What if...

"COGers, Armstrongists, WCGracies, Papists, Defectives, Sinners and Loons.

What if..."

Guest commentary by Dennis Diehl

The purpose of most religion is to make us "better" than we currently are. The Biblical premise is that all human beings are fatally flawed, not good enough and in need of vast improvements and control of their "human nature." Without this ongoing overcoming of the evil self, growing towards a better kind of person and change, one runs the risk of being so not good enough that they will spend eternity, for their inability to change over a rather short lifetime, in a punishing hell. Scripture goes out of its way to remind us all that our fundamental human qualities are deceit, wickedness, jealousy, anger, lust and greed. I find that personally to be one of the most unhelpful and controlling lies ever foisted upon human beings by religion. Of course that is how we can act, but that is not who we are by any real means when given the freedom to be authentic and feel safe in being so.

We are called "worms" and less than nothing in this great book of encouragement. Even the early leaders, prophets and apostle-types knew that they had to degrade themselves as less than human in order to show they understood they were not worth anything as an unregenerate human being. Only when one realized they were a piece of poop, could they lead the people who were really poopy people. If you could not utter the words, "I am not worthy," you would never be a Bible CEO. The Apostle Paul noted that he was "the least of the Apostles" and that "the things that I don't want to do, I do and the things I should, I don't." He made his problems everyone's. He concluded he was simply a wretched human being, and so should everyone else. He reminded others that they were blind, miserable, poor and naked of heart and spirit. He even said he had to beat himself into submission, lest after preaching to others, he should flub up himself and be a castaway. Seems he didn't have the confidence "in the blood," to make up the differences in what he was and what he felt he needed to be.

Jesus is also said to have said that humans are to become "perfect, even (in the same way) as your Father in heaven is perfect. The word means "complete" not "perfect.' There is a huge difference. What if are complete already? What if we were born right the first time?

How did we get this way? Well, of course it was due to the "fall" where Adam and Eve, our really true and actual first human parents, created by God out of mud and ribs, flubbed up and ate the forbidden fruit. We can only take comfort in that the story finds it's origins in Sumerian Mythology.

We have all been blamed for this event and must spend our lives coming under a blood sacrifice of a more perfect human/god being and then continuing the struggle to be "better" until we die. It's then we find out if we understood being bad enough to be good enough to live forever. Redemption of humans by blood sacrifice and execution have always been the preferred solution to the depravity of man. Membership in the club usually cost ten or more percent of your material income and membership in the one true of many churches. I am not being disrespectful to the life and teachings of Jesus, but few understand how that has been woven into a tale that Jesus himself would have cringed at.

Have you ever considered the fact that you and I may have been born right the first time? What if the most simple and spiritual goal a human being has is to become your own genuine, authentic self? What if our purpose in life is neither to jump through the hoops set out by others, who think they know, nor to struggle and strive to improve yourself dramatically over what you are? People don't change much over a lifetime no matter what their religious affiliations, and while it's an improvement to stop killing one's self with sugar, caffeine, alcohol and nicotine along with other assorted body killing habits, it's ok to just be yourself.
Is it easy to be yourself? No, not in our culture and certainly not in many others where not being a mere cog in the tribal wheel can get you killed in really bad ways. One of life's simple truths that most humans have long since forgotten, or never knew, is that all of us are one and the same and all smaller parts of the one single thing. I don't pretend to know what that is, but let's just say we are all one in the same conscious awareness stuck in a limited five sensed carbon based wet suit for now. As Mike Adams said in a recent article on the discovery of DNA variability, holographic blueprints and the symphony of life... "We are, in fact, an expression of the very phenomena we are attempting to understand, and if we read the poetry of DNA correctly, we will realize that life itself is not about the accumulation of wealth, or stuff, or power over others, but rather the discovery of self. And "self" does not exist in isolation. We are, in every way imaginable, intertwined. We are all made of the same stuff, wrought from the same patterns of nature, and in fact, formulated from the same musical notes played out in five billion unique but compatible tunes. With this discovery, Western science has concluded we are all more different from each other than previously thought, but I believe it is evidence that we are all just unique verses of the same universal poem."
That's a far cry from humans being merely wretched, miserable, poor blind and naked worms that need major rehab at the hands of prophets, priests and pastors who are just as, if not more, flawed than the congregation or the nation. Saying we are born right the first time and not in need of being born again or reborn goes against the meme, which is the mind virus we all got taught as kids. Our parents had it taught to them and their parents before that. It is the idea that we are all flawed at birth by a non-event in the lives of our first not-literally-so parents Adam and Eve. It's the idea that even if you are a pretty ok person, you are filled with vanity, jealousy, lust and greed that, unless paid for by a perfect blood sacrifice, demands you spend eternity in hell burning forever, cut off from God, or permanently dead. It's also not true and is not what a genuine human being, in reality needs to become the monkey on their back over.

What liberation it is to simply recognize that we are all one and the same smaller parts of the one big thing. It is every bit as difficult to live an authentic life as it is to live a life of false compliance to the will of others. It is easy or not easy depending on the need to please everyone or appear to agree when you don't, to be true to your self - and by self, I do not mean ego. I mean true to the conscious awareness that abides in the container we all too often mistake for the self. You are not your body. That is merely transportation and a container for a short time. You are not your brain. That is a receiver of information and memories that may, in fact, arise from outside of a bigger you and I than we can imagine. You are not your mind, which is that thinking brain that spins in the angry past or projects itself into the anxiety filled future when it has nothing better to do in the present.

How much misery and struggle to be all that one can never really be religion has heaped upon the faithful. Not many will leave the warmth and comfort of the boxes they were born in by happenstance and explore ideas that are not acceptable to the tribe or the church. But some will. They might be labeled "heretics" or perhaps more benevolently, "ahead of their times." In the past, those ahead of their times tended to be burned at the stake. Leaving the box of religious dogma is difficult and often one leaves it alone and on their own. Those in the last box don't often follow. You can be your authentic self as it comes to you and risk a lot but gain a lot, or you can put on your mask and be more comfortable by scarfing down antidepressants the rest of your life. That seems to be the road to the fact that being oneself is the most simple spiritual truth there is for a genuine human being.

Don't label yourself as belonging to this or that group. Don't label others for belonging or believing or thinking or even not thinking. We are who we are. NOT ONE PERSON I EVER KNEW WHO TAKES THE TIME TO PARTICIPATE ON AW HAS UTTERED THE WORDS, "THANK YOU, I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT AND I AM NO LONGER GOING TO BELIEVE WHAT I BELIEVE NOW OR BE WHO I NOW AM."
The joy and the challenge is in the journey not the ultimate find. Be yourself and consider that you might just have been born right the first time.