You Will Miss Much Good

I came upon this quote while reading a little about Islam and the debate over the mosque near ground zero. I thought it was quite a remarkable quote, not only that it originated from inside of Islam, albeit the 13th century, but because of the advanced level of humanism implicit within it. It is a quotation from the Sufi philosopher Ibn Arabi. He stated:

"Do not praise your own faith exclusively, so that you disbelieve all the rest. If you do this, you will miss much good ~ nay, you will miss the whole truth of the matter. God the omniscient and omnipresent cannot be confined to any one creed for he says in the Koran "Wheresoever ye turn, there is the face of Allah." Everybody praises what he knows. His god is his own creature and in praising it, he praises himself, which he would not do if he were just. His dislike is based on ignorance."

As I first read this quote, I immediately felt connected to Ibn Arabi, since we are both of a similar mind in respecting that from all thought, not just one's own, the possibility of truth arises, and that from holding this non-exclusivist mentality, one's life (and all of humanity) is enriched.

After some thought, I found that it was this exact idea which led me on the path to become an atheist. It may not be the same for all, to be sure. But in my mind, it is only in seeing all human thought (is there any other kind?) as something to learn from, specifically in identifying all of its imperfections and inconsistencies, that brings us to accept that they all have some truth within, but they all can't be true about everything. Perhaps it is what Arabi means when he states "the whole truth of the matter"?

It is sad that the single-minded also believe that theirs is a faith in god, using god's words, and that it was not created by man. In reality, it is not a belief in god, but rather a belief in man -- just a single exclusivist, non-humanistic, belief called Christianity or Islam. As Hegel said, this god (just as the greek gods did) will be forced into the past by the progress of time and the changing minds of humanity -- the geist.

If there are no more worshipers, then their god ceases to exist. In essence, there is no more god. As Nietzsche wrote, "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him." It was a little too early at that point... but he will come.

All knowledge is of human origin. The evidence is all around you, currently! It is within all the "sacred" texts, in our history, in the evolving biosphere, in our geology, in our solar system, in our galaxy, and in the universe itself. We all just need to look.

At the very least, if most Muslims and Christians held this to be true, it would be a far more pleasant world in which to live.

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My God

by Ian Anderson (from Jethro Tull), 1971

v/r 1:
People, what have you done?
Locked Him in His golden cage!
Made Him bend to your religion
And resurrected from the grave...
He is the God of nothing
If that's all that you can see.
You are the God of everything,
He's inside you and me.

[Here, Ian Anderson is the clearest in his Deistic position. He states, "God exists, but you reduce him to only what you can see -- being just as yourself." Check out the song, "Wind Up" from the same release.]

v/r 2:
So lean upon Him gently
And don't call on him to save
you from your social graces,
and the sins you used to waive.
The bloody Church of England,
in chains of history,
requests your earthly presence
at the vicarage for tea.

[Here, Anderson paints two forms of human pettiness -- the overly-religious leaning upon God for saving them from their petty concerns, and the church itself being riddled within by their own petty customs.]

v/r 3:
And the graven image you-know-who,
with his plastic crucifix, (He's got him fixed!)
Confuses me as to who and where and why,
as to how he gets his kicks.
Confessing to the endless sin,
the endless whining sounds.
You'll be praying 'til next Thursday,
to all the Gods that you can count.

[Now, he furthers his claims on the corruption of the clergy, displayed by a "plastic crucifix" (lack of strength or true mettle?) and the suspicion for how sexually they can get off, foced to be celibate. He lastly criticizes the followers once again (or maybe the clergy?) by mocking their whining confessions, never ending... how can we really take them seriously? and claiming that they are really meaningless in God's eyes.]

---

While Anderson has critiqued his own work on the Aqualung album as generally sophomoric and "with a single brush stroke", many still agree on it's legendary status. I am one. Some things are more readily apparent using the vitality of youth to see clearly. This is one. Yes, his lyrics in this case are more than a little bit wandering in subject matter... but it is easily forgiven when one hears with such weary distain that he delivers them.

"He's not the kind (of god) that you have to wind up on Sundays..." Indeed.

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Lies in the Sand

There's a man who says there is a light in the sky
All my friends say he's telling a lie
But he speaks with such passion that I have to think about.

And his hands, well they tremble as he points it out
But I can't see what it's all about
And the voices of many are singing along it seems.

Is it all something new? And will I see it too?
Or is this just continuing man?
Throughout all history claiming they all can see
But the evidence falters just short of my hand...
And there are lies in the sand.

There's a man, who says he was a Satanic Beast
And the many were there at his feet
And he scared all the people, cause he just what we want.

There are things that will surely seem as they are not
And I might not know all that I've got
But the bluffing is easy, and I haven't seen your hand.

-- "Lies in the Sand (The Ballad of...)", King's X

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Gnosis (γνῶσις)

One of the biggest problems with revealed religion, and fundamentalist interpretations of it, is that it assumes at the onset that anything that humanity can come up with on its own (without god) is at once suspect and flawed, and needs to be proven right by the will of god (usually in the form of some scriptural passages).

This is a dangerous principle to have hanging around your neck, first, since it presumes an inability of mankind to sucessfully navigate the waters of survival and it may become a detriment to our survival (or cause of our extinction). The truth is, mankind has been around for far longer than any of these myths (christianity being one), and there will be a time when the christian myth will be let go, en masse. In fact, we may already be in the starting phase of this process.

Second, this need for revelation (or hearsay of revelation as is in the bible) focuses the worst of mankind's thoughts on every other belief system, in fact, creating a sort of "spiritual warfare" and casting all other spritual system as "of the devil" or other such garbage. Christianity is by far a large offender on this front, islam also, of course (how many christians believe buddhists unintentionally worship satan?)... but other religions aren't quite immune to this sort of "us and them" mentality either.

Dogma, religious or not, will always enslave mankind if left unquestioned, and we all have a personal responsibility to take the first step away from literal and unwaivering interpretations of humanity's sacred texts.

In christianity alone, one MUST openly inquire into the Gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Apocrypha. Moreso, one needs to read these books, and the bible (old and new testament) completely and critically before ever thinking of accepting the christian myth as real. Trust in the knowledge and evidence around you. It was all written by men, imperfect as we are. To openly acknowledge this is your first step on a path rich with wonder, understanding, and the wisdom of insecurity.

Once we think we know everything (or a single set of books and a direct prayer-line to god), we have allowed ourselves to stop thinking. The scripture can do it all for us, right?

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Freedom From the Known

"Man has throughout the ages been seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare - something we call truth or God or reality, a timeless state - something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption.

"Man has always asked the question: what is it all about? Has life any meaning at all? He sees the enormous confusion of life, the brutalities, the revolt, the wars, the endless divisions of religion, ideology and nationality, and with a sense of deep abiding frustration he asks, what is one to do, what is this thing we call living, is there anything beyond it?

"And not finding this nameless thing of a thousand names which he has always sought, he has cultivated faith - faith in a saviour or an ideal - and faith invariably breeds violence.

"In this constant battle which we call living, we try to set a code of conduct according to the society in which we are brought up, whether it be a Communist society or a so-called free society; we accept a standard of behaviour as part of our tradition as Hindus or Muslims or Christians or whatever we happen to be. We look to someone to tell us what is right or wrong behaviour, what is right or wrong thought, and in following this pattern our conduct and our thinking become mechanical, our responses automatic. We can observe this very easily in ourselves.

"For centuries we have been spoon-fed by our teachers, by our authorities, by our books, our saints. We say, 'Tell me all about it - what lies beyond the hills and the mountains and the earth?' and we are satisfied with their descriptions, which means that we live on words and our life is shallow and empty. We are secondhand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves; nothing original, pristine, clear.

"Throughout theological history we have been assured by religious leaders that if we perform certain rituals, repeat certain prayers or mantras, conform to certain patterns, suppress our desires, control our thoughts, sublimate our passions, limit our appetites and refrain from sexual indulgence, we shall, after sufficient torture of the mind and body, find something beyond this little life. And that is what millions of so-called religious people have done through the ages, either in isolation, going off into the desert or into the mountains or a cave or wandering from village to village with a begging bowl, or, in a group, joining a monastery, forcing their minds to conform to an established pattern. But a tortured mind, a broken mind, a mind which wants to escape from all turmoil, which has denied the outer world and been made dull through discipline and conformity - such a mind, however long it seeks, will find only according to its own distortion."

- Jiddu Krishnamurti, Freedom From the Known

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Separating Diamonds from the Dunghill

I'd advise anyone with an internet connection (hint, hint) or a local book retailer nearby to check out the Jefferson Bible. Yes, from THE Thomas Jefferson. Never heard of it you say? Oh, shame, shame!

Jefferson frustrated by the christian bible, concluded that early christians, interested in promoting christianity to the romans, liberally salted the teachings of jesus with the philosophy of the pagan mythologies (god mating with human, miracles, etc), only to make it more pallatable, and in doing so created a perverse hybrid doctrine which the world came to know as christinsanity. Oops. Did I say that? I meant christianity. Erm, sorry!

"The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814

The result of Jefferson's work on this matter, between 1804, and 1820, is the Jefferson Bible. Within, jesus is a great moral teacher who set out without pretensions of divinity.

----

Q1: So you mean, erm... Jefferson WASN'T a CHRISTIAN!?

No, not in the conventional sense now-a-days, and certainly not in the southern baptist, pentecostal and fundamentalist sense.

Q2: Well, I'm confused... wasn't America founded as a christian nation?

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802

Q3: Why did Jefferson have such a problem with good 'ol christianity anyways?

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814

"They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion."
--Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800

Q4: Well, don't we need god to be good moral United States citizens?

"If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814

Q5: How could Jefferson see jesus the man as a great teacher, and not the son of god, and part of the holy trinity? Doesn't everyone who believes in god believe this?

"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 30 July, 1816

B R A V O Mr. Jefferson. B R A V O !!

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Open Inquiry

OK. I really like open inquiry. I guess that is pretty clear while reading most of this blog. How the accumlated experiences of humanity affect our views of reality is a fascinating thing for me. And nothing is off the table, because I have found through my experience, and the experiences of those around me, that more often than not, growth produces flowers (quaint, eh?). It is part of nature, which we are a product of. Our brains produce flowers of thought, and thought is a form of art. Thought doesn't need to be always characterized as "true" or "false", but it may very well be so. But to safeguard humanity's collective freedom of thought, we must do all we can to not silence the voices of the "insane", who seem to at best generate tomorrow's fiction, and at worst create tomorrow's cults. Thought is art. Thought needs pure imaginative insanity to grow. With nothing to sift through, we cannot find truth. Neither about how we find our happiness and our place in the world, nor about how the universe is, and world around us and within us works.

With that in mind, I post and respond to two separate questions which I was asked recently. They both fall under the banner of open inquiry. They are valid questions, and I highly respect the minds of those who ask such things. That they all don't have the answers, is pure poetry to me.

1. What if we exist BECAUSE of faith?

Invariably those that ask this question are usually asking it to further YOUR inquiry into THEIR religion, and in America, it is usually christianity. This is indeed a viable question, but it is as viable as the following questions.

"What if we exist because of our past life karmic debt that we still need to pay during this life, and our desire to live once again, in pleasure and pain and not distance ourself by the buddha's middle path?"

"What if we exist because an alien race did experiments and seeded our world with life?"

"What if we exist because of a shared dream we all are dreaming together, thus creating a stable and consistent experience for each of us?"

All my point is with my examples above is that there is no reason to specifically quote jesus, anymore than mohammad, anymore than joseph smith or carlos castaneda. And there is certainly no reason to live one's life any different because by chance you just happened to be raised by parents or in a society which held this belief more dearly than any other faith generated by humans. So what if jesus was right? So what if shiva was right? So what if odin was right? The list goes on and on...

Jesus is but one card in a deck of tens of thousands. Why focus all of your attention there, or see his biblical claim of divinity as more valid or greater than any other? As Richard Dawkins states, "[Every single person] is an atheist when it comes to the countless gods that humanity has ever believed in... Some of us just go one god further."

Last point... sure some questions are just invalid, or just plain meaningless, but just because a question is viable or worth asking for investigation into our humanity and needs, it doesn't mean all answers regarding this question are equally valid.

2. What are we made from?

As science shows us, we are made of the very fabric of past stars. We are certainly nothing less, and there is no reason to believe we are made of something more. Indeed, one day we will return from whence we came (this time to our own sun). It is a glorious thought. Glorious!

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