. But what really drives those in charge to do evil things to individuals or humanity? EGO, now that is a topic worth talking about, man’s ego!

(The myth of the Garden of Eden and man’s hubris causing the fall from Grace offers some psychological answers to the why some folks just be bad)

I think George Carlin had an interesting way of stating it.

He believed in individuals but despised groups. “I love individuals, I hate groups of people. I hate a group of people with a common purpose, cause pretty soon their gonna have little hats, you know, and armbands, and fight songs, and a list of people their gonna visit at 3 am. So I dislike and despise groups of people but I love individuals.” He felt that in each individual eyes he could see the universe if you really looked.

(I did not edit, leaving the original flavor in Art’s view. Many responders seem to have been heavily influenced by linguistic studies.)

Art

The idea of “creator” or monotheism is relatively new. In a recognizable form, probably around three thousand years old before monotheism, “god” was “hoo-man”. If you look into the Indo-European root of the word “hoo” you will find “spirit” or “unsensible driving force”. And for “man” you will find “internal”, “core”, “nucleus”, unrecognizable by six senses. All the derivative concepts of “menu”, “mental”, “meaning”, “mind”, .. are pointing to the same concept of “inside”. So “god” meant center core of potentiality “inside” of every person, EVERY PERSON.

Monotheism dragged this “god” (Human) out of physical bodies of every person and put the collective Him “outside” behind the clouds. This unrivaled colossal calamity turned Human into a piece of warm meat human void of its spiritual “driving force”. It made “killing” of humans much easier than Humans.

(Google Aristides apology to Hadrian to get old philosopher’s thinking on this)

Look into the old spiritual value systems of ancient nations (Egypt, Iran, ..) who have involuntarily converted to monotheism today or those who have never been monotheistic (India, China, ..). You will find the wealth of intricate and complex vocabularies and insight knowledge of the “inside” world of humanity simply incomparable to those of monotheistic nations.

Scientism contribution to this degradation of wisdom is too new and too little to compare to what monotheism has been able to accomplish in the last few thousand years to almost half of human race.

Truth Seeker (again)

Is this the God question or a philosophical question? If it is the God question, you need to define God…

If you mean the God of the Christian Bible, I say no, if you mean the Torah, Quran or any western religion, the answer is no. If you mean something grander than us, then yes. What that might be…would only be speculation, unprovable and a guess at best by the most intelligent individual today.

If you talk of atoms… then at the microcosm we are all made of the same stuff and you or I would not know the difference between us whatsoever, so scientifically you could say we are all one. One what? One God, one entity one ____? We did not know about atoms 3000 years ago when scripture was written, but today we do, so what does that say about scripture?

A direct challenge to me: Getting down to “Nitty Gritty”

“tell me whence they came.” what if I (me, you, everyone) was God and created all of this so I could experience consciousness subjectively? You can’t do that if you are not oblivious to what is God… it spoils the game.

More Truth Seeker:

In order for religion to succeed it needs to make people believe that it has all the answers.

In order for people to put faith in something else they need to lose faith in themselves. (1) The first task of organized religion is to make you lose faith in yourself. (2) The second task of religion is to make you see that it has answers you do not. (3) The third and most ridiculous task is: religion needs you to accept religions answers without question.

If you start to question things, you will likely come up with an answer that is different from the one that has been provided for you.

(isn’t that what growing children experience every day)?

Not too different from what we are expected to believe of our governments… Humm…. are they operating from the same playbook?

Here’s a novel idea, what if man worked from a simple premise of what worked for everybody, instead of what God commanded or suggested. How about making laws and rules that are based on simplicity and logic instead of rhetoric and superstition? If you really believe in a God (Supreme Being, all knowing, all wise and all intelligent) he likely would have no stake in the outcome of man, only an observer. He might interject from time to time, but I don’t think he’d be giving 10 commandments that any high school student could write a better list.

(Who gets to pick what is “best” for everybody? Democrats or Republicans?)

Tom Valentine

Tom Valentine (born August 20, 1935, same day as Ron Paul) is a businessman, writer, commentator and radio host with an anti-establishment perspective. He worked with Radio Free America from 1988 to 2004. He tends to align with issues from left and right ends of the political spectrum, as well as libertarianism. His main journalistic interests have been unorthodox health care methods and conspiracy theories. He is a believer in many alternatives as cancer cures, and believes that soy products are unhealthy for human consumption. All of his views are at odds with the mainstream medical community.