The Christmas Miracle

Once again it has been quite some time since my last post.  I think that is a pattern that will last forever.

My topic today, not surprising given the time of year, is Christmas.  And in truth, a somewhat sober view of Christmas.  I grew up, as so many children did, thinking Christmas was the most fabulous time ever.  Of course, as a very young boy, it was all about presents.  But my parents always did a very good job at making sure we understood the true meaning of Christmas, which of course is the birth of Christ.  When I was somewhere around ten years old, I can't say I fully understood all that is involved in Christmas and Jesus' life, but I did know enough to appreciate that he came into this world to save us, and there was always a sense of peace at Christmas time.

Little by little, no matter how motivated I tried to be, I grew older and experienced life in all its wonder and its horror.  At Christmas I still felt the sense of peace I had when I was younger, but it was starting to wane.  I desperately wanted to believe everything would be okay because Christ was born and the world would experience his peace.  I kept thinking positive, even if it was a bit naïve.  To be clear, I have had a wonderful life, but all of us, every human being alive, experiences struggles on a regular basis.  There were major events like Vietnam and Watergate that made me question what role God was playing in this world.  There were personal things, people I knew who died, families experiencing divorce, cancer, unemployment.  I lost my first job shortly before Christmas one year.  Still, I used Christmas as a time to rejoice, but in truth I was questioning why Christmas was special at all.  For five weeks I would spend more money than I had to celebrate this special day, and then the next day nothing changed, and for eleven more months we all dealt with the woes of life.

Now I'm older still, just turned 60.  Even people that have had great lives have seen a lot of pain and tragedy by 60, and I am no different.  I sit here listening to Christmas carols about how Christmas is the time we all come together in a bond of love and peace, yet the TV tells of continual mass shootings, these crazy ISIS people, protest in many of our major cities about things I'm not even clear on, marriages and families torn apart at record levels, children are frequently abused, even by those we used to think were incapable of such things, and all that is on a good day.  I mean, really, are we actually going to rejoice and pretend things will someday get better?  Here is what I have learned in sixty years; there never was peace on earth, and there never will be.  Wars will never go away, the hopeless desperation of millions of people won't go away, millions of children will continue to be abused, and I cannot stop it.  Life takes its toll, and I fear I've crossed over to believing Christmas is a total façade.

But then, I look over and see the little manger scene we have in our house.  The little baby born in the middle of a cold night to complete poverty.  Against all odds, this baby changed the world.  What I realized is that the world didn't change in the way I would have like to see it change.  As stated above, there are still wars, there is still pain, that will never go away.  But that's not why Jesus came into this world.  I used to think it was, and I became terribly disappointed.  I now see that Jesus came to us to teach us a few very simple points; 1) He loves us and we should love him, as well as love all people; 2) He will never abandon us, which doesn't mean he will magically remove our problems, but he will guide us and help us with our ability to deal with them; 3) As hopeless as the world may outwardly appear, there is always hope for us internally.  In short, Jesus, never did promise to "fix" our world, but he gave us the ability to individually find our own peace, our own happiness, our own sense of love and contentment.  With this, we can use these gifts to help the world.  Not to "fix" the world, because it's probably not "fixable",  but we can help it and be a positive influence for others.

The miracle I experienced this Christmas is to finally realize Christmas has nothing to do with God altering this mess of a world we humans made, but it reminds us that we can lean on him as we trudge through and do our best to deal with the world and maybe, if we work hard, make it a tiny bit better for someone.  Christmas is not magical; it is a time to refresh our own sense of who we are and who God wants us to be, and then to suck it up and say, "Jesus, with your help, I'm going to give life a shot one more year."  And then, with renewed energy, go out and do just that.

Christmas is truly the greatest time of the year.

Times Change...Or Do They?

I remember going to the lake when I was a child.  In fact, some of my earliest memories are of viewing the serene water with dense woods along the far shore.  It was beautiful.


Now, at age 60 (almost), I come to the same place, and see essentially the same thing.  But now, what I see is so very different.  Not that the difference is something all that tangible.  It is, in fact, still a tranquil lake bounded by a densely wooded area.  But what I see is different.


As I child, I saw nature in its purest form, viewed through the unfiltered eyes of innocent youth.  What I saw then was basically trees and water.  Now, I survey the same setting through the filter of 60 years of life.  What I now notice is the is that the trees look different, depending upon where they are.  Those in the more open areas have grown large and strong.  They have filled out evenly and are, by anybody's standards, "pretty".  The trees in the denser areas have had to struggle to survive. They are not as big, they are not as evenly filled out, they are not as "pretty".  I almost feel sorry for those trees because they haven't had the same chance as the trees in the open.


I also notice how many trees are dead.  They just couldn't make it through the storms and the competition for survival.  And there are no monuments to them.  They simply lay by the wayside and decay, all but forgotten.


I look at this vision of the lake and the woods and realize how it is in many ways exactly the same as I remember it, but in many ways it is completely different.  It all depends on the perspective one gets from the filter of life.  I suppose one could say that my new perspective is a sadder version than that of my youth.  There is no denying that there is an element of sadness when anything is viewed through the filter of 60 years of life, but one could also say that my new perspective is inspiring.  Through all the storms, the droughts, the fires, the lake and the forest still stand as majestic as ever.  They continue to win the battle.


An obvious question is, which perspective, or which view, is more beautiful?  The answer should be equally obvious; they are both the same.  My filter has changed, but things around me have not, at least not in a significant way.  The beauty I observed in my innocent youth is the same beauty I witness today.  I can choose to not see the beauty because of my filter.  Sixty years of life; pain, stress, anxiety, death; these have a way of hiding the beauty.  But in that same sixty years there has been joy, excitement, love, and tremendous growth.  My filter is not a physical one, like rose colored glasses.  It is one of pure emotion that does not effect what I see, but only how I see it.


I leave the lake and the forest today feeling a strong sense of peace.  After all, I am also part of nature.  I can choose to stand majestically even after all the storms of my life.

Just Do It

I like to write about things that are inspirational, at least to me, and also maybe things that are a bit light hearted, not wanting to get too serious.  But sometimes we need to just say what's on our mind.  The thing on my mind now is I am sick and tired of all the bullshit out their about God and religion.  Now don't get me wrong, This is not about God, who I believe in passionately, and in a sense it is not even about religion, although as I have discussed in the past, religion is more ambiguous than many of us think.  No, this is about the pure, unadulterated shit that people from all corners of the earth and from all faiths throw at us with unprecedented frequency and ferocity.


Many of our children struggle with their faith, not because they do not have the fundamental sense of God that I believe we all have, but because we, meaning our entire society, force them into bizarre and unrealistic compromises and decisions.  We place upon them a conflicting set of rules and beliefs that do not even make sense to us, least of all trying to get the next generation to buy into them.  For example:

• You should love all people, but only marry someone from your religion.  Why?  Because that's what I was taught.
• You should respect all religions, but understand ours is the only "right" one.  How do you know?  Because that's what Scripture says (and all religions use this same argument).
• There is only one God, but the true God is the God we choose to believe in (again, all religions feel the same way).
• God wants us to love each other and live in peace, and if people do not agree with that, we will either force them to or drive them out.

With regards to our children, this is at best confusing and at worst very damaging.  But far worse than that is how this plays out world wide.  Look at all the wars that have been fought and are being fought in the name of God.  Look at ISIS and all the craziness associated with that organization.  Look at all the completely f'd up things going on in this world because of the fanatical behavior of people from differing faiths.  Well you know what?  You all suck!  If you want to live in peace and harmony, than simply choose to do so.  If you believe in God and feel the need to fight or have a conflict over something that you feel is what God wants, then get you friggin' head out of you ass and understand what God really wants.  He/She wants peace and harmony and for all of us to love each other.  Is that so friggin' hard to understand?  People need to stop acting like they know what God wants and start doing what God has told us, and more importantly, what God has shown us.


How do you stop all the horrible violence in the world?  Do you use force?  Attack and kill people?  What are our choices?  How about we do what we tell our young children every day when they fight in the sandbox?  Just stop.  Don't do that anymore.  You're getting too old to act like that!


Does God want us to figure out a way for "good" to overcome "evil"?  No, that's not our job.  We can't even agree what "good" and "evil" are.  God will take care of that.  Our job is simply to love each other and respect each other.  It's time to follow Nike's slogan and "Just Do It".

Achieving Peace

          Have you ever wondered what it would be like to find complete peace of mind?  I'm sure all of us have at one time or another.  But it also seems that no one, at least no one I know, has ever found it.  Sure, we have good days, and many of us are even content with life, but that's not the same as total peace of mind.  I'm talking about true, stress free, anxiety free peace.  Is it possible?  Could that be heaven?  Well, here is my partially imagined, partially real recollections of a meditative journey to find peace.

          I believe, like most people, that we should always try to look on the bright side of things, to see the silver lining in the clouds.  I feel I have been able to do a pretty good job at this, but at the same time I recognize it is only human to want more and better things.  I also realize that life isn’t always fair, but yet I am often troubled when I see how much unfairness there is in the world.  I wonder, sometimes, why God allows bad things to happen, why he allows good people to suffer.  No matter how I try to “look on the bright side”, the unfairness of the world is always right in front of us, almost taunting us.  What would it take to be truly content in life?  Not just accepting of the unfairness and of the bad things that can happen, but truly, blissfully at peace?

            I sit back, close my eyes and begin to meditate.  At first my meditation is little more than concentrating on issues that tend to bother me.  What would the world actually be like if there was no suffering, no pain, no unfairness?  In this mild level of meditation I envision a utopian world that we have seen in movies or read about in fictional stories.  Everything is good, everybody is good.  There is no evil.  Conceptually I get it, but what would the world actually be like?  Surprisingly, even in my meditative state, this world doesn’t seem to make sense.  Even if I had everything I want, what’s to stop me from wanting more?  If I always feel wonderful, why wouldn’t I want to feel even better?  This new world is a nice thought, but it is not blissful, and it does not bring the peace I hope to find.  In fact, it almost perpetuates the concerns I was feeling in the “real world”.

            I fall deeper into my meditative state, and I begin to realize that I cannot ever find true bliss, true peace, as long as I am focused even in a small way on me.  As long as I am searching for something better for myself, bliss and peace will elude me.  My mind drifts to a new level, one where I truly have no concerns for myself.  It is liberating in many ways, and I experience something like a great pressure being lifted from me.  Is this it?  Is this the perfect world?  Could this be heaven?

The answer is no.  Even here I do not feel true peace.  In fact, I become almost more aware of the suffering of others.  Why are there so many poor?  Why do so many people have pain?  Why does evil seem to win out over good so often?  Being unselfish is a very good thing, but it does not bring me any closer to true bliss.

            I allow my meditative state to deepen.  My mind now begins to drift on its own and is open to thoughts and ideas that come from somewhere else.  They are not my thoughts, they are an experience from allowing my mind to remain free.  I suppose one could say I am reaching a true spiritual state.  Now, at this level, material things have little importance.  Without the concern of material things, I am free to focus on what is truly important.  I have a stronger sense of God, not that I can see God, but I clearly feel closer to my creator.  It is a wonderful feeling.  But then, surprisingly, I somehow know this level is not one of true peace.  While practical thoughts have nearly vanished, I find myself concerned about this new spiritual level.  Does God truly love me?  Does he love me as much as he does others?  Does he love the people that were so evil in the “real world”?  If so, why does he love them as much as he loves me?  At this spiritual level, will I encounter loved ones who have passed away?  Will I see my father?

I find myself losing the sense of peace that I thought I was feeling.  Even at this level, I want to experience more of this good feeling, and not knowing how to achieve that becomes a barrier to finding true peace.  And there are still things I don’t know.  In this world, a very spiritual world, should I expect to meet Jesus?  Is Jesus truly the Son of God?  Will I discover who God actually is?  I love this world, but I am still torn.  What is it that will bring me, or anyone, true peace?

            Then suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, I am at peace.  Total, blissful, tranquil peace.  I am at the deepest level of my meditation, and for the first time I understand what peace is.  It is a world of complete and total nothingness.  To be sure, it is not at all a world of emptiness or loneliness.  Far, far, from it.  In fact, it is a world of complete fullness.  But it is very clearly a world of nothingness.

            My mind has expanded beyond normal human thought.  As a human, one can only think in terms of comparisons.  Everything is seen as big or small, soft or hard, good or evil, fair or unfair.  Even in the previous level of my meditative state I questioned why God would love an evil person as much as a good person.  Humans see everything as different, and the good people, the ones who truly care about others, try so hard to make things equal.  This duality has defined not just our world, but even our subconscious thoughts.  ”Strong” has no meaning if there isn’t something “weak” to compare it to.  “Tall” has no meaning if there is not something else that is “short”.  Even “good” has no meaning unless there is something “bad” or “evil” to compare it to.

This new world is not a world of equality, for equality can only exist when there are different things that are judged to be the same.  One could look at two steel blocks that are alike in any possible form of measurement.  Anyone would say that these two blocks are the same, they are “equal”.  But yet they are distinctly two different blocks.  In this world, things are not equal, they are not the same.  There is simply nothing, so there is no judgment whatsoever.  Nothing is “good”, and nothing is “bad”, it just is.  In this world, all is one, and it is this oneness that sets this world apart from all others.  Nothing is different, and nothing is the same, for it is all one.

Most of us have been taught that in heaven, everything is good and happy.  But at this level of meditation, I understand that that cannot be true.  Good and happy can only exist if there is bad and sadness to go along with it.  That is why we humans can never achieve true peace.  Ironically, the very act of searching for peace prevents us from ever achieving it.

This new world I have arrived at in my deep meditative state is not good, or happy, or fair.  But neither is it bad, or sad, or unfair.  It is nothing, true nothing, a nothingness so profound that in experiencing it there is everything the soul needs to find peace.

            This is a perfect world.  It’s wrong to say I have everything I want or need, because there is nothing, including wanting or needing.  We do not need to look on the bright side here, because there are no sides.  In fact, “bright” has no meaning.  Everything is one, and the oneness is complete.  It is complete because, in effect, it is nothing.  And through this nothingness, I have everything.

Treatise on Faith

Okay, so once again I have gone a long time without writing in this blog.  Not sure why I do that.  However, I plan on making up for it by having a quite long article.  Is anyone up for this?  I'll tell you up front that this is about 23 pages long, so if you're looking for a quick read, this isn't it.

This is actually something I wrote a little while back.  It was inspired by my continued confusion between religion and faith.  At one point in my life I thought they were almost the same thing.  As I have grown and gained at least a little wisdom, I have actually done a complete reversal and now I thing they are very different concepts.  That is the theme of this article.

 

 

Treatise on Faith

 

Expression of faith is our choice.

Reaction to faith is our choice.

 

The essence of faith is not our choice.

It is fundamental in our nature as human beings. 

 

 Preface

Inherent within all human beings is a sense of something greater then ourselves, something mysterious and powerful, something divine.  Whether or not a person believes in God, they still feel a sense of awe at certain times; a full moon rising, standing on an ocean shore, the birth of a baby.  Even the very early humans displayed a primitive form of ritualistic behavior associated with these wonders, demonstrating a belief in some greater power which was their version of God.  This was the purest form of faith.  These people had no scripture or prophets to teach them about God, they simply relied on their natural senses.

Somewhere along the way the human intellect took over and attempted to give definition to these senses, to explain their meaning and define the boundaries of God.  For thousands of years since, people have debated, analyzed and even fought over these definitions, totally losing sight of the fact that the definitions in and of themselves have no value.  Intellect took precedence over the senses, and the rules and definitions took precedence over pure faith.  In time, the rules and definitions actually came to define faith, and our senses and internal consciousness gave way to human teaching.

Introduction

 Faith.  Such a fundamental aspect of our lives.  Whether we are Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or any other religion, faith is at the core of our being.

Faith, as we know, is a belief without proof, and in this context it is specifically associated with a spiritual belief.  As such, it could even be suggested that the atheist has faith, but the manifestation of his faith is that he believes there is no God.  In truth, the atheist has no more proof of God’s nonexistence than anyone else has of his existence.  Therefore, belief without proof that there is no God is simply one extreme end of the faith spectrum.

So we all have faith, and it is an immensely powerful force within us.  Wars have been fought over faith, countries have been founded over faith, civilizations have been destroyed over faith.  Faith is undoubtedly the single biggest factor affecting the world and our presence in it, and therefore nothing is more important for us to fully understand.  Ironically, there are few things in this world less understood.

Understanding faith can appear to be an immensely complex proposition.  Some of the foremost intellectuals the world has ever known have undertaken this task, and still it is not clear.  It may be that the reason faith seems so complex is because it is actually so incredibly simple.

            There are a number of specific events that have occurred throughout history that shape our faith; the Ten Commandments being given to Moses, the birth of Jesus, the vision of Muhammad.  We accept these events as “defining moments” and we tend to build our faith around them.  Therein lies the difficulty.  In truth, these events do not define faith, or even the basis for faith.  In fact, they have little if anything to do with faith.

At first this may sound preposterous.  After all, are not these events where our faith comes from?  The answer, quite simply, is no.  Let us think for a moment about the origins of faith.  Human beings had faith long before the Torah, the Bible, the Qur’an or any other religious manuscripts were written.  Abraham had faith in God with no written word, as did Isaac, as did Jacob.  Even the most primitive societies had faith, albeit often what we would consider pagan, but still they had faith with no “defining moments”, no written word, with nothing to serve as a precedent.

To further complicate this issue, we seem to have the strong misconception that there exists a unified understanding of what faith is.  Certainly we accept that there are differences in specific aspects of faith, but for the most part we believe there is a common understanding of the fundamental concept of faith.   So before we go on, let us ask ourselves, “What is faith?”

We know faith is belief without proof, but that is not sufficient to describe faith as it exists within our society, and within our own minds.  When thinking about God, many ideas and images come to mind that we associate with faith, so much so that we are often confused in our understanding of the fundamental concept of faith.  To understand our faith, it is essential to know what faith is.  To help clarify this point, it may be helpful to understand what faith is not.

First, faith is not religion.  This is quite possibly the single most misunderstood fact associated with faith.  Religion is a human created entity, essentially a form of expressing, in a very human way, the faith that we have.  Typically religion is a sharing of common beliefs of a group of people, forming an organization.  In its purist form there may be little difference between “religion” and “faith”, but in the realities of the human world, “religion” nearly always takes on the characteristics of all human organizations as it evolves through time, whereas “faith” remains pure and untainted.

It is faith that motivates people to become part of a religion, and a peculiar irony is that once they become a part, the religion often begins to dictate their faith, even to the extent that, in many cases, people find themselves doing things contrary to their original core faith in order to support their religion.  Many obvious examples can be cited in the case of cult religions, but even in our mainstream religions average people find themselves doing and thinking things that were implanted by their religion and not by their faith.

So is religion a bad thing?  Of course not, as long as it serves its intended purpose, which is an organized means of expressing our faith and not something that changes or dictates our faith.

Secondly, faith is not scripture.  Scripture helps us to more clearly understand our faith, but to suggest faith is scripture would be to say that without scripture there would be no faith, and our own human history clearly demonstrates that this is not true.  Again, Abraham and Isaac did not have scripture, nor did Noah long before them, but they had intensely strong faith.  Scripture may help clarify faith, it may help determine which religion we choose to embrace, but in and of itself, faith is uniquely distinct from scripture.

Thirdly, faith most certainly is not God.  It is the belief in God (or absence of God), but it is not God.  While this may seem obvious on the surface, confusion of this point frequently has damaging effects without us even being aware of it.  People are often afraid to question their faith because they feel they are questioning or doubting God.  If they do not doubt or question God, almost by definition they do not allow themselves to question their faith.  It is very important to understand that questioning, or even challenging, one’s faith, or specific aspects of one’s faith, is at the very heart of how we learn and grow in wisdom and understanding.  To challenge one’s faith is healthy and necessary and is in no way challenging the existence of God. 

This brings us to the fourth and most important aspect about faith; while faith is indeed belief without proof, it is not blind.  Blind faith is the most dangerous thing in the world.  It is what causes people and even entire nations to kill and destroy others in the name of God.  Do these people have faith?  Of course, but it is blind faith.  But if faith is belief without proof, than is it not by definition blind?  The answer, which is the foundation of this treatise, is absolutely not!

It is essential to understand that true faith must be based on something.  True, by definition it does not require proof, but it must have a tangible foundation or it is simply blind faith.  Blind faith is ignorant faith; true faith is knowledgeable faith.

This is perhaps more clearly understood when thinking in terms of a court of law.  To present a case, lawyers will establish hard evidence, which is proof of a fact.  They will also establish circumstantial evidence, which, while not hard proof, is still information that provides some understanding of an event.  Both are significant components in establishing the truth.  While faith has no “proof”, true faith requires some information (circumstantial evidence, if you will) with which to base our belief.

This is where the other entities come into play.  Scripture provides us with information about God, and since scripture is difficult to understand, especially considering that it was written in a language most of us cannot read and it has been translated many times, it makes sense that we would allow “experts” to interpret scripture for us.  It also makes sense that people who share in the belief of certain interpretations of scripture would band together, hence forming a “religion”.  The leaders of these religions are very knowledgeable on scripture, and as “experts” they continue to “teach” the rest of us.

There is a serious potential danger with this scenario.  We already established that scripture and religion are not faith, but it is very easy to default to these over time as defining our faith.  When this happens, our understanding of God and our relationship with him is no longer based on pure faith but on the teachings and interpretations of scripture by other human beings.

We know faith preceded scripture, so while scripture is important, it is not faith.  Scripture should be used to help understand our faith, not to define it.  So again, what is faith?  If we put scripture and the “experts” aside, what else do we have to help us understand our faith?

This leads us to a very fundamental question:  What does God expect of us?  Most people today that are part of any religion believe that God expects us to have faith, but he has never made it clear where this faith is to come from.  In the Old Testament God became so angered with humanity that he carried out many severe punishments, most notably the destruction of the entire world by the great flood, saving only Noah and his family.  Whether or not this is a true story or purely symbolic does not matter, the point is that God had expectations of humanity before scripture was created and before religion was formed.  Clearly there was a means for understanding faith or there would be no point in that entire event, or similar events such as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  If God has expectations for us, we must believe we have the ability to understand what they are.

To help us understand faith, true faith, it is necessary to accept some fundamental concepts that I will refer to as the Axioms of Faith.

Axioms of Faith

 

1.      There is a God.  While it is accepted that believing there is no God is one end of the faith spectrum, this treatise is not intended to convince anyone of the existence of God, but only to help understand our faith in God.  Anyone not accepting this fundamental belief need not read on.

2.      We must begin at the beginning.  We must start our search for true faith at a point before any organized religions existed, before any prophets came into the world, before any scripture was written, essentially, before the “baggage” of centuries of human actions and interpretations even existed.  To start later would be to assume that some idea or concept, whether Jewish, Islam, Hindu, whatever, is a more credible beginning than another.  This would defeat the purpose of searching for true faith.

3.      We must question and challenge our faith, and do so on a regular basis.  To do this, we must begin our search by answering the question “why”.  Trying to get at the “what” of our faith without understanding the “why” is fruitless.  A child that is disciplined for something, say playing with matches, without knowing why will only become confused.  If he is made to understand the danger, the lesson is better understood and longer retained.

There are those who would suggest we cannot possibly understand “why” God has done anything and that to suggest we can is approaching blasphemy since we place ourselves on God’s level.  It is true that to assume we can understand specific details about God is presumptuous, but understanding some general concepts associated with God’s relationship with us is not only reasonable, but arguably part of God’s plan.  This is expanded upon in Axiom 4.

4.      God’s message to us is very simple and is for the equal benefit of all people.  The centuries of human baggage and the mysteries of civilizations past, all human factors, cast a very complex shadow over who we think God is and how we can better understand his message.  But again, we must shed that baggage and deal purely with our spiritual relationship with God.  I believe there is nothing complex about what he wants for us and what he is trying to communicate to us.  This is a significant point because it means that the great scholars and theologians are not necessarily able to understand faith better than anyone else.  There is no question that these people understand scripture and history better than the rest of us.  They are therefore much more capable of understanding the religions of the world, for as stated earlier, religion is a human entity initiated as a result of a spiritual belief, but it is not spiritual in and of itself.  So to understand religion, we must trust the scholars, but to understand what God is trying to communicate to us, we are all equally capable.  The truly great thinkers of the world discover many complex issues in their research, but if we believe God’s fundamental message is buried in these complex issues, then we are dependent upon these great thinkers to help us understand, and it becomes their teachings we follow, not God’s.  There is a place for the great thinkers, but we must believe that God’s message is not part of that complex world.  It is pure and simple and laid out right before us. 

 

These are the axioms that form the basis for understanding true faith.  As we encounter new ideas or attempt to understand different concepts or teachings, we must bring everything back to these axioms.  The first axiom, that there is a God, is a given for this Treatise.  The second axiom says we must begin at the beginning.  Let us therefore review the origin of faith.

Origin of Faith

            Where did faith come from?  How did it start?  More importantly, why did it start?  Even contemplating this question gives profound insight into faith.  Why did any human beings ever have any kind of faith at all, even pagan faith?

As previously stated, it did not start from scripture, for clearly there were holy people with great faith long before the Torah, Bible, Qur’an or any other religious manuscripts were written.  Where did their faith come from?

In fact, faith has been extremely common from the beginning of time.  It is true that the faith of primitive peoples was very different than ours today, and in fact most people believed in gods that we would consider to be pagan.  But remember, God is not faith.  Did their lack of understanding of God mean their faith was pagan?  Or is it possible we confuse their primitive means of expressing their faith as an error in faith itself?

            Early humans only knew what they could experience with their senses; sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing.  There were no documents of any sort to teach them, so how did they develop any faith at all?  Who told them there was a god, any god?  How did they even conceive of something so incredible as a god?  Once they did conceive of the concept, why were there so many pagan versions?

            A related issue to help understand the origins of faith is understanding why human life is so precious.  Why are we special, above all other creatures?  When God created us, what did he give us that no other creature has?

Some say it is our intelligence.  If that were the case, it would mean there is a certain point at which an intelligence level stops being special.  Does this imply that a person of lesser intelligence, especially someone with a severe mental handicap, is lesser in God’s eyes?  I should hope not!  On the surface intelligence appears to be the key issue, but with just a little analysis the idea of associating holiness with intelligence is silly.

            Some would say we are special because God gave humans a soul.  While this is reasonable, it has little meaning unless we can understand what a soul is.  Clearly it is not physical.  Per the previous discussion I do not believe it is part of our intellect.  Does it exist at all, or is it just a name, an idea, to express the concept that we are in fact unique and special?

            I suggest, and in fact I firmly believe, that we are special because we have the ability to know God.  I believe that ability is essentially our soul.  I am not referring to knowing God purely through experiencing him; that would be a result of intelligence.  I believe there is a feeling inherent in all human beings that senses a greater power, that knows there are forces far greater than we that exist in our world.  The early humans were not taught that there was a god, they had a sense deep within that some form of god existed.  Based on what they knew as fact, what they experienced through their senses, intelligence should have refuted the existence of a god, even prevented them from conceiving of the concept of a god.  But yet they had faith.  In truth, I believe they did not conceive of God on their own, he was just part of them.

            Consider the concept that God “made us in his own image”.  We have all heard this from the pulpit or read it ourselves countless times, and if we are honest with ourselves, most of us would admit that we never really understood what this meant.  What is God telling us when he says we were made in “his image”?

One school of thought is that he made us to look like him physically, but with the application of even a little logic this would appear implausible.  Being the all powerful divine being that he is, does God really have use for limbs like ours, especially since, whatever his kingdom is like, it is not likely to be a physical world like we know.  Also, taken to extremes, this would mean God has organs like a heart, or kidneys, which means he must eat and go to the bathroom, etc.  And this does not take into account issues such as race and gender.  We quickly get to a point where the entire concept seems ludicrous.

It would appear God is referring to something other than our physical image. It would seem he is referring to a different concept entirely, one in which we can sense God and actually come to know him.  Possibly he is letting us know that we have a special relationship with him, an inherent understanding of who he is.  This certainly is not to suggest that we are on a par with God; that would border on blasphemy.  But to be in his image, and the fact that he wants us to know we are in his image, suggests there is a form of consciousness or understanding, a bond of sorts, that we humans have that is unique from all other creatures.  Is this not our soul?

This is why human life is so special, and this is the origin of faith.  It was instilled in us by God himself so that we, apart from all other creatures, would know God even if we could not physically experience him.

Now let us go back to the main point of Axiom 4, that faith is very simple.  If this is true, if the origin of faith is simply an expression of what is inherently within us, why does it seem so complex?

Ironically, it is our intelligence that causes the confusion.  Because of our intellect, we humans feel compelled to define and explain everything.  We accept there is a supreme power, but it is difficult to explain what or who that power is.  But we feel we must try, so the great scholars and theologians of the world study this issue in painstaking detail and ultimately create ideas and concepts that define God to their satisfaction.  We need them to interpret their ideas, which can be very enlightening, but if we assume that those ideas define our faith, then those few individuals begin to dictate our faith.  What do we have then?  Religion.  As previously stated, religion should never be confused with faith.

            When early people felt this internal sense of awe, this presence of God, they also felt the need to define who God is.  As human beings, their experiences were completely controlled by their five senses, and their intelligence drove them to explain God in terms of their senses.  The natural response was to associate this “god” with the most powerful thing in their existence.  From our perspective, it is silly to think of a ball of flames in the sky as a god, but from their perspective, the sun appeared to be very powerful, and at times seemed friendly and at other times angry.  Why wouldn’t people of that time associate that power with their internal sense of God?

            I cannot help but believe God understood this primitive concept and was not offended by it.  These people did not worship the sun, they worshipped God; they simply viewed the sun as the physical manifestation of God.  But their inability to comprehend the true nature of God’s being did not make their faith any less significant.

            In time there was a divergence of the pure “raw” faith of the early humans.  The intelligence factor caused people to start defining things.  Some people actually did begin to accept idles as God; the sun, the moon, golden calves, etc.  They followed the rules they set for themselves rather than what they inherently believed.  This was the earliest form of religion.  If one god did not satisfy them, they would simply choose another.  Suddenly, the situation reversed.  They stopped trusting their faith and began using their intelligence.  Now their inability to comprehend the true nature of God did in fact begin to distort their faith.  They now had to choose between the various gods of the time, and then align themselves with others who made that same choice, and ultimately against others who made a different choice.  When choices are made, our human way of thinking dictates that someone must be “right” and others must be “wrong”.  For some issues this is acceptable, but this was about God, our Creator, and it was important to be right.

            Because of the importance of God in our lives, it was, and still is, natural for people to want the “truth” to be known.  If there is a perception that some people believed “incorrectly”, many felt duty bound to convert them because it is what “God wants us to do”.  People not only began to have conflicts, but they created a situation in which there was no other possible scenario than to have conflicts and with no reasonable solution to the conflict other than for the strongest group to overpower the other groups.  They created a “lose-lose” situation.

            No one can claim to understand the mind of God, but it is easy to believe that somewhere along the way he wanted to set the people straight.  Many attempts were made, the most notable being that at the time of Noah where the rest of the world was drowned.  There was Sodom and Gomorrah and other examples.  It does not matter whether these stories were actual facts, whether they were embellished facts, or if they were purely symbolic.  The point was clear that people continued to drift from God’s way, and God found that to be unacceptable.

            At no time during these early years did God make any demands on people other than to love him and all other people.  That was it.  There were no rules, no structure, no demands.  Simply love God and your neighbor.  The people of Noah’s time, and those of Sodom and Gomorrah, where destroyed not because they failed to follow a rule book, but because they failed to respect and love God and others, and they had the inherent ability to know and understand what that meant.  True, the specifics of who God is are so profound that we cannot fully comprehend them, but we feel his presence, we know of his existence, we can chose to love and worship him, and that is enough.

Enter Scripture

 

            Up until this point there were no “chosen people”, no Jews, Christians, Muslims, or anything else that was an established religion.  Again, there was no written word to organize behind.  There were just people, and we were all equal in God’s eyes.  So why did God have any chosen people, or why did he seem to show favor on any individual?  If we were all equal, this would seem to defy his own teachings.

It was clear people continued to struggle and needed help.  Let us, just for a moment, put ourselves in God’s shoes (after all, we are created in his image).  If we knew that a group of people was having trouble, we would certainly try to help them.  If we could not help them directly, we would choose someone who is capable to assist us.  Why are some people more capable than others?  Who knows, and more importantly, who cares?  The point is that some are more capable, some seem to “get it” easier and faster than the rest.  It would be important to seek out these people when selecting an assistant.

God saw that our human mentality, our intellect, caused us to need more than just an inherent sense of his presence.  We needed guidance and insight.  So God, like any good father, found a few people who did “get it” and used them as his messengers.  Abraham was one.  Were there others?  There is no reason to believe there were not.  And what was his message?  The message, the true message, was always clear; there is just one God, and we should love God and love our neighbor.

            Abraham did not understand the specifics of who God is anymore than we do, but he accepted that there was just one God.  He loved God and loved humanity.  Abraham won favor with God, so God promised to bless his descendants.  Some would interpret that to mean God was on “his side”, which therefore means he was “against” other people.  He never said that.  To be against other people would be to defy his own word.  He simply blessed Abraham and his descendants.  But all people were still equal in God’s eyes, and all they were required to do was accept that there was one God, love god and love their neighbor.

            Keep in mind that the enemy of the early Hebrews, namely the Egyptians, were not punished because they persecuted the Hebrews; they had been doing that for years.  Moses delivered God’s personal message, and had they accepted it, they would have been saved, even after the many years of persecution of God’s chosen people.  The Egyptians were ultimately punished because they defied God himself.  God freed the Hebrews because they believed in him and asked for his help; he punished the Egyptians because of their blatant defiance of him.

            God found these people who “got it” and used them to lead the others.  They were not to create religious factions or to mandate dogma, they were simply to provide guidance where the people needed it.  But it was simply not enough.  Possibly due to the number of people involved, possibly due to the individual interpretations of the message, or possibly due to any of an endless list of issues, the people drifted back to their old ways.  Why would this be the case?  If we believe humans had an inherent sense of faith, and if they now had divine guidance through the prophets, why would they continue to drift away?

            The answer continues to be the double edge sword of our intellect.  It is one of our greatest gifts, but it can also be a curse.  Humans need to see tangible evidence to support a belief, tangible benefits for believing the “right” thing.  It is very natural to want to satisfy our senses, and our senses are solely related to the physical world.  Keep in mind the nature of “original sin”.  Adam and Eve ate from the “Tree of Knowledge”, and that opened their eyes and their minds to a new understanding of the world, which was both enlightening and frightening.  Even accepting this story as a pure metaphor, it indicates that the knowledge we have, our intellect, is also our curse.

            Humanity needed, or wanted, a more clear definition of right and wrong.  We needed rules, documented so all could read and understand them.  So a document was written to help people see what was important, to provide the “rules” for us to follow.  Rule books began to surface.  The first of these “rule books” was the Jewish Torah, followed by the Christian Bible and later by the Islamic Qur’an, but there were many other documents produced that people used for guidance.  Incredibly, when broken down to the most fundamental form, all of the books had the same basic message; there is just one God, and we should love God and love our neighbor.

            We finally had our rules to follow, so it would be nice to end the story here with “and they all lived happily ever after”.  But the human intellect is very powerful.  For the most part the rules were accepted, but of course they needed to be interpreted, requiring judges; they needed to be maintained, requiring scribes; and they needed to be enforced, requiring the equivalent of police.  And for every set of rules, and every interpretation of a given rule, it was important to understand who was “right” and who was “wrong”.  These were God’s rules, so “right” had to be maintained at all cost, and “wrong” needed to be expelled or destroyed.  The division among peoples grew.  And now, ironically, people no longer could fall back on their inherent faith.  Now they had documented rules to rely on, rules that were believed to be direct from God himself.  People were expected to follow the rules no matter what.  If you did not understand the rules, or if they did not seem to make sense, you should follow them anyway, and whatever you do, do not question or challenge them.  If people were confused they could go to church and learn why the rules are right, why the “knowledgeable” people, the intellectuals, interpreted the rules the way they did.  Our ability to follow our own thoughts, our own pure faith, was lost, if we wanted to be socially acceptable.  We forfeited our ability to experience God and became subjected to the teachings of the intellectuals, even though, as we have seen, it was our intellect that drove us on the path away from God.  This was irony in its purest and most destructive form.

            Now back to our axioms; faith is simple, and we must begin at the beginning.  We humans tend to make everything complex and then tangent off in various directions in an attempt to understand and explain the complexity we created.  We deviate, diverge, separate from what we have always had the ability to know within ourselves.  Every time we try to define God, we get lost in definitions and rules rather than simply follow our faith.  We may never comprehend God in all his glory, but we can understand his message; love God and love your neighbor.

Were the rules wrong?  No, of course not.  They were often misinterpreted and at times applied inappropriately, but they were not wrong.  We needed to be brought back to the basics, to regain a fundamental understanding of our faith.  We needed a special person to help us with this task.  Enter Jesus of Nazareth.

           

Jesus

             In many ways, Christianity changed the basis for faith.  As discussed previously, faith has existed from the beginning of humankind.  It is the ability to sense a Supreme Being, a sharing of consciousness with our Creator.  The specifics, the detailed definitions, are not as important as the general belief.  The multiple layers of rules discussed previously diluted this concept, but God had not given up.  He sent us Jesus.

            Jesus’ message was clear.  He supported the rules as written, but spent considerable time demonstrating how people were following the “letter of the law” but missing “the spirit of the law”.  In fact, the main point of Jesus’ teachings had little to do with the law at all.  His message was simply that we should love God and love our neighbor.  His purpose would seem to have been to get us away from the “rules” and stop letting our petty differences divide us.  Isn’t it interesting that the ultimate result of his influence was to create a new religion that separated itself from all others, particularly the Jews.  And make no mistake, Jesus was a Jew, a devout, practicing Jew, and he made it clear on a number of occasions that his mission here was aimed specifically at the Jews.

            So who was this man named Jesus, and what was his purpose?  To Christians, he was the Son of God sent here to save us all from our sins.  To others he was a prophet.  To still others he was just another man.  I do not believe it is reasonable to subscribe to any of these beliefs without a deeper understanding of Jesus and his teachings.  As a Christian, I believe in Jesus as my Savior, but while that seems definitive, it leaves many important questions unanswered.

            To understand Jesus, it is necessary to have at least some level of understanding of why he became man, why at that time and with those people.  Of course we believe his teachings were meant for all, but clearly his purpose, as he stated himself, was directed at the Jews.

            Possibly Jesus was sent to the Jews because they were the chosen people, but I personally believe that there was a much more pragmatic reason.  At that time the Jews had the only formal “rule book”, i.e. the Torah.  Jesus’ message to follow the intent of the rules rather than use them as a literal checklist of things to be done only had meaning to those who owned and maintained the rules, or the religious laws.  It is possible Jesus came to the Jews not because of who they were, but simply to ensure people did not get confused by the written word which was initially intended to provide clarification to our purpose?  What does this mean about Jesus himself?  Can we be a follower of Jesus and still be a Jew?  After all, were not the apostles all Jews?  If so, could we be a follower of Jesus and be any other religion?  In fact, could we fully believe in Jesus’ teachings but not accept that he was actually God and still consider ourselves Christian?

            Our ability to understand our own faith had already been impaired by the “rules” as discussed previously, and Jesus’ mission was to help us correct that situation.  It is hard to imagine that, after his death, the situation actually worsened significantly, and faith, or our perception of faith, was forever changed.  Early Christians had the same laws as the Jews, but they introduced a new concept that was dramatically different than anything accepted to that point in history, and this new concept became the most significant of all rules.  For Christians, the fundamental issue is that if you believe Jesus is the Son of God you are saved; if you do not you are not saved, even condemned.  We cannot even rely on our inherent sense of God, our knowledge of who he is, our sharing of his consciousness, because we were now governed by the “rule of acceptance”.  We lost our purest form of faith.     

As stated earlier, questioning faith is not questioning God.  Questioning faith is a healthy learning experience.  But with the Christian view, the definition of the Son of God was so specific and so fundamental that religion, God and faith became blended into one.  An inherent sense of the divine was not only insufficient; it put you on the “wrong” side, since the “right” side had a specific belief.  To wonder about Jesus, to question some of the beliefs concerning him and is life, was heresy, a rejection of Jesus, which by definition meant a rejection of God since Jesus was God.  A good Christian did not question, he simply believed, and if he had trouble understanding, he sought help from priests who could “teach him the truth”.  If he did not accept the teachings, he would never say so publicly, and in truth would often not even admit it to himself, primarily out of fear.  Even if he read the Bible and felt Jesus meant something different than what he had been taught, the typical Christian would assume he himself was wrong and find a way to see how the priests’ teachings were more accurate than his own beliefs.  And amazingly, if a Christian did not necessarily love God and his neighbor but did accept Jesus as his Savior, he was still acceptable to God according to “the rules”.

            Religions prior to that time only required a belief in a single entity called “God” because Jesus did not yet exist as a man, and since “God” was difficult to define, they could, in effect, all be correct.  The various rule books complicated the issue, but there was at least general acceptance that “God” was a heavenly spirit.  But with Jesus, the conflicts between religious groups were no longer just about rules, they were about a living and breathing tangible human.  It became more important than ever to choose one side or the other, for many believed Jesus was the only way to the Father, and if you did not accept Jesus as your savior you did not even get the opportunity to have a relationship with the Father.  You were in effect “screened out” before you had the chance to interview with the boss.

The line now was crystal clear; you either believed Jesus was God and you were a Christian or you believed he was not God and you were something else, even if you believed in his teachings.  Love God and love your neighbor, while still important concepts, count for nothing if you do not accept Jesus as the Son of God.  Earlier we discussed how true faith was an inherent understanding of God, a type of sharing of consciousness with him, and understanding the specifics of his being was not necessary and maybe not even possible.  With Christianity we have taken a full 180 degree turn, a complete reversal.  This is not to suggest at all that Jesus is not the Son of God, but only to put into perspective the impact that Christianity has on true faith.

            Christianity brought forth new rules with more choices to be made, but a very important point is that Jesus did not create these rules, and neither did his closet followers.  The new rules evolved through the Christian communities over the first few centuries after the Jesus’ death.  Why were they created?  Because for many generations after Jesus people could not agree on what they believed, and the old human intelligence factor took over and pressured them into establishing definitive rules as a foundation for their beliefs.

An interesting point through all of this “definition of beliefs” was that we never got any closer to accurately defining who or what God is, but yet we felt confident about defining the Son of God.  Can you truly define the Son until you fully comprehend the Father?

Suddenly we found ourselves deviating once again from the fundamental concept of faith.  We lost the true inherent belief in God and began following the rules, which is precisely what Jesus came to tell the Jews to stop doing.  But now it was even more difficult because we introduced a real, tangible element into the faith equation.  You are entitled to your inherent understanding of God as long as you accept Jesus as his son and the only pathway to the Father.  Yes, we are to love God and love our neighbor, but if our neighbor does not accept Jesus as the Son of God we must believe that our neighbor is wrong.  Sure, we should still love him, but he is wrong and he will not be allowed into heaven.

Christianity created a division that is difficult to reconcile.  In the entire history of the world this may be the greatest and most devastating irony to ever occur since it was Jesus’ mission to achieve the opposite effect.

We are now forced to make religion, not faith, our primary focus, and true faith begins to fall by the wayside.  But to believe Jesus is the truth and the light, that he is the way, should not be a matter of religion but of faith.

While Jesus does say that he has not come to abolish the law (the rules of the Jews at that time) but to fulfill it, it is one of his only references to rules.  He clearly teaches that we should love God and love all people, and that if we do, we fulfill the expectations of God.  As far as whose laws are right, he never even addresses that issue.  He teaches faith in God and a way of life that is respectful and supportive of human beings, and of all living things to some degree.  He did not initiate a new religion, and if anything he supported the current Jewish religion of his time, albeit he pointed out that the leaders of his time did not practice their own faith very well.  In fact, his primary purpose of coming to earth was to let people know that they were in effect missing the forest for the trees with their rules.  The religious leaders of that time truly believed they were “holy” because they followed the “rules”.  Even when they watched a poor man starve at the foot of their own Temple they believed they were practicing their religion properly.  Jesus basically said “Wake up!  Look at what you are doing!  This is not what God wants you to do!”

He never suggested that the rules were not refined enough, or that we needed a new set of rules to supersede the old ones.  But in many ways that is exactly what we Christians have done.

But let’s not start bashing Christianity.  That is not the point of this Treatise.  In fact, if we define Christianity as the belief that Jesus is the Son of God and our Savior, and that we should follow his teachings, let’s do exactly that.  Let’s simply follow Jesus’ teachings, which is to love God and love all people.  It is, in its most basic form, pure faith.

We started with nothing but pure faith, then slowly converted to religion.  Jesus came to bring us back to pure faith, and in our exuberance to follow him, we started another religion and continued to miss the point he taught us.

One More Chance

 Luckily for us God is incredibly understanding and patient.  Who can know what God thought about how we continually missed the point, but he certainly was not going to give up on us.  Another attempt was made, and Muslims believe that this attempt was God’s direct communication through the Prophet Muhammad, which was documented as the Qur’an.  According to the Islam faith, this was not intended to be a different religion but yet again another clarification of God’s true intent.  God’s message in the Qur’an was not to compete with Christianity or Judaism, but to complete them in one unifying message that we should stop fighting amongst ourselves and now, finally, we should realize that there is just one God, and our ultimate responsibility is simply to love God and love our neighbor.

But of course, what came out of this message was to create yet another religion, separated from the others by human limitations of understanding.  The horrors of having a third major religion in our world is evident throughout history, from the crusades all the way to our current conflicts in the Mideast.  We humans just cannot seem to understand or accept the concept of pure and simple faith.

Summary

 There now exists an incredibly interesting dichotomy for all of us humans.  Each of the mainstream religions has an origin that is believed to be directly from God, and is therefore “right”.  With religion, we first choose which of these origins we subscribe to, usually by how we were raised by our parents, before we even understand the facts and the truths of  the respective teachings.  Christians believe Jesus is “right”; Muslims believe Muhammad is “right”, Jews believe the Torah, passed on from God through the prophets, is “right”.  And once we have decided for ourselves what is “right”, the other religions, by definition, must be “wrong”.  Pure faith, which is in essence our ability to comprehend all of this in the way God intended, is lost.  As time goes on, it becomes very confused as to what the original teachings were compared to the manipulated humanized form of the teachings that evolved over centuries of interpretations.  In many cases we do not even know if we are following the original teachings because we do not know exactly what they were.  Our natural ability to follow God, to sense his presence, is still there, but we cast it aside in lieu of the religion that is being taught to us.  Even if we care enough to read the scriptures ourselves, we consciously or subconsciously force the accepted views of our chosen religion into what we read.  If we interpret something contrary to popular and accepted thought, most of us will assume our interpretation is wrong and those learned theologians who write the books must know more than we, and we default to their version of truth, leaving our pure faith lost in the wake of human progress.

So here I am, here we all are, wanting to know what we should believe.  I have an inherent sense of truth, of right and wrong, of basic and pure faith, and that inherent sense was given to me, to all of us, by our Creator.  I also have the teachings of the Great Masters; The Buddha, Gandhi, Muhammad, and Jesus Christ.  These teachings, in essence, reinforce our inherent beliefs, our true faith.  We as a human society come close to having a sincere, peaceful, spiritual approach to everything.  But then our cursed intellect takes over.  The human need to explain things begins to surface.  Of course we cannot satisfactorily explain all that we feel, so we create ideas and concepts that we are able to define and explain.  Religions are created, and as with every organization ever formed, they include rules for inclusion, which equate to rules for exclusion.  If I want to be a Christian, I must follow these rules.  If I do not follow these rules, I cannot be a Christian.  Or Jew.  Or Muslim.  Or Buddhist.

            We now spend the rest of our lives attempting to live up to the standards set by these organizations.  If the rules we follow seem to contradict a biblical truth, we seek out the experts for their views, and inevitably they are able to explain these teachings from the perspective of their own set of rules.  Faith, in its purest form, is no longer part of our lives, even though we convince ourselves that it is the foundation of our being.  But we are wrong.

Pure faith is in us, God is in us, and to be true to God is to be true to our faith, which by its very definition is to be true to ourselves.  Rules divide.  Organizations divide.  Faith unites.  Unchain me from your rules and let me follow my faith.